MyPlaceAmongstTheTrees

I’ve been living in Melbourne for 12 years now, and only recently have I had to use the public transport system on a regular basis.  Given that I now catch a train to work, I purchase a monthly metcard to save some money.

At the train stations, we find these nice stainless steel ticket validation machines that are there to help ensure that we do the right thing.

On the trains, I see stickers and signs everywhere declaring to those that choose to evade fares that they are doing not only themselves an injustice, but me too.

Why then, after 2 weeks of use, and careful storage of my metcard, doesn’t the damn thing work anymore?

Twice every day now, I have to ask a brightly vested connex employee to let me through.  They do so without even looking at my metcard.

When I return home in the evening, most of the time at least one of the validation machines is off, allowing all-and-sundry through with, or without a metcard.

It seems to me that the ticketing technology is flawed, and unreliable, so much so that it effectively encourages a certain amount of the fare evasion.

Apart from a general expectation that people will do the right thing, how can Connex and the government expect people to work within this flawed system without some resistance.

Like many things in life, if something works properly, you will use it honestly.  If something causes irritation often enough, the natural desire is to react to that irritation.

I’d be interested to know just how many people out there find that their metcard stops working before it’s expiry date/time, and what they end up doing (if anything) about it.