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Re: Ticket Machines on Melbourne Trams



Whilst on the topic of our new wonderful, improved, out of sight
ticketing system - A few things of interest.
1. Upon starting my new job in Canterbury yesterday, I notice that
Canterbury station as yet does not have their machines turned on. Does
anybody know if any other station between Box Hill and Camberwell (these
two excepted as they both obviously do) does?

2. A quirk in the interim system I noticed is in relation to the fact
that the cards are not validated with an expiry time/date is that it
would be relatively easy to fare evade. eg Yesterday in order to see how
good the system is, I purposely only bought a 2 hour ticket in the
morning on the 293 bus and then on the journey home, I bought a weekly
Zone 2 ticket from Box Hill (as Canterbury wasn't staffed and machines
not on). I then caught the 293 home and again the next morning and the
first the system knew of my ticket was the validator at Box Hill. Now I
wasn't fare evading as if you buy monthlys/weeklys after 3pm, they are
stamped for the next day but it did give me a thought...
	Whilst of course not condoning fare evasion (I agree with previous
posts saying the PTC has a right to you paying to use their system), it
did give me the thought that you could easily double or better the time
on each ticket if you are travelling on non validator buses or trams.
Simply buy your ticket from a machine to use on the bus. The machine
stamps the day you bought it and because you can't validate it, you can
reuse it until someone comments. What a great system! (like not)
3. In reference to the above does anybody know when National Bus Co will
get validators? It strikes me as odd that our local buses (Bell Street
and Dysons) have had validators on their vehicles for a while even
though ATMs are not due to be turned on in our area for a while but NBC
which is a lot closer to the action have no validators on any of their
buses I have seen.
4. Whoever said their tickets are flimsy weren't wrong. Even after 2
days, it is starting to wear. No way will I buy a Metcard monthly until
the Metcard Xpress comes out. And to the person who said that the
current system is bad in that ticket checkers can only check IF you have
a ticket - 1. what about RPOs who check VERY carefully (do they still
have the incentive of 5 minutes paid time off for every ticket offender
booked?) and 2. The expiry date on my Metcard weekly would be MUCH MUCH
harder to read than the large rubber stamped date on the old bad
weeklies for any ticket checker - not to mention the lack of colour
coding to see if you are even in the right zone.