By MICHELLE HERBISON
THE abolition of short-term bus tickets could have caused a recent “spate of outages” on Geelong buses’ myki systems, according to Public Transport Users’ Association.
Convenor Paul Westcott told the Independent he had seen three times in one week bus drivers “wave” passengers on board because myki systems were out of order.
“I’ve had lots of reports of buses with inoperative myki systems on board. I don’t know whether it’s coincidence or not but since short-term tickets were abolished the system on buses seems to have become very flaky.”
Myki became the only ticketing system on Geelong buses last month.
Mr Westcott said myki also suffered outages when Geelong buses introduced the system four years ago.
“In the early days drivers didn’t understand the myki system, so they tended to freak out if it went belly up. But they can reboot the system on the bus so they gradually seemed to get on top of that.
“All of a sudden there’s a spate of outages on the buses and I can’t help thinking it’s to do with short-term tickets.”
Mr Westcott criticised authorities for abolishing short-term tickets and called for their reinstatement.
“It’s crazy for a system that’s costing $1.3 billion to not have what every other ticketing system in the world of any note has – a short-term option. In London, Hong Kong, Singapore or wherever you can still get a single trip ticket if that’s all you want.”
A Public Transport Victoria spokesperson said bus operators reported that less than one in three myki systems were out of service every week.
“If a device does go out of order a service request is raised by the operator and attended to so it can be returned back to service.”
The spokesperson said a more than doubling of myki “touch-ons” on Geelong buses from 37,000 to 78,000 since short-term tickets were removed indicated the system was “working well”.
“Bus operators in Geelong and their passengers have expressed greater levels of satisfaction with the system since short-term tickets have been removed.”
