Re: Melbourne's Automated Ticketing

[Chris Gordon <c.gordon@ugrad.unimelb.edu.au>]

Michael Walker wrote:
> I think most people's issue is not with the concept of automated
> ticketing, which as someone else pointed out should lead to a far more
> flexible system. I think most people think the system is not as well
> thought out as it should be. Which seems strange given the long time
> spent designing it + 3 or 4 years (which is now how late the system is).
> The only new concept in the system is the contactless Metcard Xpress,
> even that aspect of the system is rapidly becoming as off the shelf as
> everything else should have been.
>         Not to mention the system is now even more inconvenient and inflexible
> to use than the previous system due to political (no dailies on trams),
> commercial (the rushed design and lack of thought into machines and
> validators) and other reasons.
>         To take up another point, it is interesting the brochures come in many
> different languages (and presumably there are people in the Onelink
> Helpdesk who can speak the languages printed on the back of the brochure
> that advise to ring the help number for Metcard - although my cynical
> side says 'I doubt it') yet the machines only have instructions in
> English. Given the large amount of big writing and blank space on the
> front of the machines, I don't think it would be hard to have some
> instructions in other languages on the machines. The logical place is
> beneath the buttons for each step. Whilst it would be impractical to
> include every language on every machine, surely ones common to the area
> would be fine (eg Brunswick trams have Greek instructions, Elsternwick
> station and Glenhuntly depot trams have Hebrew, etc).

I have see many messages written on by passengers on the machines on the trams
saying things like "I want a Daily" and "Daily" with a picture of a button.

Chris Gordon
cmgord@ecr.mu.oz.au
http://www.ecr.mu.oz.au/~cmgord