A RESPONSE TO "THE MYKI USER", 3 January 2013:
iMyki User: Well, in my experience with online top-up, in some cases it's there the same day, at least on trains. On trams and buses yes it can take a little longer. But myki has a feature called "Auto Top-up". If you are going to avail yourself of Online top-ups (which Russell Marks appears to be suggesting) you may as well go the whole hog and set up Auto top-up instead.
Russell Marks: Regardless of whether the “smart card” records the topped-up amount 3 days later or later on the same day, my point remains: anything that is not instantaneous is far too long. The equivalent process under the Metcard system – purchasing a new multi-trip ticket, for instance – provided users with value on their card at point of sale. A passenger could walk up to a ticket dispenser, insert money, and come away with a ten-trip ticket in the space of about a minute. Importantly, that passenger would thereafter have her usage recorded on that ticket, so that at any time she simply had to glance at the ticket itself to learn when she needed to purchase a new one.
Myki lengthens this process substantially. To keep proper account of the amounts being taken out of the card, passengers have to perform an action that is in addition to simply looking at the card – either registering the card and logging onto a website, or using a “card reader”, or mentally keeping track of amounts shown when “touching off”. In this way alone, Myki has introduced additional complexity with no discernable benefit.
The process is also lengthened by the fact that users must wait, whether it’s 3 days, 24 hours, 5 hours or 10 minutes, for “topped up” amounts to show up on their card. This defeats one of the two main justifications for “smart card” technology – real-time account top-ups regardless of location. Defenders of the Myki system may argue that real-time account top-ups using Myki are possible, at Myki machines and at participating retailers… but now we’re not talking about a “smart card”. Indeed, it’s remarkably similar to the Metcard process.
The solution proposed by “The Myki User” is the “Auto-Topup” feature. This is basically a direct-debit system which authorises Myki to top up your card’s balance direct from your bank account whenever it’s running low. Like all direct debit systems, it requires that users invest enormous trust in it. Personally, I want to know that every dollar that is claimed by the public transport ticketing compay (or the mobile phone company, or the internet provider, or the trade union, etc) is properly accounted for, and the vigilance this requires on my part is onerous in a time-poor world. So I avoid direct debits where at all possible.
When you touch off, the myki reader does show you the amount debited. It's there for about a second, but if you want to see it for longer just keep holding your card to the reader... it'll stay there for as long as you do.
“The Myki User” is of course correct on this point, and my piece would have benefited from one last proof-read; my point became muddled in my own editing process and I take full responsibility.
However, the substantive point I was trying to make remains. Okay, the Myki reader shows users “for about a second” the amount that has been deducted from the card, and also the remaining balance. This information is nearly useless if a user is trying to keep track of the amounts deducted: for it to be of any use whatsoever, that user needs to recall the “opening balance” which was displayed the previous occasion she “touched off”, which might have been that morning, or the day before, or a week ago. Of course Myki claims that she doesn’t need to do that: it’s taken the beginning balance, calculated the “correct fare” based on the length of the journey, subtracted it from the beginning balance, and displayed the remaining balance, all automatically.
My argument here is an argument against deploying “smart card” technology in public transport at all, for the reason that it necessarily involves a transfer of control over fare amounts charged, away from the individual user to the large, anonymous, automated system.
Take a passenger who wants to travel from Cranbourne (in Zone 2) to Richmond (in Zone 1). Using the Metcard system, that passenger knew that he needed a Zone 1+2 ticket, which would have cost him $6.50 as a single-trip. That’s all he had to know. Under the Myki system, that same passenger needs to keep in mind both the balance on his card (let’s say it’s $7.82) and the proper Zone 1+2 single fare ($5.92), and then check when he touches off that Myki does indeed deduct $5.92 from $7.82 and leave him with $1.90 on his card. All this when he’s being herded through the barriers with a hundred other passengers. Again, Myki requires much more of its users than did Metcard.
Once again, the solution proposed by “The Myki User” – that passengers simply continue to hold the card on the reader so that they can read the displayed information properly – is impractical. A Metcard user could pass through the barriers quickly and then study the information on the face of the card itself in his own time. A Myki user must hold numerous pieces of information in his head and do the calculations in real time as she’s passing through the barrier – at the moment she has the least amount of time to do so.
Although I agree that myki desperately needs short term ticketing, Russell would do well to remember that was a government decision.
It’s this kind of comment which leads reader of “The Myki User” blog to suspect that its author is an agent of Myki (or its parents Kamco or Keane), despite disclaimers assuring otherwise. Train, tram or bus passengers faced with ticketing problems don’t care that the fault is one technically caused by the company, or by the government, or by both.
In the end, of course Myki’s problems are the Victorian government’s problems: the former Labor government decided that Melbourne needed a new ticketing system in the first place, and made the decision to build a new “smart card” system from scratch rather than buying a functioning product off the shelf. And the new Liberal government then decided that it would honour the existing contract with Kamco, rather than cut its losses.
Implicitly, all criticism of the Myki system, including my own, are criticisms of the political process and actors responsible for its development and implementation. The probity issues have been well-documented, beginning with the revelation that Vivian Miners held shares in Kamco, which won the tender, while he was also the highest-paid Victorian government bureaucrat as head of the Transport Ticketing Authority. Then it emerged that the boss of Myki, Garry Thwaites, was married to the auditor for the tendering process.
He also claims charities have to buy and issue $6 Myki cards. This is incorrect. Since last year charities have been issued with paper "day passes". This was explicitly mentioned in The Age last week.
I stand corrected on this point made by “Daniel”, a correspondent to “The Myki User” blog.
iMyki User: Well, in my experience with online top-up, in some cases it's there the same day, at least on trains. On trams and buses yes it can take a little longer. But myki has a feature called "Auto Top-up". If you are going to avail yourself of Online top-ups (which Russell Marks appears to be suggesting) you may as well go the whole hog and set up Auto top-up instead.
