Tuesday, April 17, 2012

My gosh

My very last metcard finally ran out on the weekend while I was in Canberra.

Today will be my first day back at work after the weekend and I'm going to have to use my myki.

Although I got a myki card over a year ago, I have resisted using it because of all the problems that have beleaguered the electronic ticketing system. I hope it doesn't fail me today.

I've used 'smart cards' for public transport in other cities. In Helsinki, commuters are assumed to be honest and public transport authorities have abandoned gates at stations and do not require people to 'touch off' at their destination.

I think similar initiatives here would stop bottlenecks like this:

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The scratch ticket system in the nineties, or was it the eighties, was almost an honesty system. Even church going old ladies became dishonest.

Victor said...

I wonder how cost effective it is to police that passengers have paid the relevant fare? There have been media stories in NSW about how much the rail system is losing not only in missed fares but in unpaid fines. Apparently there are recurring offenders who simply refuse to pay the fines (let alone the fares).

Adaptive Radiation said...

Andrew: I guess Finns are more honest than Aussies.
Victor: They should just make it all free ;-)