Re: Melbourne's Automated Ticketing

[Martin Bienwald <obelix@fim.informatik.uni-mannheim.de>]

Daniel Bowen <dbowen@custard.net.#SPAMTRAP#.au> wrote:
: Why would anybody expect instructions in Warsaw be in anything other that
: Polish?

Because Warsaw gets a lot of foreign visitors, and therefore it could be 
a good idea to add instructions in English, French, Russian, and German, e.g.

For the same reason, German ticket machines should have instructions at 
least in English and French (actually some of them do).

Probably most people visiting Australia know at least a little bit 
English. However, most European countries (except UK and Ireland, of 
course) get lots of visitors who don't know the contry's language at all.

: As it happens, I'm all for ATMs in Melbourne. But it seems that along the way,
: they've just missed out on making it "ideal". Since they've done some silly
: things (like no Daily tickets available on trams) I think you can expect people
: to moan a bit.

I'm thinking exactly the same. Automatic ticketing should make the system 
more - and not less - flexible. After all, to a modern ATM it makes no 
difference to sell 2, 5, or 20 different sorts of tickets (provided they 
can all be printed on the same form).

IMHO, on-board ticket machines should sell AT LEAST single and 
daily tickets, probably also multi-ride and group tickets (if existent), 
perhaps even weeklies. Station ATMs, in addition, should sell everything 
up to monthlies.

-- 
Martin Bienwald <obelix@fim.informatik.uni-mannheim.de>