Re: Plastic versus Paper Magnetic Stripe Tickets

[Mick Stock <mzs@bigpond.com>]

Trina wrote:
> 
> > >
> > > All well and good if the BOMs & TVMs use ink, but the Melbourne ones use
> > > heat -sensitive tickets, and all printing is done thermally. So it may be a
> > > little more complicated than people are imagining.
> >
> > Does this then have any implications as to where the tickets should be
> > carried? Other heat sensitive applications have such warnings - is carrying a
> > ticket in a wallet sitting close to your hot buttocks (whew) going to cause
> > any problems?
> >
> > JD
> >
> 
> this may allow the printing to dissappear but remember the more important bit on
> the ticket is magnetic strip, which is won't be affected. Only the standard
> magnets warning would apply - magnetic information is equally susceptible
> irrespective of system.
> As for the strength problem- perhaps something like that heat-sensitve paper
> laminated to the back of a light plastic ticket would suffice. The printing only
> needs be done on one side I assume. Granted it may be more fragile than its
> cityrail counterpart, but surely it would be an improvement?


In late December, I bought a bulk supply of daily & weekly tickets from
the main office 
at Ringwood  (got in just before the fares went up!).  I was given a few
plastic wallets
for the tickets, but the only problem is on the tickets with printing
facing the plastic,
the printing has almost completely faded away.  This isn't a problem if
there is a bit
of paper (or another ticket) in the way.....  I've got into the habit
now of writing 
the zones/type info on the ticket using a felt pen.  (Note: when I refer
to printing,
I mean the TVM-printed stuff, although even the colour printing starts
to come off after
a few weeks).

Late last year, I had a zone 3 2-hour ticket, where the printing had
COMPLETELY
disappeared - luckily the validators could still read the magnetic
stripe, but I did
get a dirty look from a (National) bus driver - the only thing which was
readible was
the expiry date/time, but not the zone info!).

Funnily enough, tickets I bought from news agents (with the zone/type
info on the front
instead of the back of the ticket) don't suffer from this problem - they
appear to be 
printed using real ink!

As far as the magnetic stripes are concerned, they seem to be fairly
immune to small
magnetic fields - I've never had any problems even though they have been
in a wallet
immediately next to credit card stripes, or in my pocket next to a MIL
key (which has
a strong magnetic field!).

Mick.