[LINK] more myki woes

[Marghanita da Cruz]

Scott Howard wrote:
> On Sun, Dec 27, 2009 at 1:50 AM, Marghanita da Cruz 
> <marghanita at ramin.com.au <mailto:marghanita at ramin.com.au>> wrote:
> 
>     The problem with Sydney/Melbourne buses
>     is the variable distance/routes and that
>     it is collected on the vehicle.
>     [...]
>     A solution for the buses would be to
>     have something Canberra's flat ride system
>     or Perth's 2 hour valid ticket.
> 
> 
> I can't see flat-rate tickets coming to Sydney - there's just too much 
> variability in the distances covered.
> 
> Some individual bus routes in Sydney are over 40KM long, and many of 
> these are very heavily-used routes due to the lack of other forms for 
> public transport (eg, Northern Beaches to the CBD). Charging the same 
> for that 40K journey as a 2KM trip down to the local shops would either 
> mean significantly increasing the short trip pricing, or would result in 
> Sydney Buses requiring significantly more government funding to make up 
> the difference - neither of which seem likely.
> 
> Newcastle also has time-based fares (1/4/24 hours), and when they were 
> introduces there were numerous complaints because of the increased price 
> for shorter trips, however Newcastle has the advantage of not having as 
> many people taking significantly long trips that the flat time-based 
> fares didn't need to be as high as they probably would in Sydney. I'm 
> presuming Canberra and Perth would be in a similar situation. (Swansea 
> to Newcastle is still around 30km, but the number of people using that 
> route is nowhere near as high as from Sydney's Northern Beaches to the CDB)
>

Perth probably has a comparable 
footprint (rather shocking since they 
only have about 1/4 the population). 
People using a timed ticket on a short 
ride get a return journey and commuters 
would buy a weekly pass. It would also 
make sense for the buses from the 
Northern Beaches to feed into Chatswood 
Railway station, rather than the city.

> There are numerous countries in the world that prove that variable fares 
> can work. Take Singapore for example - their EZ-link card can be used on 
> both the MTR (train) and all buses (not to mention at McDonalds and 
> 7-11's). On both the train and buses you hold the card to a reader on 
> both entering and exiting until a "beep" is heard (<1 second). If you 
> fail to "exit", you get charged the maximum for that particular trip.
> 

As I said train users (including 
MRT/Metros and Istanbul Light rail), 
swipe their ticket before and after they 
get off the vehicle - which allows the 
vehicle to continue its journey. Do the 
buses have a locator built into their 
ticket machines, so they can calculate 
distance?

Swiping a bus ticket getting off the bus 
will slow things down even more. Is a 
cash fare available and what is the cost?

> Until recently I had been using the same EZ-Link card since 2002!  Every 
> time I went to Singapore  my card would work as well as the last time, 
> including keeping all of my balance. Earlier this year that card had to 
> be replaced as they are making changes to the cards, but even then it 
> was a simple swap, with my balance being moved to the new card.
> 

Personnally I don't see the problem with 
Sydney Buses Travel 10 tickets. They can 
be shared  unlike Canberra's.

> If Singapore has been doing this for over 8 years (and Hong Kong even 
> longer) there's simply no sensible reason that Sydney can't have 
> something similar...
> 

Noting that the footprint of both 
Singapore and HK is much smaller than 
Sydney. In HK there seem to be only two 
bus fares ($3.70 and $3.40 both 
terminating at a railway station)
<http://www.mtr.com.hk/eng/lr_bus/bus_rf_index.html>

Marghanita
-- 
Marghanita da Cruz
http://ramin.com.au
Tel: 0414-869202