Melbourne Trains

• Still all quiet on the western front — waiting for twitter to fix their instant messaging. And you thought Connex sucked! #

• Victorian Government takes the Myki: http://tinyurl.com/6mhons #

Just when you thought travel on Melbourne trains couldn’t get a much worse, The Age today reports that the Myki ticketing system will be delayed.

Again.

No, not until 2010 as previously reported. In a possible attempt to avoid an electoral catastophe in the 2010 election year, the state Government says the system should now be ready in 2012. And that’s not all, either.

The wait now for the ticketing system that has already cost Victorian taxpayers over $500 million will apparently cost an additional $216 million.

So let’s delve into the proposed Myki system a little and see what we’ll be getting for our hard-earned tax dollars. This assumes, of course, that the state government doesn’t see sense and just scrap the whole idea altogether.

Myki will ‘make life easy’ for Melbourne

Apparently this means we won’t have to worry about which zone we’re travelling in. Simply swiping your shiny new plastic Myki card will enable the “best fare” to be deducted from your account.

All you need to do is ’scan on’ as you get onto your train, tram or bus and ’scan off’ as you leave.

Now I don’t know about you, but that seems to be placing a lot of faith in technology that so far has been plagued with difficulties, delays and computer errors.

Picture this scenario:

• “Scan on” at 7:30 am as you catch the train to work.
• “Scan off” at 8:30 am but a computer glitch causes this not to register
• “Scan on” at 5:30pm but have this registered as a ’scan off’ due to previous failure to register.
• Myki determines the best fare (which is nice of it, really, isn’t it?) considering you’ve been travelling endlessly all day on the same train…

According to their website, your fare will be capped at “a 2 hour, daily or weekly maximum”. I wonder if there is the ability built in to challenge the system if you believe it has deducted the incorrect fare?

Imagine now (if you can) having that sum at your disposal to implement a decent ticketing solution for Melbourne Trains. Never mind the busses and trams. Consider what you would do instead…