I want my new ticketing system now!

Grrrr, why do public transport things get me so wound up and passionate.  Passengers Face $500m Ticket Chaos. 

MELBOURNE is facing a public transport ticketing disaster, with the ageing Metcard system close to collapse and the state's transport officials considering abandoning the troubled $500 million myki smartcard system.

How difficult can it be to implement a new public transport ticketing system?  Brrrring Brrrrring....Hello London Transport, can we copy your Oyster ticketing system please?  Or Hong Kong or Singapore, or any number of matured systems.  I can't believe Melbourne/Victoria's ticketing needs are so unique.

I guess one problem must be to take advantage of the latest technology, which maybe no current ticketing system uses, but you might never get a system implemented if you look for the latest technology.

I remember reading about and following the British Army's Bowman communication system.  It's taken them nearly 20 years to procure and replace their battlefield communication system.  Amongst other problems, is every time they procure the system, the technology moves faster than the procurement procedure, hence Bowman stands for "Better Off With Map and Nokia!".  And they want to pack in the latest technology which sometimes makes the system inoperable in the field.

I'm not sure what you do to incorporate the latest technology and have it usable and operable, quickly.  I'm grouchy about it, because I'm excited to use it.  I want a card I put credit on which lets me travel easily on a public transport system, and calculates the lowest price.

Comments

[JodieM]

Hey Tony, you are lucky then that you don't live in Sydney - at least Melbourne have got a ticketing system underway... Sydney got almost there then dumped it - with no plans to do any form of electronic ticketing now. I agree with you - the Oyster won an award recently for being one of the technological things that made the most difference in people's lives (or something like that). Why can't we just get the same thing here - how difficult is it?