Russell Marks: Regardless of whether the “smart card” records the topped-up amount 3 days later or later on the same day, my point remains: anything that is not instantaneous is far too long. The equivalent process under the Metcard system – purchasing a new multi-trip ticket, for instance – provided users with value on their card at point of sale. A passenger could walk up to a ticket dispenser, insert money, and come away with a ten-trip ticket in the space of about a minute. Importantly, that passenger would thereafter have her usage recorded on that ticket, so that at any time she simply had to glance at the ticket itself to learn when she needed to purchase a new one.
Myki lengthens this process substantially. To keep proper account of the amounts being taken out of the card, passengers have to perform an action that is in addition to simply looking at the card – either registering the card and logging onto a website, or using a “card reader”, or mentally keeping track of amounts shown when “touching off”. In this way alone, Myki has introduced additional complexity with no discernable benefit.
The process is also lengthened by the fact that users must wait, whether it’s 3 days, 24 hours, 5 hours or 10 minutes, for “topped up” amounts to show up on their card. This defeats one of the two main justifications for “smart card” technology – real-time account top-ups regardless of location. Defenders of the Myki system may argue that real-time account top-ups using Myki are possible, at Myki machines and at participating retailers… but now we’re not talking about a “smart card”. Indeed, it’s remarkably similar to the Metcard process.
The solution proposed by “The Myki User” is the “Auto-Topup” feature. This is basically a direct-debit system which authorises Myki to top up your card’s balance direct from your bank account whenever it’s running low. Like all direct debit systems, it requires that users invest enormous trust in it. Personally, I want to know that every dollar that is claimed by the public transport ticketing compay (or the mobile phone company, or the internet provider, or the trade union, etc) is properly accounted for, and the vigilance this requires on my part is onerous in a time-poor world. So I avoid direct debits where at all possible.
When you touch off, the myki reader does show you the amount debited. It's there for about a second, but if you want to see it for longer just keep holding your card to the reader... it'll stay there for as long as you do.
“The Myki User” is of course correct on this point, and my piece would have benefited from one last proof-read; my point became muddled in my own editing process and I take full responsibility.
However, the substantive point I was trying to make remains. Okay, the Myki reader shows users “for about a second” the amount that has been deducted from the card, and also the remaining balance. This information is nearly useless if a user is trying to keep track of the amounts deducted: for it to be of any use whatsoever, that user needs to recall the “opening balance” which was displayed the previous occasion she “touched off”, which might have been that morning, or the day before, or a week ago. Of course Myki claims that she doesn’t need to do that: it’s taken the beginning balance, calculated the “correct fare” based on the length of the journey, subtracted it from the beginning balance, and displayed the remaining balance, all automatically.
My argument here is an argument against deploying “smart card” technology in public transport at all, for the reason that it necessarily involves a transfer of control over fare amounts charged, away from the individual user to the large, anonymous, automated system.
Take a passenger who wants to travel from Cranbourne (in Zone 2) to Richmond (in Zone 1). Using the Metcard system, that passenger knew that he needed a Zone 1+2 ticket, which would have cost him $6.50 as a single-trip. That’s all he had to know. Under the Myki system, that same passenger needs to keep in mind both the balance on his card (let’s say it’s $7.82) and the proper Zone 1+2 single fare ($5.92), and then check when he touches off that Myki does indeed deduct $5.92 from $7.82 and leave him with $1.90 on his card. All this when he’s being herded through the barriers with a hundred other passengers. Again, Myki requires much more of its users than did Metcard.
Once again, the solution proposed by “The Myki User” – that passengers simply continue to hold the card on the reader so that they can read the displayed information properly – is impractical. A Metcard user could pass through the barriers quickly and then study the information on the face of the card itself in his own time. A Myki user must hold numerous pieces of information in his head and do the calculations in real time as she’s passing through the barrier – at the moment she has the least amount of time to do so.
Although I agree that myki desperately needs short term ticketing, Russell would do well to remember that was a government decision.
It’s this kind of comment which leads reader of “The Myki User” blog to suspect that its author is an agent of Myki (or its parents Kamco or Keane), despite disclaimers assuring otherwise. Train, tram or bus passengers faced with ticketing problems don’t care that the fault is one technically caused by the company, or by the government, or by both.
In the end, of course Myki’s problems are the Victorian government’s problems: the former Labor government decided that Melbourne needed a new ticketing system in the first place, and made the decision to build a new “smart card” system from scratch rather than buying a functioning product off the shelf. And the new Liberal government then decided that it would honour the existing contract with Kamco, rather than cut its losses.
Implicitly, all criticism of the Myki system, including my own, are criticisms of the political process and actors responsible for its development and implementation. The probity issues have been well-documented, beginning with the revelation that Vivian Miners held shares in Kamco, which won the tender, while he was also the highest-paid Victorian government bureaucrat as head of the Transport Ticketing Authority. Then it emerged that the boss of Myki, Garry Thwaites, was married to the auditor for the tendering process.
He also claims charities have to buy and issue $6 Myki cards. This is incorrect. Since last year charities have been issued with paper "day passes". This was explicitly mentioned in The Age last week.
I stand corrected on this point made by “Daniel”, a correspondent to “The Myki User” blog.
THE MYKI USER'S RESPONSE, 4 Jan 2013, from themykiuser.blogspot.com.au
Thanks for the response Russell.
I'm not sure if you read the link above to a previous blog post of mine about online top-up, but suffice it to say, the nature of any smart card system (not just myki... all of them, Oyster, Octopus, Perth's Smartrider, Brisbane's Go Card, etc etc) will fail to offer instant topup. That's a hard plain fact. For the topup to be applied it has to be sent to a reader that the card interacts with, since the actual balance is stored on the card itself. On trams and buses this is always going to be problematic, which is why it's better to have top-up facilities available. This is happening in Melbourne on buses, but not on trams, even though all the machines have been purchased and are sitting in a warehouse somewhere never to be used. And yes, the machines would have accepted smaller denomination notes.
I can understand your hesitance to use auto top-up. Personally I avoid direct debits at all where possible, but then I also like to avoid queues at places like the post office for paying bills, and in front of myki machines. I've used auto top-up and never had a problem but I know of people who have.
