TomOyn🏗️🚂Is talking about a public transport ticketing system a normal topic of polite dinner conversation in this city or am I just unlucky
Hard to square the opinion of a certain type of person in this city about Myki being unusable garbage versus my lived experience of it being a completely fine and dandy ticketing solution
Justified Ancient of Moomin@AussieWirraway the simple answer is that the people who seem to complain the most about Myki never seem to have used it since 2012
Now at @@ThermiteBeGiants @AussieWirraway While there is room to simplify Melbourne's public transport ticketing system, Myki itself is fine in my experience. And ticketing overall certainly far from being the worst part of Melbourne's public transport system (*cough*reliability*cough*suburban buses).
@ajsadauskas @AussieWirraway Myki is already about as simple as it gets when it comes to fare structure and how the end-user sees it. You nailed the actual problem, which is service delivery, particularly when it comes to buses.
The Rail Life@ThermiteBeGiants @ajsadauskas @AussieWirraway The biggest issue with the MyKi ticketing system itself (and always has been) is how unfriendly it is to opportunistic or temporary travellers.
The lack of a single use fare or refundable card is a big drawback, and makes an Uber look like a very good alternative.
Arfman@the_rail_life @ThermiteBeGiants @ajsadauskas @AussieWirraway fair points. They actually planned to have single use cards (and I heard probably bought stock for it) but scrapped them. They also bought enough value added machines to be used on all trams. These are all miss opportunities that would have made the system much better that's inherently already built into it.
@arfman @the_rail_life @ajsadauskas @AussieWirraway yeah they pulped all the single-use myki cards, AIUI they weren’t that much cheaper than regular Myki and crucially, the vending machines they bought for them added too much complexity
@ThermiteBeGiants @arfman @ajsadauskas @AussieWirraway I like what South Korea does, one card (T Money) works for all urban transport (bus/metro/monorail) in every city.
They have standard cards, but also build chips into small keyring accessories and small plush toys. I've seen people entering the subway by touching a tiny panda on the fare gate.
@the_rail_life @arfman @ajsadauskas @AussieWirraway very telling that every tollroad transponder in Australia uses one interoperable standard but there’s a different transit smartcard in every state and they aren’t even usable all throughout each state
The T2 Commuter 🎢@the_rail_life @ThermiteBeGiants @arfman @ajsadauskas @AussieWirraway now I want a tiny panda travel card!
@the_rail_life @ThermiteBeGiants @ajsadauskas @AussieWirraway always in awe of places like Japan which has cross-compatibility of all the cards systems. Tempted to collect them all but one works everywhere.
EdLynchBell@the_rail_life @ThermiteBeGiants @arfman @ajsadauskas @AussieWirraway
This is good - see also the massive nationwide felica based system in japan - this has mobile apps, supports season tickets, not so good on area passes and capping though. I have a mobile Suica on my phone that I can reload from ApplePay, super convenient.
Fundamentally though, for the vast majority of users a tap and go (eftpos, CC) payment system, based around payment cards is the best way. London gets this mostly right with daily weekly and monthly caps tied to a payment card - no need to buy a pass, it just tops charging you once you hit the right level in a time period.
Once you have that you just need to provide for concessions, and people who don’t want to use an existing payment card (inc tourists who may incur foreign transaction fees). Concessions could be tied to a cc number and you could have a reloadable money card for the rest.
It’s a payment system so use the payment systems that exist and build off them.
@EdLynchBell @the_rail_life @arfman @ajsadauskas @AussieWirraway the problem is that if you solely use an off-the-shelf payment system then you are locked in to that system. Probably best to handle passes and concessions on the existing smartcard instead of trying to play funny buggers - the perfect becomes the enemy of the good.