Fare Free Friday
With public transport free today, it looks like some are taking advantage — there seemed to be more Seniors on the train this morning, enjoying a free trip into the city (even though it’s only $3.40 normally).
But overall the train wasn’t markedly more crowded than usual, and it’s not like everyone abandoned their cars for the day.
Latrobe Street, 9:30am
Many simply don’t have PT that is anywhere near time-competitive with driving, even if it’s free.
So what’s the real cost of today’s Fare Free Friday (making up for, as one wag put it, No Trains Tuesday)?
The Minister said it would be “something upwards of $1 million”. I think it’s closer to two million.
How much is fare revenue?
Fare revenue formulas have changed now, and I haven’t dug around to get more recent exact figures, but the old formula from last year is a quick easy way of checking it. The old formula was a 40/40/20 split; 40% to Connex, 40% to Yarra Trams, and 20% to the government to pay for buses.
Page 7 of Track Record 40 (July-Sep 2009, the last full quarter before the new contracts came in) shows a farebox payment of $60.95m to Connex for the quarter ending Sep-09, that being their 40% share.
That makes total metropolitan revenue for the quarter about $152.4 million, or about $609 million per year. (One could use the exact payments made to them during 2009, but there’s a steady upward trend as patronage increases, so it’s probably fairer to use the last quarter figure x 4.)
Page 8 also shows the V/Line fare revenue, which is $18.19m for the quarter (again, it’s trending upwards), or about $73 million for a year, making total metropolitan+V/Line revenue about $682 million.
So how much is free travel costing today?
Divide that by 364 days per year (because Christmas Day is always free) and you get $1.87 million — and that assumes that weekday revenue is the same as weekend, which it isn’t.
How about we assume that weekday revenue is 50% higher than weekend (though it’s probably much higher). Taking into account ten public holidays, that would make it $2.09 million for a weekday, and $1.39 million for a weekend day.
One could theorise about how many people will inadvertently touch-on or validate and end up paying, and how many weekly/monthly/yearly and V/Line ticketholders will be claiming their free day’s travel.
And one could also theorise that Authorised Officers (who check tickets) may not be rostered-on, or may take the day off, since they would have nothing to do — though in fact a large number of them help with general customer service at big events like tonight’s football (another reason more revenue will be lost today than the average day) and planned disruptions for improvement works.
Some people may have moved their trips/outings/errands from another day to today, adding to the lost revenue.
All in all I think it’s not unrealistic to say it’s probably around $2 million in cost to run PT free today.
Could the money be spent better? I have no doubt people will claim their compensation, and some will enjoy travelling free today. And politically, the government had to eat humble pie. But I wonder if that $2 million might have been better spent on maintenance or upgrades, or planning to make the network more resilient to be able to isolate faults better in the future.
(Heck, a few more free days would pay for a station at Southland.)
Another thing: the free PT debate
The above figure of $682 million per year is the shortfall you’d need to make up if you made public transport free all the time. Less costs of Authorised Officers (inspectors) and running the ticket system ($135 million per year for the next ten years, and theoretically about $50 million after that). Let’s say about $500 million per year in funding you’d have to find to make the system free.
And as illustrated by the picture above, plenty of people would still drive — even into the CBD, because they don’t have good enough services to use, at any price.
- PTUA: Myth: Making public transport free will encourage use
- Weekly/Monthly/Yearly and V/Line ticketholders: Claim your compensation
Tags: Metro, public transport, V/Line
13 comments
The stolen car dream, and Neighbourhood Watch
The stolen car dream
I was going to visit my old uni mate Brian (who actually lives in Florida, though I saw him a few weeks ago when he recently visited Melbourne again). In the dream, he was staying at my mum’s house in Hampton. I parked in the usual spot when visiting her, and dropped something off to him, then went back to the car to find it had been stolen.
I also noticed my key remote appeared to unlock a nearby dumped white Mercedes, which had been left blocking half the driveway.
Brian then appeared, with a very heavy bag full of gym equipment. I told him about the car having gone missing, and wondered which number you ring the police on (not the emergency 000 number, I guessed).
I walked with him up the road towards the station. He said he was going to the gym — I remarked it’s the same one my mum and her partner use.
Probable influences: Brian’s recent visit; my mum joining the gym; arrival of a letter from AAMI, probably the car insurance renewal; a Neighbourhood Watch newsletter arriving the other day noting the emergency number.
Neighbourhood Watch
Neighbourhood Watch seems to be on the decline, which is kind of a shame. While I’ve never been to a meeting (they usually clash with other things), I think they do good work.