Regarding having to check your balance and card each time you touch on and off, one of the major issues here is trust. People wouldn't need to look at their balance or see how much they are being charged if they trusted that myki was going to charge them the correct amount. Going on past experience, they have a big mountain to climb to engender the trust required. With numerous problems in the past this is something that won't go away easily for myki. I reckon it will eventually but it's taken far to long for people to be able to trust the system.
Discussing who to blame for the lack of short term tickets and myki machines on trams, Russell is of course correct. Users don't really care who's fault it is. But I bet they'll care when November 2014 arrives, assuming it hasn't been fixed by then.
@themykiuser is Nathan Littel, who does not work for Myki/TTA,
Kamco, the government, Metro, Yarra Trams, any Bus Company, nor any other company involved in the field of public transport. I'm just a private citizen who doesn't own a car and lives very close to a train station and three tram routes.
Thanks for the response Russell.
I'm not sure if you read the link above to a previous blog post of mine about online top-up, but suffice it to say, the nature of any smart card system (not just myki... all of them, Oyster, Octopus, Perth's Smartrider, Brisbane's Go Card, etc etc) will fail to offer instant topup. That's a hard plain fact. For the topup to be applied it has to be sent to a reader that the card interacts with, since the actual balance is stored on the card itself. On trams and buses this is always going to be problematic, which is why it's better to have top-up facilities available. This is happening in Melbourne on buses, but not on trams, even though all the machines have been purchased and are sitting in a warehouse somewhere never to be used. And yes, the machines would have accepted smaller denomination notes.
I can understand your hesitance to use auto top-up. Personally I avoid direct debits at all where possible, but then I also like to avoid queues at places like the post office for paying bills, and in front of myki machines. I've used auto top-up and never had a problem but I know of people who have.
Regarding having to check your balance and card each time you touch on and off, one of the major issues here is trust. People wouldn't need to look at their balance or see how much they are being charged if they trusted that myki was going to charge them the correct amount. Going on past experience, they have a big mountain to climb to engender the trust required. With numerous problems in the past this is something that won't go away easily for myki. I reckon it will eventually but it's taken far to long for people to be able to trust the system.
Discussing who to blame for the lack of short term tickets and myki machines on trams, Russell is of course correct. Users don't really care who's fault it is. But I bet they'll care when November 2014 arrives, assuming it hasn't been fixed by then.
@themykiuser is Nathan Littel, who does not work for Myki/TTA,
Kamco, the government, Metro, Yarra Trams, any Bus Company, nor any other company involved in the field of public transport. I'm just a private citizen who doesn't own a car and lives very close to a train station and three tram routes.
MY RESPONSE, 4 January 2013
And thanks for your response, Nathan. It seems that we're arriving at the same destination: that smart-card technologies such as Myki require far more of public transport users than do paper-ticket systems, and for that reason alone are probably inherently inappropriate for public transport ticketing. Public transport systems, and this includes the ticketing system, must cater above all for the needs of disadvantaged and irregular passengers, including people with intellectual disabilities and tourists. Most pre-smart card public transport ticketing systems were already becoming far too complex for these groups of passengers: any visitor who has ever tried to navigate the PT network in Perth, with its dozens of different zones, will recognise this point. The selling point for smart-card technology is precisely that users do not need to worry themselves with calculating correct fares - the technology will do it automatically.
And hence we arrive, finally, at the issue of trust. Myki would like its users, no doubt, to adopt the same attitude to it that we've by and large adopted in relation to debit and credit cards. Whenever I use my bank's debit card at the supermarket, I'm implicitly placing an enormous amount of trust in both the bank and the supermarket that it is taking the correct amount of money out of my account, but usually I'm happy to do that.
One difference, of course, is that I receive a paper receipt upon leaving the checkout, which I can check for errors later in my own time.
Another major difference is that the imperative to move as fast as possible through the barriers of a train station is simply not there at the checkout: if I want to query the price the scanner is charging for an item, I can.
And a third major difference is that, when I get to the checkout and there's not enough money in my bank account, I can choose to either (1) not make the intended purchase, and suffer no penalty, or (2) call my bank and have additional money instantly transferred into my everyday account from my saver account. When I get on a tram or a bus and discover that I'm out of funds on Myki, I must get off the tram and find a "top-up" point or risk a $200+ fine.
The incoming Baillieu government's decision to retain Myki was fascinating. It had a perfect opportunity to score political points: it could have identified Myki as hopelessly flawed, shot the entire blame to Labor, and cut its losses. This would have been expensive in the very short-term but would have insulated it from ongoing Myki flaws, which some commentators identified as one of the major reasons for Labor's unexpected election loss. By choosing to go ahead with implementation, and by effectively making the system worse by removing the short-term ticketing option, Baillieu's government has opened itself to the same wrath Melbourne inflicted on Brumby Labor.
And thanks for your response, Nathan. It seems that we're arriving at the same destination: that smart-card technologies such as Myki require far more of public transport users than do paper-ticket systems, and for that reason alone are probably inherently inappropriate for public transport ticketing. Public transport systems, and this includes the ticketing system, must cater above all for the needs of disadvantaged and irregular passengers, including people with intellectual disabilities and tourists. Most pre-smart card public transport ticketing systems were already becoming far too complex for these groups of passengers: any visitor who has ever tried to navigate the PT network in Perth, with its dozens of different zones, will recognise this point. The selling point for smart-card technology is precisely that users do not need to worry themselves with calculating correct fares - the technology will do it automatically.
And hence we arrive, finally, at the issue of trust. Myki would like its users, no doubt, to adopt the same attitude to it that we've by and large adopted in relation to debit and credit cards. Whenever I use my bank's debit card at the supermarket, I'm implicitly placing an enormous amount of trust in both the bank and the supermarket that it is taking the correct amount of money out of my account, but usually I'm happy to do that.
One difference, of course, is that I receive a paper receipt upon leaving the checkout, which I can check for errors later in my own time.
Another major difference is that the imperative to move as fast as possible through the barriers of a train station is simply not there at the checkout: if I want to query the price the scanner is charging for an item, I can.
