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And then you have kids and junkies sticking twigs and gum in the coin mechanism. A card only system can be a single solid slate with minimal upkeep.

Combined with the fact almost no one uses cash in Australia.

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Even then with cards they may still need to consider fraud via skimmers, or that the equipment can be vandalized. Going app-only (or vastly reducing the availability of payment machines) means less upkeep for them, but it also moves the kind of fraud to where people have replaced the information or QR codes to scan. It seems like a parallel to what google and whatever entities are pushing them to make these changes are trying to do, at some point someone has to put in work to keep the system working securely and everyone wants to delegate it to someone else.

At least in Australia, skimmers haven’t really been an issue for a long time. Everyone uses paywave / nfc payments. The ticket machines I’ve seen installed lately don’t even have a way to insert the card or a pin pad.

They are in theory still possible to destroy but it’s a lot harder and the little electronics left are cheaper to repair.

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