Re: Metcard statistics. Does it even happen?

["Richo" <richardc@tpg.com.au>]

Bill Clinton's comment (the northern irish are like a bunch of drunks that
just don't know when to stop) sounds like some of the threads on this
newsgroup.

My 20cents worth goes as follows:

1. Ticket machines are a great idea, and have been adopted by most of our
civilised peers.
2. They only work if compliance with them is enforced extremely rigorously
3. The machines also require a degree of physical compliance to enforce
them - ie it is difficult to get into the platform without a valid ticket ie
barriers are required
4. Because disabled etc people can't get through them and because some
tickets may be faulty and various other reasons you need a manual bypass of
this system obviously STAFFED
5. Every station needs barriers and STAFF for the system to work coz people
get into the habit of not using them where they don't find the barrier and
STAFF
6. Melbourne was not prepared to expend the money to get barriers and STAFF
on every station and therefore bought a system that was flawed from the
start.
Our civilised peers: Singapore, HK, Japan and so on did not install the
machines to cut back STAFF but instead to assist processing large numbers of
people. MTR and KCR have one overlapping station - Kowloon Tong which has
separate barriers for each system ie you leave one then enter another -
making the use of the Octopus and Common Stored Value Tickets possible for
statistical purposes. Also because they have a distance based system - you
enter the station - the ticket remembers where you got on. When you get off
the ticket machine calculates the fare from where you got on to that place
and deducts it from the value of the ticket ALSO storing your journey for
planning purposes. We can't have separate barriers in Melbourne because:
Loop stations platforms one and 2, and 3 and four are shared by each
company. If they were the other way round eg platforms one and 2 hillside, 3
and 4 bayside you could put barriers between them. Richmond you could do it.
Spencer St you could possibly do it and Flinders St with some careful
placement of the barriers you could do it.
Anyway our civilised peers weren't trying to cut STAFF because they aren't
and don't need to be anti-union the way Kennett and co are.


Paul Dwerryhouse <paul@xenu.ee.mu.oz.au> wrote in message
7tp7e3$22n$1@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU">news:7tp7e3$22n$1@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU...
> "WhaleOilBeefHooked" <daproc@spambait.umpires.com> writes:
>
> >No - you can argue the above until you are blue in the face. The facts
are
> >that the majority of people are obstinate and do not like change. If it
can
> >be done in other cities, it can be done in Melbourne. Or are you saying
> >Melbourne is different (if so, that is why we cannot have DOO in Sydney).
>
> When I was in Sydney, I saw just as many people wandering through open
> gates without putting their tickets in, as I see in Melbourne...
>
> It's not obstinacy. It's a lack of interest.
>
>
> --
> "The growing use of e-mail, not to mention Web-page   |   Paul Dwerryhouse
> publishing, threatens to reverse the trend towards    |_
paul@xenu.ee.mu.oz.au
> illiteracy among the supposedly educated without at the |___    Melbourne,
> same time improving their spelling". -- Michael Swaine, DDJ |   Australia.




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