And a third major difference is that, when I get to the checkout and there's not enough money in my bank account, I can choose to either (1) not make the intended purchase, and suffer no penalty, or (2) call my bank and have additional money instantly transferred into my everyday account from my saver account. When I get on a tram or a bus and discover that I'm out of funds on Myki, I must get off the tram and find a "top-up" point or risk a $200+ fine.
The incoming Baillieu government's decision to retain Myki was fascinating. It had a perfect opportunity to score political points: it could have identified Myki as hopelessly flawed, shot the entire blame to Labor, and cut its losses. This would have been expensive in the very short-term but would have insulated it from ongoing Myki flaws, which some commentators identified as one of the major reasons for Labor's unexpected election loss. By choosing to go ahead with implementation, and by effectively making the system worse by removing the short-term ticketing option, Baillieu's government has opened itself to the same wrath Melbourne inflicted on Brumby Labor.
A CORRESPONDENT'S RESPONSE, emailed to me on 4 Jan 2013, and incorporating my responses (in bold, dated 5 Jan 2013), and then his further response (in bold italics, dated 6 Jan 2013:
CORRESPONDENT: Hi Russell, I have read your blog post and article about the issues with Myki, but I just had a few clarifications of my own, and observations based on my experience using the Perth and SEQ systems.
RUSSELL MARKS: Most pre-smart card public transport ticketing systems were already becoming far too complex for these groups of passengers: any visitor who has ever tried to navigate the PT network in Perth, with its dozens of different zones, will recognise this point.
CORRESPONDENT: To quote the MVV (The public transport authority for Munich, and another system which uses multiple circular zones like Perth and Brisbane).....
"It’s a question of making tariffs fair: if you are only travelling a short distance, you want to pay a lower tariff. If you are travelling further, you should pay more."
I never found the zones in Perth difficult. The maps clearly show zone boundaries, and the ticket machines are capable of selling you what you need. As a Brisbane resident, I'm used to a system with 23 zones, and the ticket machines are intuitive enough to allow anyone to buy the right ticket via a number of options (Eg alphabetical suburb listing, interactive map, by raw zone number, or a list of popular common destinations, eg "Dreamworld","Westfield Chermside","QUT Kelvin Grove", "Hastings St Noosa" etc.)
Russell Marks: (Of course, this isn't much good for somebody who just wants to get on a train and see where it takes him...whatever happened to adventure and serendipity?)
What you must realise is that Perth and Brisbane both have systems that cover a larger geographical area than Melbourne (In Melbourne, a separate V/Line system covers longer distance fares) so it's not practical to fit them into just 2 zones under our unified systems. You might be going 2km to New Farm, 20km to Moggil, or even 100km to Coolangatta under the system, hence more fare zones needed to ensure people pay an amount commensurate with the distance travelled..
I reject the "user pays" premise of the MVV's rationalisation for multiple zones. "User pays" is a principle which should not apply to public transport, for two broad policy reasons: (1) people should be encouraged to use public transport as often as possible, because widespread PT use creates economic, social and environmental benefits for the wider society; and (2) PT must cater above all for people on low incomes. Indeed, the economic benefits alone to building high-frequency PT systems and subsidising them through the general taxation system and through increased tariffs on road users are enough to more than justify that course of action. Unfortunately in Australia we've engaged in very poor city planning in the post-war period, which has meant that people in the suburbs have become overly reliant on cars, to the point that subsidising PT by taxing road users is now seen as politically impossible. So a compromise position would be that outer-suburban residents travelling long distances should pay no more for their tickets than inner-city residents.
Correspondent: Disagree strongly.
Are you denying that Munich has not been successful in encouraging PT use and discouraging car use, enhancing urban forms and reducing pollution? Or any of the other successful European systems, which have zonal fares? ( See Zurich's patchwork zone map! http://www.zvv.ch/en/routes-and-zones/fare-zone-plan.html ) Why is having a citywide flat fare considered a #1 consideration for the best possible system, when there is no international evidence to suggest that is the case?
In smaller cities, you can have a flat fare for all PT because there's little variation in the distance people travel. Canberra works this way for instance.
However in large urban areas, there is a large variance in the distance people are travelling and it's not possible to set a single fare at an equilibrium that works. If its too high it means people taking a short trip to the shops (And an outer suburbanite may be travelling locally, its not just inner vs. outer residents), circulating in the inner suburbs etc are punished with a disproportionately high fare for the task and it's not attractive compared to just driving.
And why shouldn't I pay less if I'm say doing a quick trip from Uni to the CBD?
If in response you set it low, it means costly services (such as express trains serving the outer suburbs, buses in low density outer areas etc) lose such a large amount of money that there isn't anything left to pay for a decent level of frequent service to attract people. I'd love nothing more than for more to be spent on PT services, but at the same time with virtually every area of government activity seemingly underfunded and competing to take any extra funds that turn up, I'm willing to accept some degree of user pays if it means a better service than otherwise able to be funded from general revenue.
Those on lower incomes already receive half price concession tickets. and various other offers such as the free trip vouchers for seniors. What else can we do?
Melbourne already has variations in zones beyond the current two regardless. If I want to go to satellite cities such as Geelong or Seymour I am paying over and above a 2 zone fare, and fares aren't a simple "flat fare".
I think Melbourne is well and truly past the point of being able to have a single zone for all travel. I advocate for a more finely grained system of smaller zones, because it means you don't have such a huge jump in price between zones (Which can really hit if you are only hopping across the zone border). In Brisbane, you only pay an extra 40c or so per additional zone travelled, so the large financial burden isn't there.
I also disagree that PT is "above all" about catering to those on low incomes and without alternative transport. It's an important function yes but it can't be the only focus. Public transport is also about allowing people to escape traffic congestion, freedom of movement, driving urban form, and economic benefits through agglomeration. The types of services you provide to meet these goals are very different to the services you provide to meet social equity goals (Compare a slower circituous bus route through residential areas catering to the elderly, compared to a high frequency flagship bus route running direct along a main road with widely spaced stops)
You can mock Perth’s zonal system, but Perth has the best cost recovery of any Australian city, better services citywide (For example, Mandurah, 70km from the CBD has a train to the CBD every 15 mins, 7 days a week) and whilst achieving the fastest patronage growth. I'd sooner trust their overall
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One difference, of course, is that I receive a paper receipt upon leaving the checkout, which I can check for errors later in my own time.
