Hey, my new myki works

As I expected, when I touch on I only get reprimanded with a red light if I
forgot to touch off last time. I don't get charged extra because it's pre-paid
for a year of maximum travel. This is good news because so far I've forgotten to
touch off most times. Decades of just getting off a bus or walking out of a
station are hard to shake, but people with the more flexible type who are
getting charged the maximum fare each time they forget will be very fast
learners I suspect.

I;ve never used one but if it is a yearly ticket why would you ever
bother to touch off?

- ff

Well, it's all new and exciting so I'm trying out everything. :-)

Correct. On any Pass (weekly or 28-365 days) you won't get charged
anything extra if you don't touch-off -- even if the Pass is for a
single zone.

Daniel

What do you need to see in order to see a successful card read? Does it beep or
flash or something?

And how do the Gestapo thugs check that you're "touched" on properly? Do they
carry card readers or something? And that begs another question - where did they
find transit security people bright enough to be able to use modern technology?

When I was at Spencer Street Station on Monday most people coming in and out of
the station were using the older ticketting systems.

As we were Vline pax we merely 'flashed' our tickets at them. Thing is, the
tickets could've been expired as they didn't stop us to peruse them closely.

Final question - when we left Spencer Street our train turned up from the
western end of the station. I don't know if this Vline service goes anywhere
else, so where would they have taken the train to turn it around?

It's destination was Gippsland, east of Melbourne, btw...

--
Scientists have discovered a food that diminishes a woman's sex drive by 90%.It's called a Wedding Cake.

It depends on the reader. At the gates at city stations you get nothing except
it opens the gate if it works. The proper myki readers at stations beep, tell
you "Touch on successful", and give a combination of lights. I'm still
forgetting to touch off so I keep getting a red light when I next touch on, and
I'm told that it's deducting $0.00 for that. The meanings of the lights are
here:
http://www.myki.com.au/Using-myki/Touching-on---off/Touching-on-off/default.aspx

I forget if the bus readers are any different.

Yes. I saw them using it before I got mine. It will be interesting to see what
they do when they find I haven't touched on (which I also forget to do a lot).
Since I've pre-paid my fare I'm not taking a freebie or costing them money, but
I wonder if their gizmo will detect that.

Good question. They do tend to go for bouncer, biffo types. Some are female
though. They probably do all the thinking.

Yes. It seems that still hardly anyone has a myki.

That's probably a good fare evasion tactic (er, for those who engage in such an
activity). I use VLine too and sometimes travel on Metro on the ticket. It's
never been examined at the ticket gate, but inspectors might take a close look.

I don't know. I suppose they can take a train from anywhere to go anywhere.

Ive been checked twice on the Werribee line in the last few weeks -
first time the inspector was satisfied by my production of a Myki card,
second time he ran it over a handheld scanner.

--
TonyB

That's because they're old gates with Myki bits added inside. The
Proper Myki gates have a display similar to the ones on poles at
smaller stations. You can see a few of them at Parliament (south
entrance) and Melbourne Central (Swanston St entrance).

The displays on the bus, tram and (small) station readers are all
pretty much the same.

It's said to be about 15%.

Some are through-routed from east to west, and vice-versa. Yes, this
is commonly done for trains arriving at the westernmost platforms
(13+14 IIRC) at Southern Cross.

Daniel

Say, a train that's come in from Ballarat, then, would continue on to Sale or
wherever?

Still and all, while we were waiting for our train, the service in and out of
Spencer seemed to run smoothly and lots of people getting on and off.

Of course it was only 3pm so it was not peak hour.

You have to wait 30 seconds. It's to prevent you accidentally touching
the card twice when you didn't mean to. Obviously you've just seen a
circumstance where you *do* need to touch it again.

This is another reason why they should change the tones so that touch-
on and touch-off sound different.

Daniel

With all these bugs in the system I wonder how many people are being pinged by
the goons.

Tomorrow I'm travelling to the city on the Metlink. I looked up what we're
allowed to carry on as luggage on the website.

The info there talks about not being allowed to carry surfboards on board the
trains and other things. However, for luggage, it refers to what you do with
"checked luggage" on Vline.

Fine if I'm travelling in to the city on Vline but I'm not.

So, I called Metlink and asked the question. The woman said that "you'll be
fine". Just ensure that you keep the luggage near you and to ensure that it
doesn't interfere with other passengers".

So, hopefully, if said goons are on board when we are that they too will be OK
with us and our luggage.

After all, what's the point of having public transport if you can't use it to
get to your flight, ship or whatever with your luggage?

If they do ping us then we'll take it all the way in court, that much is
certain.

You must have missed the post where
Danial the PTUA explained that is
a system design, it is not a bug,

Cheers,

Tom [Tom Perrett] <to...@st.net.au>

Then it's a design flaw. The bottom line is that for a period of time in this
circumstance you cannot touch on, and so might be forced to travel illegally.
Few people will know about the 30 seconds, so they will try it once or twice and
give up. Even if they know, they might miss their train in the meantime. This is
by design?

Scenario: You forgot to touch off earlier. You want to catch another train and
you see it coming and make a run for it. You've just got time to touch on before
you get on, but it says "Touch off". Unless you are really paying attention
you'll think you touched on and get pinged on the train. Otherwise you'll see
the "Touch off" and you try again and get "Already touched off". At that point
95% of people will get on the train anyway, ready to be pinged.

BTW, there is myki Users Group here. It has registered users posting to it, but
no apparent way to belong to it:
http://www.myki.org.au

It appears you are not aware of a very interesting point - the
inspectors cannot check whether you have used your mickeymouse card on
the trip, all that they can do is check if you have mickeymouseMONEY on
your card!

So, keep it topped up, and only touch on when you feel like it, and
remember to touch off, unless you are on a Zone 1 tram, of course, don't
worry about the touch off then.

Cheers,
Gary B-)

Inspected, frog-marched off the train and booked.

Mine has no money on it, since it is pre-paid for a fixed period. Every time I
use it the balance shown is $0.00, and each time I forgot to touch off it tells
it's deducting $0.00. But when it was checked by the inspector it passed muster.

I have found an inconsistency I haven't figured out (but my guess is it's
another 30-second rule). I have received two different messages after touching
on twice:
"Already touched on"
"Touch off. Change of mind."

Incorrect. They can see if you've touched-on, if you have money and/or
a Pass on the card, etc

Daniel

I forgot to mention earlier that it was the thinking female inspector checking
the mykis and the goons doing the Metcards. :-)

Who did they hire to write the code that would fit onto the readers they
use?

Or did they ditch the ones that wouldn't work and buy some from China
that do?

It's not like the idiots that they hired here to do it have a clue, it's
a bigger rip-off than the original metcard, which should have been
called: "Hire lots and lots of managers on non-performance-related
contracts so they can each purchase a new laser printer every week
because you can never have enough laser printers, you know! O, you want
to know where they've all gone? We're sure they're around here,
somewhere"-card.

Cheers,
Gary B-)

It's highly unlikely that whoever wrote it had any trouble fitting it in. A
mobile phone is thousands of times more complicated.

A report in the paper today says that these readers don't even have enough
battery power to get through one shift.

Apparently the operators of said readers don't have the brain power to get
through one shift, either...

I was checked again a couple of days ago, this time by a male. I pulled out my
myki and he said "Thanks" and wanted nothing more to do with it.