But every so often there’ll be some clanger in their newsletter. Our local one has faithfully printed the # 9 0 urban myth, as well as claimed that a mobile phone left with an uncharged battery could somehow call emergency numbers (confused I think with the fact that a mobile phone without a SIM card can do so).
They also claimed that dialling the emergency number could get through even where there’s no signal from any carrier, as if that magically convert your phone into a super-powered satellite phone (in truth, dialling emergency will hook into any phone company’s signal, not necessarily your own).
This week it suggested that people program the emergency 000 number into their mobile phones.
Uhh… I don’t think that’s a good idea. On almost every phone I’ve seen, it takes way more keypresses to retrieve a programmed number and then dial it than to simply press 0 0 0 [dial].
It is possible on my phone to program in a single key shortcut (eg hold down 1 to get voicemail), but I don’t think that’s a good idea either; you’d be in danger of pressing it down accidentally.
If you don’t always touch-off, it often doesn’t matter
The Myki mantra of “touch-on, touch-off” will reach fever-pitch as it gets pushed across the PT network.
And people will say it’s a hassle. Which it is. The touch is (if everything works okay) quicker and easier than inserting a Metcard into a slot, but having to do it twice per trip negates that somewhat.
If you’re travelling into the CBD by train, the touch-on/off is no more awkward than using Metcard — touch-on at your local station, touch-off to get out the gate in the CBD. (The current retro-fitted gates are a bit temperamental, but will be replaced once Metcard is phased-out.)
But on the way home, you touch-on to get in the gate in the CBD, but they say you’re meant to touch-off after you get off at your station. Along with everybody else who is also trying to exit the station at the same time. And on busy buses and trams it can be a hassle.
Already I’ve seen an account of a passenger getting stressed because she couldn’t touch-off on a tram.
Always best to touch-on, to make sure your card is valid and your fare is paid. But here’s the thing: in a lot of cases it makes no monetary difference if you don’t touch-off.
(The following relates to Melbourne metropolitan services only. V/Line is different. And the following does not constitute advice or a recommendation from the PTUA, nor even a recommendation from me! I’m just making a point.)
Myki Passes
With a Myki loaded with a Pass (equivalent to a Weekly/Monthly/Yearly, and generally cheaper if you’re travelling four times a week or more), the system will assume that, if you touched-on in a zone covered by the pass, that you travelled only in that zone. So if you only ever travel in zone 1, and you have a zone 1 pass, and you don’t touch-off, you won’t get charged any more.
Note: if you travel outside your usual zone, then you do need to touch-off, to ensure you pay for the correct extra amount (off your Myki Money balance). If you don’t, you’re stealing a fare, and you can get fined for fare evasion.
Myki Money default fares
It’s important to understand what a default fare means. The default fare is charged when the system can’t work out where you travelled to, so it assumes you travelled as far as was possible. On a bus (or tram), this means to the end of the line. On metropolitan trains, this means two zones. It’s not a fee on top of the fare; it’s a default fare.
[At one stage they proposed to sting you an extra 20 cents, and this was in place in regional cities for a while. They've seen sense.]
So, if you’re making a two-zone trip, you don’t actually need to touch-off. The fare charged is the same whether you do or not.
Default fares only apply to the two hour trip, by the way. Despite what some reports might say, you can’t get stung for a $9.94 zone 1+2 daily fare on a single trip. You’d only get that if you took two trips in a day (not in the same two hour period).
[Note that according to the official Fares and Ticketing Manual, during the transition stage as Myki rolls-out, the default fare on buses and trams is a single zone, regardless of where it goes, but what I'm writing about here is the bigger picture, eg once the system is fully running.]
Myki Money on buses
If you’re making a single zone trip on a bus that only travels in one zone, likewise, you don’t really need to touch-off. The system should charge you the same single-zone fare whether you do or not.
[Caution: I wouldn't be surprised if this is problematic in the first few months of bus operation. It's also possible there might also be issues when buses are through-routed, for instance the zone 1-only bus 223 to Highpoint often runs through to the zone 1+2 route 215 to Caroline Springs.]
Myki Money on trams
Obviously this one is easy now they’ve officially said you don’t need to touch-off on trams. The system will assume a zone 1 fare, and the zone 1/2 overlap has been extended to the end of the four lines that previously were in zone 2-only. (If you travel on trams entirely within the overlap and want the cheaper zone 2 fare, then you do still need to touch-off.)
