Melbourne’s woeful attempt at integrated ticketing -detailed earlier – continues to run into problems.
Final official testing has shown it takes 4 or 5 seconds for the “Myki” card to be recognised by a reader.
This especially means trams will face longer stops as it will take people – who have to use the card getting off as well as on - a while to get through, rather than just hopping off the tram as happens now and letting the tram take off again.
The state’s opposition transport spokesman, Terry Mulder, is having a field day. He’s calling for the project to be halted until all the software issues are fixed. He sums up the latest mess as: “At more than three years late and at least $350 million over budget, myki is rapidly becoming Australia’s most detested, failure-prone plastic card.”
This is an unofficial test of the card:
The scheme is now scheduled to start, at least in Melbourne, sometime at the end of the year which Mulder says it will make it ” an overcooked Christmas turkey.”
“With call centre staff admitting this late December date, it is a shameful attempt to disguise a massive cost blowout in a flawed ticketing system that no one in Victoria requested” – and he added it will be switched on under the “cover” of the quiet holiday period. (Regional trains and buses won’t see it in operation until goodness knows when – sometime next year).
The machines have popped up at railway stations much to commuters’ amusement as they have blue signs above them stating that ‘this machine is currently available for top-up only.’ But the machines are yet to be switched on. The bottom of the sign has a note in a smaller typeface saying ‘this is a temporary sign.’
Mulder has also obtained documents under the Freedom of Information disclosing a serious safety problem with V/Line’s VLocity railcars. This issue had not been made public. The railcars are used between Southern Cross and Ararat, Ballarat, Bendigo, Echuca, Marshall, Sale, Seymour and Traralgon and able to operate at up to 160kmh on some lines.
They show at least two VLocity railcars have experienced severe cracking of brake discs. The documents say this ‘thermal cracking’ is because of increased numbers of passengers. A single VLocity two-carriage railcar may have up to 200 passengers at peak hour.
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- Melbourne’s Mighty myki Mess (Videos) Another worrying example of how we have to be on...
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