[Melb] Ticket machines 'overused'

["david lindstrom" <d_lindstrom@bigpond.com>]

Ticket machines 'overused'

By STEPHEN CAUCHI
Tuesday 12 June 2001

The owner of Melbourne's public transport ticketing system
yesterday blamed over-reliance by commuters on ticket machines
for widespread dissatisfaction with the system.

OneLink said that far too many commuters were using the
machines, which it said should have an "insignificant" role in
the $330 million ticket system.

A government-commissioned audit, revealed on Sunday, found that
27 per cent of automatic ticket machines at railway stations
were unable to issue a ticket or malfunctioned in other ways. It
found they were often vandalised and that repairs were slow.

By contrast, 88 per cent of machines on trams and buses worked.

OneLink general manager Simon Vinson said yesterday it was
originally envisaged that nine out of 10 commuters would buy
their tickets at retail outlets, with ticket machines a "default
mechanism". Instead, the audit showed that 80 per cent of
tickets for trains and trams were bought through the machines,
he said.

"The original intention of this contract was that by far and
away the majority of tickets would be sold off-board," Mr Vinson
said. "The reverse is true. What we find out is that less than
20 per cent of tickets are sold off-board and so the machines
have a far greater emphasis than was intended."

Mr Vinson said that if the public changed their buying habits,
the role of the machines would "fade into insignificance".

"There's a super convenience factor here for the travelling
public in so far as they can go and purchase their ticket when
they're down the newsagent or buying a bottle of milk or the
newspaper or what have you or a week's tickets in advance and
then they don't have to go near a machine basically."

He said that while upgrading security of the machines was a
priority for all parties there was also a need to persuade
people to buy their tickets elsewhere.

Bob Annells, a spokesman for the Association of Transport
Franchisees Victoria, representing private operators, said
discussions with OneLink and the government would begin soon on
how the system could be improved.

He said the public needed to be better educated on buying
tickets from retail outlets, and that more shops needed to be
selling them.


--
Regards,
David Lindstrom
D_Lindstrom@bigpond.com