SmartRider is the contactless electronic ticketing system of the Public Transport Authority of Western Australia.

[1] The system is widely used across the Transperth public transport network in metropolitan Perth, as well as regional town bus services in TransAlbany, TransBunbury, TransBusselton, TransEsperance, TransGeraldton, TransHedland, TransGoldfields, TransKarratha, and TransCarnarvon in Western Australian regional centres.

In 2018, the WA government announced that $34 million was set aside in the state budget to replace and update SmartRider with a newer system.

[5] The new system was anticipated to go live in 2021, with the government considering contactless credit card and mobile payments integration.

The others are: At some bus-train interchanges, arriving buses drop passengers off inside the "paid" area of a closed station.

These stations have a special arrangement which allows passengers to transfer from a bus to a train and vice versa without going through a fare gate.

AVMs allow passengers to add value to their SmartRider card by inserting bills/coins into a machine, or by using a QR Code.

Loading a SmartRider automatically via Autoload is the only way users can achieve similar levels of fare savings in comparison to the previous MultiRider system.

[16] Alternatively, passengers can manually transfer funds from their bank account using BPay, either via phone or internet.

Passengers can use the unit to top up their SmartRider cards and the ETM/GPS interface also determines the exact location of a bus at all times and calculates fare zones automatically also allowing for live app tracking.

Major train stations are fitted with Flowbird operated access control gates, which open in response to the card.

In February 2008, the Dutch government issued a warning about the security of access keys based on the ubiquitous MiFare Classic RFID chip (the same chip used in the SmartRider system) after some students from The University of Virginia demonstrated a theoretical attack which could retrieve the private key from the card within minutes on a standard desktop pc.

The registration process requires filling in a form providing Transperth with the passenger's full name, address, date of birth, SmartRider card number and password.

The police have the potential to use SmartRider card data as an investigative tool, and use of this feature overseas is dramatically increasing.

[citation needed] Criticism has been directed at the cost to users of the SmartRider system compared to its predecessor, the MultiRider.

[21] This was raised in Parliament by Liberal MP Katie Hodson-Thomas, who claimed that passengers would end up paying $324 more a year for public transport under SmartRider.

[22] In February 2006, The West Australian reported criticism by trial users who claimed that their failure to tag off, either by accidentally forgetting to do so or due to a non-working machine, resulted in a four-zone fare being charged to the SmartRider regardless of distance travelled.