RE: [melb] yearly met cards

[Vaughan Williams <ender2000@MailAndNews.com>]

>Not exactly, metcard xpress would be contactless and, as was previously
>stated, use some small computer thingy to operate.  These cards are
>expensive.  My work has thousands of staff with proximity based access cards
>(ie the same as a metcard express card) and they pay about $9 to buy a new
>card from the card manufacturer.  By comparison, swipe cards (eg magnetic
>strip) are very cheap.

Personally I wouldn't object to there being a small fee to replace a lost or 
damaged card. If the cards really cost $25 each to manufacture I think it 
needs to be seriously questioned whether that technology is appropriate.

A fee of $5 - $10 would be reasonable, primarily as a disincentive to 
losing/damaging the card (though if its fair wear and tear its reasonable to 
expect a free replacement). I'm not too concerned if this is more or less 
than 
the cost of manufacturing the card. By going onto a periodical, the 
passenger 
is doing the operator a favour by paying in advance for a month or a year's 
worth of travel and saving the operator the trouble of selling them a ticket 
each day. Its often said that if stations/conductors/bus drivers can't 
handle 
the number of cash ticket sales, they haven't gotten enough people onto 
periodicals.

PTUA doesn't have a formal policy on fares at the moment other than that 
theyre too high and that Metcard is a disaster. We're having a members 
meeting 
Real Soon Now to develop a new policy on this. Those of you who are members, 
watch this space.

Vaughan

Vaughan Williams
Secretary
Public Transport Users Association
247 Flinders Lane
Melbourne 3000
http://www.ptua.org.au