Similarly, you can review your transactions online in your own time, at a ticket machine, or via a printout from a ticket office. Errors can be rectified by calling the hotline.
...assuming you have ready internet access. And not all errors can be rectified by simply calling the hotline (which is an unnecessarily time-consuming thing to do, and which just was not part of the process with a paper-ticket system).
Say that you have a "Myki Pass" which allows you to travel anywhere in Zone 1 for the whole of the next month. You "touch on" on a bus in Preston, and you "touch off" in Heidelberg West. Both locations are in Zone 1. But one of the card readers erroneously believes that it is in Zone 2. When you "touch off", the balance on your Myki card falls into the negative, but you don't notice because you're being hurried off the bus with 15 others. (Myki would say that it's your responsibility to notice, or at least check your balance online afterwards, but this is an additional requirement that simply didn't exist with Metcard, for no discernable benefit.)
The next time you attempt to "touch on", which might be 4 days later, you get an error message. Not only can you then not board the bus without risking a fine, but there is no way that you can get your Myki balance above zero while you're on the bus --- and there may not be any "top up" facility within walking distance of the bus stop, especially at night. Without a short term ticketing option, there's simply no way of getting your balance up above zero in this circumstance, even if you are carrying a phone.
And then after your immediate problem is resolved, you're then faced with trying to argue with Myki that you never entered Zone 2 in the first place, despite the Myki system recording that one of the card readers you used 4 days earlier was indeed in Zone 2. Good luck!
This is not a hypothetical fantasy, by the way: it has happened. The scenario is entirely possible under Myki, but not Metcard. Occasionally the Metcard readers erroneously believed they were in the wrong zone, but their response was to reject the Metcard if the zones didn't match up. Importantly, passengers were rarely fined in this circumstance, and when they were, it was relatively easy to contest the fine. By contrast, when Myki is at error, it takes money off your balance, opens you up to a fine if you slip into a negative balance through no fault of your own, and then makes it much more difficult to contest the error later on.
From march 2013 bus top ups in the metropolitan area will be available.
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Regardless of whether the “smart card” records the topped-up amount 3 days later or later on the same day, my point remains: anything that is not instantaneous is far too long.
If we are to compare apples with apples, then purchasing a Myki pass online is akin to when you could purchase periodical metcards online and having them mailed to you...And the speed of an online top up propagating to all devices is faster than what metcards took in the mail! No smart card system has instantaneous online top ups (And some even have more stringent conditions), and it was never marketed that way.
I wasn't talking about purchasing Metcards online and having them mailed to me. I was talking about getting on a tram or a bus and discovering that my balance is in the negative. My habit was to travel with multi-trip Metcards. I would occasionally board a tram and discover that I had used up all 10 trips, so I had to purchase a short-term ticket, which was available immediately. Mine is an argument against the lack of a short-term ticketing option. And if so-called "smart-card" systems don't have the capacity to allow users to add to their balance immediately, then there can be no justification for them as a ticketing option on public transport.
A passenger could walk up to a ticket dispenser, insert money, and come away with a ten-trip ticket in the space of about a minute.
And you can still go to a ticket machine and do this.
You're right. But you can no longer go to a ticket dispenser on a bus or a tram and buy a ticket.
When I get on a tram or a bus and discover that I'm out of funds on Myki, I must get off the tram and find a "top-up" point or risk a $200+ fine.
No, because on the trip(s) prior you would have had multiple reminders of having a low balance via the screen and warning lights, so the situation is avoidable if you take action. Consider the warnings similar to taking action to fill up your car when the red light illuminates on the dashboard.
Yes, the situation is avoidable if you take action --- but it's additional action to that which was required under Metcard. Why introduce a new system which forces passengers to think and do more than they had to under the previous system? And the consequences for inadvertent failure to keep track of your balance are large indeed. Under Metcard there was a get-out-of-jail option if you had coins with you. On trams and buses there is no such option.
With respect, I think you're missing the point of having a PT ticketing system. The point is (or should) not to be to punish passengers for making inadvertent errors. The point should be to have passengers contribute to the cost of PT, while bearing in mind that PT has major social, economic and environmental benefits for the wider society. By reducing payment options, Myki is contributing to the "surveillance" culture which has developed in Melbourne PT since the mid-1990s.
Public transport ticketing is not, and should not be, a first-order issue for individuals: it should operate in the background of people's consciousness, at least until they are planning to travel. We must remember that any ticketing system should support the aims of the PT network more generally. (A large part of the problem seems to be that the TTA and the Department of Transport have perhaps lost sight of the philosophy behind having a PT network: current thinking seems to be dominated by narrow financial considerations rather than broader social philosophy.)
My argument here is an argument against deploying “smart card” technology in public transport at all, for the reason that it necessarily involves a transfer of control over fare amounts charged, away from the individual user to the large, anonymous, automated system.
My response is that the use of Public Transport is no different to any other utility. When you make a phone call you are placing trust in a large anonymous automated system to charge you the appropriate amount. The shift to smart cards represents a shift in the mindset to how you use public transport. I would argue that the need to understand the fare table and products on offer, and the need to make more frequent cash transactions represents a barrier to entry.
Smart-card systems do indeed require a shift in mindset. Ideally, passengers would get into the habit of simply ensuring that they have a $10-$20 balance in their card at all times, without really worrying about whether Myki was taking the correct amount out of the card. All the evidence has shown that Myki appears to be incapable of achieving the level of trust this shift in attitude requires. This isn't a problem with passengers; it's a problem that rests squarely with Myki, the TTA, the Department and the Executive government, but individual passengers are bearing the costs.