The fare cap
The Weekend (and public holiday) fare cap is $3. If your travel costs were going to go above $3 (which is well under the full fare single zone daily rate), then again, you don’t really gain anything by touching-off.
Stats
I’m sure any Departmental beancounters reading this are appalled.
What about statistics? Don’t they gather lots of precise data about where everybody’s travelling from and to, and boost services accordingly?
Well, obviously they won’t be able to do that on trams, since most people won’t touch-off.
And the thing is, the crowding that we have on the system now is not a statistical issue. They get very good train system statistics from the old Metcard system during morning peak (the most crowded part of the day), because most passengers validate at their origin station and then again to exit through station gates in the CBD. So odds-on they know exactly where you travelled, and when.
The question is whether they use that information to plan and fund improvements. In the past, they haven’t. In fact they ignored their own report from 2003 warning them to buy new trains.
So while it’s true Myki is likely to provide better statistics, better statistics are not really the problem.
The problem is poor planning, and an unwillingness to invest.
That’s changed recently to an extent, of course, and certainly Myki touch stats are likely to be used to some extent, just as Metcard validation stats are now, but you’ll continue to see people with clipboards around on the system doing the real counting of passenger loads.
I suppose the question is: should passengers go out of their way to touch-off when they don’t have to, just so the statistics will be a little more accurate?
In summary
It will cost you no more if you don’t touch off, when:
- Travelling on a Myki Pass entirely within the zone(s) covered by the Pass
- Travelling on a tram within zone 1
- Making a zone 1+2 trip on a tram, train or bus
So what should I do?
I’m not going to tell you what to do. And I don’t expect you to try and remember all this stuff and know when you can get away without touching-off.
It’s probably easiest to just follow the official line and touch-on, touch-off every time (and don’t bother with touch-off on zone 1 trams). Other than slowing you down a bit, it won’t hurt, and it will ensure that you don’t get stung with an extra default fare accidentally. (If everything works okay, that is. At the moment there are glitches.)
Perhaps in time, if and when all the Myki machinery is humming, and plenty of scanners have been put in, and the touch-on/off sounds have been differentiated so people don’t even need to look as they pass by them, and everyone’s used to it and has mastered touching without even breaking step, then touch-on/touch-off might not seem so bad.
(You know, in London, under some circumstances to avoid a higher fare, you have to touch your Oyster card during your journey. No really, it’s true.)
- Reference: Victorian Fares and Ticketing Manual (myki)
Update: Summary (above) added.
Tags: Myki, public transport
21 comments
Going digital
I finally got myself organised for digital TV, including Thursday night’s launch of ABC News 24.
(The opening minutes of ABC News 24, posted by Adam Dimech)
I’d been putting off buying a set-top box, remembering the rule that technology always gets cheaper over time. I was waiting for an HD set-top box with USB recording to get under $100. Kogan has come close: its PVR is $95 including delivery. But it hasn’t had outstanding reviews.
An HD tuner was critical because ABC News 24 is the first channel to be exclusively available in HD. The ABC’s FAQ mentions why:
The ABC only has a specific amount of digital spectrum in which to broadcast all its services. To launch ABC News 24, we need the spectrum currently being used to broadcast our ABC1 HD channel. By law the ABC also must provide its main channel, ABC1, in standard definition.
So while I was looking around for a suitable box, Zazz, the mob who sell one thing every day, came up with their offering, at $78 (including delivery), the DVBT3858 from some unknown brand called Proton. I couldn’t find any reviews online, but one thing I do like about the Zazz guys (apart from their funny sales-pitches) is that they are fairly forthright with their comments on what they’re selling. Discussion in their forum led me to the conclusion that it was worth a punt — for instance, they noted that the pause live TV function is “somewhat limited” and “a wee bit quirky”, but they reckoned the channel change response time was good, and the recorded files can be transferred over to a computer (thanks in part to a lack of Freeview certification).
Since it’s arrived, I’ve been very happy with it. Installing was straightforward, and the only change to the configuration I had to make was to switch it from NTSC to PAL. (My TV works with NTSC, but PAL is understandably less fuzzy.)
Apart from the manual being next-to-useless (but the menus are pretty easy to understand), and one attempt to record MythBusters that didn’t seem to work (haven’t looked to see why yet), it’s been smooth sailing, happily browsing the digital channels, and I’ve got it and the media PC collaboratively recording the news each night in case I’m not home. It also plays files from elsewhere, so is also effectively replacing the media player box I also got off Zazz, though it seems to lose sync on some of the files I’ve tried.
