[Melb] $3.30 tickets almost useless

[Peter Parker <parkerp@alphalink.com.au>]

The much vaunted $3.30 off-peak tickets offered to 
train travellers appear to be almost useless for most
off-peak commuters.  

I rang Caulfield Station and found out the following:

1. The tickets are only for train travel - there are no 
transfers to trams or buses.

2. The availability of the tickets is extremely poor. The
only place they can be obtained is Premium stations. Metcard
vending machines or Metcard outlets do not stock them.  Most
people would need to travel to a Premium station to buy one.
If they pay a fare for this trip they lose much of the savings
this ticket confers; if they don't they risk fines for 
fare dodging.

3. It gets even worse.  You MUST know the day
that you intend to travel at the time of ticket PURCHASE, not
at the time of ticket USE, as with a Metcard.  This is OK for people
who have regular off-peak travel patterns (eg work), but much off-peak
travel is discretionary, and may be made on the spur of the moment. 
If you do not travel on the day that the ticket is valid for, no
refunds will be payable.  

Lower fares to encourage off-peak travel is a good idea, but the
implementation is very poor.  The above three problems identified
above are so severe that the $3.30 ticket will be a poor choice
for the very types of off-peak travel that the ticket is supposed to
encourage.  


Peter Parker