For the record, I'm never in favour of systems which shift the control of the way individuals use the system away from them and toward large automated systems. I have long advocated a major inquiry and associated overhaul of mobile phone charges in Australia. It is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to keep track of phone usage on mobile phones, and all the evidence suggests that phone companies are getting rich on consumers' apathetic attitude. Until relatively recently, mobile phones were firmly in the realm of "consumer choice" and if people weren't happy with charging options they could simply opt out of using mobiles altogether. But now that mobiles have become ubiquitous, it is in the public interest to require phone companies to ensure that consumers keep track of their balances at all times. PT ticketing is a bit different in that there's nothing which says it needs to be a smart-card system. And given that smart-card systems create a host of inherent problems for PT passengers which are not present with paper tickets, the TTA should not have sought to implement a smart-card system in the first place.
I've got to say, I'm just not sure why people are seeking to defend Myki, given the number of bugs which have patently not been ironed out and for which the public - particularly disadvantaged members of the public - are paying the cost.
A Myki user must hold numerous pieces of information in his head and do the calculations in real time as she’s passing through the barrier – at the moment she has the least amount of time to do so.
The myki user can also use the blue "balance check" device.
...which is only available in certain places, and is not available near bus-stops.
I disagree that a user "must" do this, especially if they are using myki pass. Personally, I have always been one to just make my journeys and have the system work it out.
This is a staggering argument. I have three responses.
(1) Not all passengers are happy to place the control over the amount of money they're paying placed in the hands of large automated systems, operated by corporations or the State. The fact that Myki seems to be pushing people into an alienated position is problematic.
(2) A "Myki Pass" is no guarantee against finding yourself in an impossible position: see my second response, above.
(3) While it's great that you're comfortable with a "Myki Pass", not all passengers are. What about casual passengers, or tourists, or passengers who can't afford to buy a month or a year of public transport tickets at once? PT ticketing systems must accommodate as many different types of passengers as possible, and must take particular care of disadvantaged users who may not have access to alternative forms of transport.
Personally, I think Smart Card ticketing is a better solution than paper...lower system running costs, simple to use.
The issue is that Melbourne picked the worst possible contractor for the system...Companies such as Cubic Transportation, and Wayfarer (Who did SEQ and Perth respectivley) have done systems like these many times over and would have represented a better option.
I agree. There are major questions about the tendering process which saw Kamco win the contract.
I disagree that smartcards are inappropriate...Hong Kong has been using them since 1998, and like anywhere would have the same special needs user groups.
Hong Kong has had no social-democratic impulse since 1997, when China resumed administrative control over that country. The philosophies of PT in Hong Kong are perhaps unsurprisingly much more about efficiency and much less about inclusiveness.
And thanks for your response, Nathan. It seems that we're arriving at the same destination: that smart-card technologies such as Myki require far more of public transport users than do paper-ticket systems, and for that reason alone are probably inherently inappropriate for public transport ticketing.
The major issue that hasn't been mentioned is the benefit for bus boarding times, and this is a key driver of the technology, When I first moved to Brisbane GoCard had only been introduced for a week or so, so most users were still using paper, and buses were noticeably slow due to the time spent at stops with the bus driver selling tickets to passengers. Smart cards shift this burden to the passenger to take care of their own affairs, but the overall benefit is that buses run considerably faster...the driver worries about driving, reducing running costs, and increasing the convenience of the service, through higher speeds.
It has also allowed the introduction of cashless bus routes with two door boarding, which makes the experience morel like riding a tram.
To be honest, this is the first argument I've found which describes a genuine benefit of smart-card systems over paper ticket systems. But the point is not unarguable. I've also experienced the frustrations of visiting Sydney and trying to board a cash-less bus. While I agree that this works for the system as a whole, I don't think it works for tourists and disadvantaged users. But I agree that with high-volume bus travel, it's difficult to see an alternative to cashless buses.
CORRESPONDENT: Hi Russell, I have read your blog post and article about the issues with Myki, but I just had a few clarifications of my own, and observations based on my experience using the Perth and SEQ systems.
RUSSELL MARKS: Most pre-smart card public transport ticketing systems were already becoming far too complex for these groups of passengers: any visitor who has ever tried to navigate the PT network in Perth, with its dozens of different zones, will recognise this point.
CORRESPONDENT: To quote the MVV (The public transport authority for Munich, and another system which uses multiple circular zones like Perth and Brisbane).....
"It’s a question of making tariffs fair: if you are only travelling a short distance, you want to pay a lower tariff. If you are travelling further, you should pay more."
I never found the zones in Perth difficult. The maps clearly show zone boundaries, and the ticket machines are capable of selling you what you need. As a Brisbane resident, I'm used to a system with 23 zones, and the ticket machines are intuitive enough to allow anyone to buy the right ticket via a number of options (Eg alphabetical suburb listing, interactive map, by raw zone number, or a list of popular common destinations, eg "Dreamworld","Westfield Chermside","QUT Kelvin Grove", "Hastings St Noosa" etc.)
Russell Marks: (Of course, this isn't much good for somebody who just wants to get on a train and see where it takes him...whatever happened to adventure and serendipity?)
What you must realise is that Perth and Brisbane both have systems that cover a larger geographical area than Melbourne (In Melbourne, a separate V/Line system covers longer distance fares) so it's not practical to fit them into just 2 zones under our unified systems. You might be going 2km to New Farm, 20km to Moggil, or even 100km to Coolangatta under the system, hence more fare zones needed to ensure people pay an amount commensurate with the distance travelled..
I reject the "user pays" premise of the MVV's rationalisation for multiple zones. "User pays" is a principle which should not apply to public transport, for two broad policy reasons: (1) people should be encouraged to use public transport as often as possible, because widespread PT use creates economic, social and environmental benefits for the wider society; and (2) PT must cater above all for people on low incomes. Indeed, the economic benefits alone to building high-frequency PT systems and subsidising them through the general taxation system and through increased tariffs on road users are enough to more than justify that course of action. Unfortunately in Australia we've engaged in very poor city planning in the post-war period, which has meant that people in the suburbs have become overly reliant on cars, to the point that subsidising PT by taxing road users is now seen as politically impossible. So a compromise position would be that outer-suburban residents travelling long distances should pay no more for their tickets than inner-city residents.
Correspondent: Disagree strongly.
