Another 12 months was lost after the losing tenderer, Cubic...

Another 12 months was lost after the losing tenderer, Cubic Transportation Systems, tried unsuccesfully to sue the Government, alleging the tender was flawed.

Since the case ended and the contract was signed in February 2003, ministers have been happy to berate ERG for its failures as the months and years rolled by. But the Government was well briefed about the uncertain nature of the technology before it contracted ERG.

The then head of the State Rail Authority, Simon Lane, asked a top-level transport meeting whether it was possible to hold off until ERG had "got San Francisco working". It would have been a long wait.

Today, the San Francisco system still is not working, although it is further advanced than in Sydney. It was only on September 17 this year that ERG's TransLink system was opened to San Francisco's bus and ferry companies. Rail remains some way off and the final integrated ticket is unlikely to arrive before 2010.

But San Francisco was one of ERG's main examples of experience when it pitched for the Sydney project, along with Hong Kong and Singapore. In Hong Kong, ERG successfully installed the smart card - known as Octopus - that so impressed Scully. ERG won the Hong Kong tender in 1994 and the system began operating three years later.