I’m pretty happy with this purchase, and it’ll keep us going if we still have the old analogue TV after the analogue shutoff reaches Melbourne in December 2013.
Zazz, of course, don’t have it on sale now, but may do so again in the future, and of course it may pop up elsewhere.
And yes, I’ve been enjoying the extra channels, including ABC2′s just-started repeats of The Goodies. And ABC News 24, of course.
- Dec 2010: Update on the Proton digital STB — there are a few niggles with it that I’ve found over the months. It doesn’t appear to properly handle summer time; you have to set the time manually. Occasionally there’s a few seconds of lag between sound and vision when switching channels (esp to an HD channel).
- Another issue I’ve found (probably not a STB problem per se) is that the .ts files it produces are difficult to convert into other formats. They all seem to play on Windows 7 Media Player, but conversion programs I’ve tried sometimes have issues. In the worst case scenario, I’ve resorted to playing the file in Media Player and capturing a new video file of it in CamStudio. With the right settings, the quality from this is surprisingly good.
Uh oh
Every time your train is stuck inexplicably in a tunnel, every time a service is cancelled, the experience is not just eroding your quality of life. It is eating away at our city’s global competitiveness.
– Boris Johnson, Mayor of London
A power problem at Southern Cross Station has caused this, this morning:
(Somehow I doubt the Craigieburn and Williamstown lines actually have “Good service”)
Update 9:15. I went to the station, quite prepared to turn around and go and work at home if the trains were up the creek. Not too many people were waiting.
Around 8:25 an express came through. Some bloody stupid woman ran in front of it on the level crossing. It missed her by metres. The driver stopped after passing the crossing — I wouldn’t blame him if he’d shut his eyes and wasn’t sure if he’d hit her. Then he kept going.
The 8:31 turned up a minute late, and got a good run into Richmond, where it filled up. Some delays in the tunnel, but arrived at Flagstaff 8 minutes late, not too bad.
Glenhuntly station carpark half empty, Dandenong Road not moving, Alexandra Avenue and Punt Road barely moving — I’m guessing a lot of people avoided the trains (perhaps unnecessarily) due to tales of doom and gloom and drove instead, causing problems there.
Update Wednesday morning: It should be emphasised that while my trip in was relatively, smooth, it’s obvious from reports from around the place that many, many people were severely disrupted. As compensation the government has announced all metropolitan travel (train, tram and bus) is free on Friday. V/Line passengers with a ticket valid yesterday can claim a free travel voucher, and Metropolitan holders of weekly or longer passes can also claim a free ticket (on top of the usual monthly compensation that will most likely apply).
Myki trams and buses: day one
A journo mentioned a certain MP this morning was quoting some transport-related sections my blog — presumably the favourable ones, such as the post that talked about the Myki transition plan. While my posts here do not necessarily represent PTUA policy, I suppose this blog is part of the mix of being an advocate — so I don’t have a big problem with that, provided it’s taken in context.
So, with that in mind, Myki is now valid on trams and buses.
So far today I’ve taken three bus rides:
On the first, everything worked fine. Scanners okay, and my touch-on and off charged me correctly: nothing, because I already have a zone 1 pass (eg a monthly) on the card.
On the second, the scanners worked okay, but as I touched-off, it said it had charged me 6 cents. This is the surcharge for using zone 2 on a weekend, when you have a zone 1 pass. The problem is, that section of the bus route is in the zone 1+2 overlap, so it shouldn’t have charged me anything. 6 cents isn’t a big deal, but if it were a weekday, it would have been an extra $2.02, which certainly is a big deal.
On the third, none of the three scanners on the bus were working.
As Maxwell Smart would say, “One out of three ain’t bad.”
I suppose it was inevitable that there were going to be glitches, and this is only a small sample, but really, it’s not very impressive.
Others out there on buses and trams are having similar experiences. It’s working fine for some, but some are getting free rides, and some scanners aren’t working.
Hopefully these problems will be ironed out quickly. Passengers have enough challenges without dealing with a problematic ticketing system.
Update Monday:
Tram ride 1: Tried to touch-on through my wallet, which normally works fine for me. Instead it said “Multiple cards detected.” Took the card out and tried again, and it worked okay. Didn’t bother to touch-off. ‘Cos you don’t have to anymore, right?
Tram ride 2: No response through wallet. Took it out of wallet (and left it out for subsequent rides), it decided to touch me off. A hangover from the previous ride? Correctly didn’t charge me anything.