Are you denying that Munich has not been successful in encouraging PT use and discouraging car use, enhancing urban forms and reducing pollution? Or any of the other successful European systems, which have zonal fares? ( See Zurich's patchwork zone map! http://www.zvv.ch/en/routes-and-zones/fare-zone-plan.html ) Why is having a citywide flat fare considered a #1 consideration for the best possible system, when there is no international evidence to suggest that is the case?
In smaller cities, you can have a flat fare for all PT because there's little variation in the distance people travel. Canberra works this way for instance.
However in large urban areas, there is a large variance in the distance people are travelling and it's not possible to set a single fare at an equilibrium that works. If its too high it means people taking a short trip to the shops (And an outer suburbanite may be travelling locally, its not just inner vs. outer residents), circulating in the inner suburbs etc are punished with a disproportionately high fare for the task and it's not attractive compared to just driving.
And why shouldn't I pay less if I'm say doing a quick trip from Uni to the CBD?
If in response you set it low, it means costly services (such as express trains serving the outer suburbs, buses in low density outer areas etc) lose such a large amount of money that there isn't anything left to pay for a decent level of frequent service to attract people. I'd love nothing more than for more to be spent on PT services, but at the same time with virtually every area of government activity seemingly underfunded and competing to take any extra funds that turn up, I'm willing to accept some degree of user pays if it means a better service than otherwise able to be funded from general revenue.
Those on lower incomes already receive half price concession tickets. and various other offers such as the free trip vouchers for seniors. What else can we do?
Melbourne already has variations in zones beyond the current two regardless. If I want to go to satellite cities such as Geelong or Seymour I am paying over and above a 2 zone fare, and fares aren't a simple "flat fare".
I think Melbourne is well and truly past the point of being able to have a single zone for all travel. I advocate for a more finely grained system of smaller zones, because it means you don't have such a huge jump in price between zones (Which can really hit if you are only hopping across the zone border). In Brisbane, you only pay an extra 40c or so per additional zone travelled, so the large financial burden isn't there.
I also disagree that PT is "above all" about catering to those on low incomes and without alternative transport. It's an important function yes but it can't be the only focus. Public transport is also about allowing people to escape traffic congestion, freedom of movement, driving urban form, and economic benefits through agglomeration. The types of services you provide to meet these goals are very different to the services you provide to meet social equity goals (Compare a slower circituous bus route through residential areas catering to the elderly, compared to a high frequency flagship bus route running direct along a main road with widely spaced stops)
You can mock Perth’s zonal system, but Perth has the best cost recovery of any Australian city, better services citywide (For example, Mandurah, 70km from the CBD has a train to the CBD every 15 mins, 7 days a week) and whilst achieving the fastest patronage growth. I'd sooner trust their overall
* * * * *
One difference, of course, is that I receive a paper receipt upon leaving the checkout, which I can check for errors later in my own time.
Similarly, you can review your transactions online in your own time, at a ticket machine, or via a printout from a ticket office. Errors can be rectified by calling the hotline.
...assuming you have ready internet access. And not all errors can be rectified by simply calling the hotline (which is an unnecessarily time-consuming thing to do, and which just was not part of the process with a paper-ticket system).
Say that you have a "Myki Pass" which allows you to travel anywhere in Zone 1 for the whole of the next month. You "touch on" on a bus in Preston, and you "touch off" in Heidelberg West. Both locations are in Zone 1. But one of the card readers erroneously believes that it is in Zone 2. When you "touch off", the balance on your Myki card falls into the negative, but you don't notice because you're being hurried off the bus with 15 others. (Myki would say that it's your responsibility to notice, or at least check your balance online afterwards, but this is an additional requirement that simply didn't exist with Metcard, for no discernable benefit.)
The next time you attempt to "touch on", which might be 4 days later, you get an error message. Not only can you then not board the bus without risking a fine, but there is no way that you can get your Myki balance above zero while you're on the bus --- and there may not be any "top up" facility within walking distance of the bus stop, especially at night. Without a short term ticketing option, there's simply no way of getting your balance up above zero in this circumstance, even if you are carrying a phone.
And then after your immediate problem is resolved, you're then faced with trying to argue with Myki that you never entered Zone 2 in the first place, despite the Myki system recording that one of the card readers you used 4 days earlier was indeed in Zone 2. Good luck!
This is not a hypothetical fantasy, by the way: it has happened. The scenario is entirely possible under Myki, but not Metcard. Occasionally the Metcard readers erroneously believed they were in the wrong zone, but their response was to reject the Metcard if the zones didn't match up. Importantly, passengers were rarely fined in this circumstance, and when they were, it was relatively easy to contest the fine. By contrast, when Myki is at error, it takes money off your balance, opens you up to a fine if you slip into a negative balance through no fault of your own, and then makes it much more difficult to contest the error later on.
From march 2013 bus top ups in the metropolitan area will be available.
* * * * *
Regardless of whether the “smart card” records the topped-up amount 3 days later or later on the same day, my point remains: anything that is not instantaneous is far too long.
If we are to compare apples with apples, then purchasing a Myki pass online is akin to when you could purchase periodical metcards online and having them mailed to you...And the speed of an online top up propagating to all devices is faster than what metcards took in the mail! No smart card system has instantaneous online top ups (And some even have more stringent conditions), and it was never marketed that way.
I wasn't talking about purchasing Metcards online and having them mailed to me. I was talking about getting on a tram or a bus and discovering that my balance is in the negative. My habit was to travel with multi-trip Metcards. I would occasionally board a tram and discover that I had used up all 10 trips, so I had to purchase a short-term ticket, which was available immediately. Mine is an argument against the lack of a short-term ticketing option. And if so-called "smart-card" systems don't have the capacity to allow users to add to their balance immediately, then there can be no justification for them as a ticketing option on public transport.
A passenger could walk up to a ticket dispenser, insert money, and come away with a ten-trip ticket in the space of about a minute.
And you can still go to a ticket machine and do this.
You're right. But you can no longer go to a ticket dispenser on a bus or a tram and buy a ticket.
When I get on a tram or a bus and discover that I'm out of funds on Myki, I must get off the tram and find a "top-up" point or risk a $200+ fine.
