Senior Citizens would also see the cost of public transport rise with the Gold Opal Card.

The Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART) handed down its final report into improving the Opal system.

Among its recommendations to Transport Minister Andrew Constance is a scrapping of the option that gives commuters free travel for a week after eight trips have been made.

Instead, IPART recommends a 50 per cent fare cut for any trips made after the first eight.

An Illawarra commuter travelling from Wollongong to Central five days a week now travels for free on Fridays.

Under the possible revamp with the 50 per cent discount after eight trips, they would have to pay a total of $8.30 to travel to and from Central on Fridays.

Allowing for four weeks holiday, over a year, that’s an extra $398.40 each Illawarra commuter will be paying.

It is a step back from IPART’s draft recommendation that the free travel scheme be dumped and commuters charged for their 10 most expensive journeys in a week.

According to IPART, the current free travel scheme costs around $150 million a year.

The IPART report justifies the scrapping of the scheme because it is “inefficient” and encourages people to make unnecessary short trips early in the week and then use the free trips in peak hour, when fares are more expensive.

The report also recommends increasing the daily cap on the Gold Opal card from $2.50 to 20 per cent of the Adult daily cap – which would see it rise to $3.60.

“In our view, our recommended increases in this cap over the determination period are affordable,” the report said,  “given that the cap has not increased at all for the past 11 years while pensions have increased by 74 per cent over this period.”