PT 2008

Well it’s now official: as of 2008, bicycles are banned on peak hour services on all public transport throughout Victoria. As previously discussed, it seems like a particularly idiotic idea. Surprisingly, it seems to have come about with the support of Bicycle Victoria, while the PTUA is the only source on the record against the changes. This seems somewhat counter-intuitive… BV is supposed to represent riders, while the PTUA all public transport users.

Anyway, closer sources (I won’t name names, no matter how tall) suggest this limp-wristed and mal-aimed politiking is symptomatic of BV. They won’t be getting my dollars any time soon.

But there’s one other worrying issue that has appeared with the release of the 2008 Fares and Ticketing Manual; namely Myki.

1. It cost how much??

Five. Hundred. Million. Dollars. That’s half a billion. To put that into perspective, that’s 1.3x the current tax payers PT annual budget. Yes, that’s right, we could have had free PT for 1.3 years.

But hang on… now they want… what??

2. It doesn’t actually work

It was due in March ‘07. But “problems with the readers” (they didn’t actually read the cards) meant it’s been delayed until at least June ‘08. (I suspect there’s some electrical engineer sitting in a shiny new office somewhere that isn’t Kamco thinking gleefully too himself “I TOLD THEM THEY NEEDED TO TEST IT OUT BEFORE COSTING THAT SHIT”)

3. Privacy

This is a big one for me. Concession card holders, students, and regular users who want bulk savings will have to buy personalised Myki’s. Every time you swipe a big computer somewhere will log your name, your address, your location, the time and date, and your destination. And that’s before we start using Myki as portable credit @ 7/11 and all those station side vendors. Quite a neat little marketing database. It probably doesn’t matter much, but anyone who worries about exactly what Google is doing with all those search terms; or maybe what Centrelink would do if they found out you spent 4 nights a week ‘not at home’, is probably feeling a little unnerved. I’m sure the data is in safe, thoughtful, calm, non-political hands.

More over @ it takes a lot to laugh, it takes a train to cry…

Over and out.