No, because on the trip(s) prior you would have had multiple reminders of having a low balance via the screen and warning lights, so the situation is avoidable if you take action. Consider the warnings similar to taking action to fill up your car when the red light illuminates on the dashboard.
Yes, the situation is avoidable if you take action --- but it's additional action to that which was required under Metcard. Why introduce a new system which forces passengers to think and do more than they had to under the previous system? And the consequences for inadvertent failure to keep track of your balance are large indeed. Under Metcard there was a get-out-of-jail option if you had coins with you. On trams and buses there is no such option.
With respect, I think you're missing the point of having a PT ticketing system. The point is (or should) not to be to punish passengers for making inadvertent errors. The point should be to have passengers contribute to the cost of PT, while bearing in mind that PT has major social, economic and environmental benefits for the wider society. By reducing payment options, Myki is contributing to the "surveillance" culture which has developed in Melbourne PT since the mid-1990s.
Public transport ticketing is not, and should not be, a first-order issue for individuals: it should operate in the background of people's consciousness, at least until they are planning to travel. We must remember that any ticketing system should support the aims of the PT network more generally. (A large part of the problem seems to be that the TTA and the Department of Transport have perhaps lost sight of the philosophy behind having a PT network: current thinking seems to be dominated by narrow financial considerations rather than broader social philosophy.)
My argument here is an argument against deploying “smart card” technology in public transport at all, for the reason that it necessarily involves a transfer of control over fare amounts charged, away from the individual user to the large, anonymous, automated system.
My response is that the use of Public Transport is no different to any other utility. When you make a phone call you are placing trust in a large anonymous automated system to charge you the appropriate amount. The shift to smart cards represents a shift in the mindset to how you use public transport. I would argue that the need to understand the fare table and products on offer, and the need to make more frequent cash transactions represents a barrier to entry.
Smart-card systems do indeed require a shift in mindset. Ideally, passengers would get into the habit of simply ensuring that they have a $10-$20 balance in their card at all times, without really worrying about whether Myki was taking the correct amount out of the card. All the evidence has shown that Myki appears to be incapable of achieving the level of trust this shift in attitude requires. This isn't a problem with passengers; it's a problem that rests squarely with Myki, the TTA, the Department and the Executive government, but individual passengers are bearing the costs.
For the record, I'm never in favour of systems which shift the control of the way individuals use the system away from them and toward large automated systems. I have long advocated a major inquiry and associated overhaul of mobile phone charges in Australia. It is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to keep track of phone usage on mobile phones, and all the evidence suggests that phone companies are getting rich on consumers' apathetic attitude. Until relatively recently, mobile phones were firmly in the realm of "consumer choice" and if people weren't happy with charging options they could simply opt out of using mobiles altogether. But now that mobiles have become ubiquitous, it is in the public interest to require phone companies to ensure that consumers keep track of their balances at all times. PT ticketing is a bit different in that there's nothing which says it needs to be a smart-card system. And given that smart-card systems create a host of inherent problems for PT passengers which are not present with paper tickets, the TTA should not have sought to implement a smart-card system in the first place.
I've got to say, I'm just not sure why people are seeking to defend Myki, given the number of bugs which have patently not been ironed out and for which the public - particularly disadvantaged members of the public - are paying the cost.
A Myki user must hold numerous pieces of information in his head and do the calculations in real time as she’s passing through the barrier – at the moment she has the least amount of time to do so.
The myki user can also use the blue "balance check" device.
...which is only available in certain places, and is not available near bus-stops.
I disagree that a user "must" do this, especially if they are using myki pass. Personally, I have always been one to just make my journeys and have the system work it out.
This is a staggering argument. I have three responses.
(1) Not all passengers are happy to place the control over the amount of money they're paying placed in the hands of large automated systems, operated by corporations or the State. The fact that Myki seems to be pushing people into an alienated position is problematic.
(2) A "Myki Pass" is no guarantee against finding yourself in an impossible position: see my second response, above.
(3) While it's great that you're comfortable with a "Myki Pass", not all passengers are. What about casual passengers, or tourists, or passengers who can't afford to buy a month or a year of public transport tickets at once? PT ticketing systems must accommodate as many different types of passengers as possible, and must take particular care of disadvantaged users who may not have access to alternative forms of transport.
Personally, I think Smart Card ticketing is a better solution than paper...lower system running costs, simple to use.
The issue is that Melbourne picked the worst possible contractor for the system...Companies such as Cubic Transportation, and Wayfarer (Who did SEQ and Perth respectivley) have done systems like these many times over and would have represented a better option.
I agree. There are major questions about the tendering process which saw Kamco win the contract.
I disagree that smartcards are inappropriate...Hong Kong has been using them since 1998, and like anywhere would have the same special needs user groups.
Hong Kong has had no social-democratic impulse since 1997, when China resumed administrative control over that country. The philosophies of PT in Hong Kong are perhaps unsurprisingly much more about efficiency and much less about inclusiveness.
And thanks for your response, Nathan. It seems that we're arriving at the same destination: that smart-card technologies such as Myki require far more of public transport users than do paper-ticket systems, and for that reason alone are probably inherently inappropriate for public transport ticketing.
The major issue that hasn't been mentioned is the benefit for bus boarding times, and this is a key driver of the technology, When I first moved to Brisbane GoCard had only been introduced for a week or so, so most users were still using paper, and buses were noticeably slow due to the time spent at stops with the bus driver selling tickets to passengers. Smart cards shift this burden to the passenger to take care of their own affairs, but the overall benefit is that buses run considerably faster...the driver worries about driving, reducing running costs, and increasing the convenience of the service, through higher speeds.
It has also allowed the introduction of cashless bus routes with two door boarding, which makes the experience morel like riding a tram.
To be honest, this is the first argument I've found which describes a genuine benefit of smart-card systems over paper ticket systems. But the point is not unarguable. I've also experienced the frustrations of visiting Sydney and trying to board a cash-less bus. While I agree that this works for the system as a whole, I don't think it works for tourists and disadvantaged users. But I agree that with high-volume bus travel, it's difficult to see an alternative to cashless buses.