Re: Melbourne - Metcard validation before every trip

["Michael Walker" <walker@hotkey.net.au>]

>I was fooled by the validator on a recent journey to the city.  Aiming for
>an 18.04 train, I validated my newly-purchased ticket on the wrong side of
>18.00 by mistake.  The machine gave me a validity only to 20.00, and not to
>2.00 (as it would one minute later).  Tickets purchased after 18.00 are
>valid until the last service of the evening.  This move encourages further
>delays, as people wait to the last minute to validate (this
>happened/happens in Perth).
>
I must admit to waiting to the last minute to validate in this situation too
except I didn't know whether it would do it or not - thank you for testing
this for everyone 8^)

Seriously, whilst I support the principle of automated ticketing and I think
the whinges about validation are just whinges - what's the difference
between station staff validating your ticket or a machine? The complaints I
have are regarding the poor implementation of MetCrud and this is yet
another example. Under the old system, if you bought a ticket for a train
which departed after the hour, the person selling you the ticket usually
knew this and clipped your ticket accordingly for the following hour. I am
sure it would be of negligible cost to program the validators to know the
time of the previous train and after that time validate tickets for the
following hour. After all, the computers at the premium stations need to be
programmed for the Passenger Information Displays and the help buttons with
the digital voice telling you the times for the next trains plus the station
staff are required to program in late running so I am sure it wouldn't be
too hard for the Onelink station computer to link into this and get basic
timetable and late running information to validate tickets to simulate the
old systems timeliness. However, this would probably be considered to be not
required as we are moving from a service to a system and people are expected
to put up with cheap poorly implemented systems and adapt to them. Bring on
privatisation, at least the new owners might be able to bring some pressure
to bear to provide at least a passing resemblance to customer service and
giving people what they want in terms of an easy to use public transport
system so they can make their huge profits out of the Victorian tax payer.