SydneyPass

Page created Thursday, 14th May, 2009 - HTML 4.01 Transitional
Last modified/checked: Saturday, 11th June, 2011

SydneyPass was in use by at least October 1990 which is the date of the first brochure reproduced below. This was prior to STATS magnetic strip tickets so the illustrated "sample ticket" would likely have been thin card. At this point, SydneyPass was only available for travel over a three day period and the brochure clearly indicates that it was aimed specifically at the overseas tourist market.

Note that the brochure refers to both Jetcats and Hydrofoils running simultaneously, something that (politically) was not supposed to happen!

The next brochure and tickets illustrated date from September 1992 and co-incide with the arrival of STATS magnetic strip ticketing.
The "sample" shown on the left is from the brochure itself, whilst that on the right is an actual unused ticket. The availabilty of the Sydney Pass was enhanced to allow any 3, 5 or 7 days travel within any 7 consecutive day period with the introduction of STATS. The Sydney Pass was now available to the wider tourist market, both domestic and international.

The illustrated ticket was a unencoded blank, able to be encoded as Adult, Child or Family, with 3, 5 or 7 day validity as required.

The remainder of our description for the Sydney Pass focusses on the CityRail involvement. There are a number of less obvious reasons for this which are as follows. When CityRail introduced their AFC system during 1993, they were easily able to incorporate the hitherto STA-only Sydney Pass. This occurred from January 1996, however the rail component from this time was only ever available within the boundaries of the red travelpass area. The Sydney Pass was not part of the mainstream ticketing range and therefore its promotion was restricted to within tourist/leisure orientated publicity material. CityRail were more prolific in producing such material as shown below and no further similar STA material has ever been found by us. In addition, the only used examples of a Sydney Pass that we have ever found were CityRail generated. To our knowledge, the only known dedicated STA design for this ticket had been with the introduction of STATS.

Shown below is a CityRail brochure from December 1995 (left) and a later and more comprehensive Tourist Leisure tickets brochure from December 1997 (right). The Sydney Pass description (centre) is from the 1995 brochure which also heralds the reintroduction of the dayrover ticket, extinct since July 1989. Simultaneously, the STA Bus-Ferry Daypass was abolished in its favour.
Note also the reference to State Transit sales outlets for Sydney Passes... but what form did they take?

Following the opening of the AirportLink line in May 2000, Sydney Passes issued from CityRail stations allowed one exit from an AirportLink station (presumably into the International terminal for departing oversesas travellers), whilst those issued from AirportLink stations allowed for one entry (for arriving passengers) and one exit (for departing passengers).

Shown below are two examples of used Sydney Passes. Both are CityRail generated and both were valid for three days use. The orange fern design dates from November 2000 and was peeled off a wet platform. The mytrain issue was an extremely lucky find because the Sydney Pass tickets were only available for 8 months into the myzone ticketing and fare structure. By this time the Sydney Pass was valid for 3, 5 or 7 days use over an 8 day period as shown by the issue and expiry dates on the myzone ticket. The six panel double sided brochure dates from the 1st April 2007 and was a concerted effort to market Sydney Pass. Neither the logos or the names of CityRail or State Transit apper in this brochure. It was valid until the withdrawal of the Sydney Pass ticket in November 2010.

The final twist in the Sydney Pass story resulted in the pleasing design shown below. This ticket was part of a series of 9 identical designs introduced on the 1st October 2009 for sale specifically through STA ticket agents only. The series comprised 3, 5, and 7 day Adult, Child and Family issues. The CityRail availability is described as "within the red travelpass zone" which became obsolete with the introduction of the myzone ticketing and fare zone structure in April 2010. The April 2010 CityRail Fares and Ticketing manual did state that the Sydney Pass was available within the mytrain Zone 1 area. It is presumed that State Transit fare guides also reflected this fact.

Sydney Passes were withdrawn from sale from the 28th November 2010 concurrent with the withdrawal of the long running Sydney and Bondi Explorer Tourist buses. From this date Sydney Passes are only issued at AirportLink ticket offices to those already holding
a redeemable voucher. It would seem that no further redeemable vouchers were issued after this date either.
In the end, it appears that too many things worked against the retention of the Sydney Pass ticket.

Special Issue tickets home page