Re: Transport ticket system collapses

["Dave Proctor" <daproc@spambait.ozemail.com.au>]

"Tezza" <tezza2000@dingoblue.net.au> wrote in message
3a939d6d$0$25489$7f31c96c@news01.syd.optusnet.com.au">news:3a939d6d$0$25489$7f31c96c@news01.syd.optusnet.com.au...
>
> "Dave Proctor"
> | "Tezza"
> |
> | > | I use them regularly and rarely have problems.  A quick sample of my
> | > | workmates indicated the same experience.
> | >
> | > So you and your mates have problems with faulty machines. Now multiply
> | that by the hundreds of thousands of people who use them. One faulty
> machine
> | may well affect thousands of people.
> |
> | He said that he _rarely_ has a problem. I would go as far as to say that
I
> | have not had a problem with a machine since I moved back to Sydney in
> 1996.
>
> He still said that he and his workmates have had problems. One fault can
> affect thousands of passengers before it's fixed.

He also said *rarely* - for all you know, that one fault could have occurred
somewhere like Telopea, and only affects 20 people per day (since a lot of
the paxs at Telopea arrive by State Transit bus, and already have their
$1.10 pensioner tickets).

You are extrapolating that since some regular users *rarely* experience
faults, that the fact that they do means that the machines are inherently
unreliable and that everyone always experiences faults. This is not the
case.

Even if one faulty machione can affect thousands, for these "thousands" to
be *regularly* inconvenienced, then countless machines owuld have to be out
of action on countless occasions. You, as someone who does not buy tickets,
cannot know if this is the case or not. I (and others who have posted here),
as people who *do* buy tickets, can attest to our own personal experiences
on this matter.

> | > |  That's just as definitive as your "sample", and at least it
includes
> my
> | > personal experience as a  user.
> | >
> | > And yet your small sample still showed that people have problems with
> the
> | > machines.
> |
> | But only rarely - and nowhere near as frequently as you claim.
>
> I haven't claimed any frequency. I was merely relating the woes of the
> hordes that complain about them.
>
>
> | If they happened as frequently as you claimed,
>
> I haven't made any claim.
>
>
> | then his (and their) experience of problems would be more pronounced.
>
> He's had problems, his mates have had problems, others on here have had
> problems and hordes of others have had problems.

They have *rarely* experienced problems.

When I flew back from Melbourne, I had to wait for 95 minutes for my baggage
with QANTAS. This is the ONLY time I have had a baggae problem, so I would
describe baggage problems with QF as "rare".

Using your logic, I would never fly QF again, as they have baggage
problems - others had problems (everyone on that flight had delays with
baggage), etc. Using my logic, we recognise it was a one off (five flights
arriving when only two were scheduled, they only had two lots of staff to
unload) and things go on.

If things were as bad as you try to claim (and I note that nobody who
actually pays for tickets - so this excludes you, Tezza - is complaining)
then there would be an uproar in the media, and this is not happening.

> | Unless the problems *magically* occur
> | where Bill and his mates won't experience them, which defies logic.
>
> They did experience them.

Rarely. Once every three months is acceptable, AFAIC. I don't know what the
problem rate was, but whatever it was, if they describe it as *rare* then it
is acceptable.

> | If the machines are inherently unreliable, then they all be breaking
down.
>
> They do on a regular basis according to the SRA's figures.

And we know how they change the figures to suit themselves. Witness the
IPART concerns over the latest fare increases.

Dave