Re: Metcard Implementation

[dbowen@custard.net.#SPAMTRAP#.au (Daniel Bowen)]

I didn't know this before, but it would appear that the Frankston line south of 
Ormond (inclusive) have switched on Metcard. Some observations...

- At Moorabbin, Sunday 18/1/98, the large machine was out of service. A short
queue developed at the small machine, and I noticed what people did...

- Person 1 bought his ticket without too much trouble, then went down the ramp 
without validating it. Does it make any sense to have to validate it in the 
second machine straight after having bought it? Will people trying to evade 
fares now carry an unvalidated MetCard in their pocket and when they come across

an inspector, claim they forgot, or didn't know they needed to validate it (like

many do with scratch tickets now)?

- Person 2, smelling of alcohol, tried twice to buy a 2 hour Zone 1 ticket. The 
machine of course, refused, because Moorabbin is in Zone 2. I pointed this out 
to hurry him along because the train was almost due and I didn't want to miss 
it. He just walked down the ramp, apparently ticket-less. I noticed he got off 
the train at McKinnon (which is in both zones 1 and 2), so he could've actually 
used a zone 2 ticket, which is cheaper.

- Person 3 (me), bought a 2 hour zone 1&2 ticket for my wife (I have a Monthly).

The train was just coming when I plucked the ticket from the machine. We set off

down the ramp. I put the ticket into the validator, and it just spat it out 
again and said "RETRY". I thought bugger this, I'm not trying for ten minutes to

validate the ticket and missing our train because the machine's faulty, so we 
just kept going down the ramp and caught the train.


Daniel
--
Daniel Bowen, Melbourne Australia.
Remove the spam bait to email me personally...