I didn’t bother to touch it again — I have a Pass loaded, so I was paid up, but potentially someone on Myki Money (pay-as-you-go) who was taking a second trip more than two hours after the first, might not notice, and might not then be holding a valid ticket. This is another reason why the sounds need to be changed, but also if you touch onto a different tram from your previous ride, it should realise that’s the case, and treat it as another touch-on.
(It’s possible it was the same tram, as it was on the same tram route, a couple of hours after the first ride. But the tram was certainly on a different trip.)
Bus ride 1: Route 401 from the hospital precinct to North Melbourne station. Packed with students. Who says people don’t use buses? Many of them appeared to board without bothering to validate/touch/show a ticket, which is probably not a problem given 99% of them would get off the bus at the station and then need a ticket to get through the gates. I touched my Myki on and off, and all appeared to be well.
Bus ride 2: Route 219 from North Melbourne into the City. Touch-on worked okay, quite fast. Touch-off quite slow; I made sure to touch-off well before the bus stopped, so as not to delay it. Appeared to correctly charge me (no charge on top of my existing Zone 1 Pass).
So, 3/4 for those samples.
Update Monday night
A request for the 6 cent overcharge to be refunded (submitted via the web site) was processed; it should show up on my card within 24 hours.
I should add that travel on trains with Myki has worked fine today… as it has for months.
Tags: buses, Myki, public transport, trams
14 comments
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Have disabled the “Like” comments feature, after previously trying it with Like/Dislike, then disabling Dislike. Few were using it; bit of a waste of time for a site like this I suspect.
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Tags: blog
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Myki arrives on trams and buses
The government announced today that Myki will be valid on trams and buses from Sunday.
Finally, Myki goes multi-modal in Melbourne!
Assuming they stick to the rollout plan they had last year, which was pretty logical, it’ll go like this:
(Graphic originally from the Myki web site. Taken down but re-posted via Whirlpool by Mathew.)
Ignore the dates — as of Sunday we’ll be at stage 1, where it’s valid on trams, trains and buses. (I guess that means all this year we’ve been at stage zero.) It’s only after that happens that they can seriously start switching people from Metcard to Myki.
So next they’ll increase availability via retailers. And they’ll start switching station booking offices (line by line) and station vending machines from Metcard to Myki, and then they’ll start switching buses and trams. It’s a deliberately slow rollout, to gradually increase the number of people using the new system vs the old, and so they can deploy the Myki Mates along the way to show people how it works.
As lines switch they’ll start taking out the Metcard vending machines, but existing Metcard tickets will still be valid until at least Easter next year, depending on how smoothly it goes in the next few months. (Yearly tickets will get switched over later this year.)
So next week they may not immediately be actively pushing people to switch to Myki. As such, there’s no free Myki card offer right now, though I’d expect one in the coming months when the next push starts. So no rush to buy a card if you didn’t get one earlier when it was free.
V/Line will come later. Which is fair enough; doing all remaining modes in one hit would be unwise given I’d expect some glitches, just like there were on day one of the trains. Trains are mostly running smoothly now — perhaps the biggest problem is the gates and standalone scanners have inconsistent response times.
So, what’ll happen on Sunday, and on Monday? Probably not much. I expect a few extra people will use it, but most still won’t have cards.
Ticket checks
At the doorstop at lunchtime, the Opposition was claiming that inspectors can’t check Myki cards. That may have been the case until recently, but I know for a fact at least some of them are now carrying portable readers, because I encountered two of them (on two separate trains) on Saturday. They successfully checked my Myki and Jeremy’s. I asked one of them to try it from within my wallet (it works on the scanners if you’re careful) and it worked. So fare evaders shouldn’t count on free rides just because they’re carrying a Myki.
The biggest remaining flaw
Now that they’ve got rid of touch-off on trams, and assuming everything else works, I think the biggest flaw now in the design of the system, is the scanner sounds. There’s one beep if you touch-on, and the same for touch-off; two beeps each for concession.
Distinguishing concession is pointless: you know what sort of ticket you have, and inspectors will use the lights on top of the gates to know who they should check for concession entitlement. Instead it should be different tones for touch-on and touch-off, so people don’t have to stop and look at the screen to make sure they’ve done the right thing.
Anyway…
Anyway, I still don’t think it was worth the money — there were bigger priorities. But the money’s been spent now, so hopefully it’ll be smooth going from here.
- Still confused about how Myki works? Check the PTUA’s Q+A page
Tags: Myki, public transport
27 comments
