Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair.

As anyone who follows me on twitter knows, I just had a brief trip to Sunny San Francisco (and yes it was sunny... with massive patches of fog drifting in occasionally).  I was very interested to see how well Public Transport worked, but of course San Francisco is home to the Clipper Card.

Clipper Card

Clipper is similar to myki in some ways but very different in others.  You can load "Clipper Cash" and just pay for any trips out of that.  The catch is that Clipper Cash isn't multi modal;  if you take a trip on the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit Subway), and then switch to a bus, you pay a second Fare for the bus.  So there is no such thing as a 2 hour ticket.  You can transfer from one Bus to another, within 90 minutes, but I'm not sure how well this works.  Sometimes I seemed to get the second trip for free, other times I would pay.  If I'd travelled on BART this would have no bearing on what I was charged on a Bus, or the Caltrain.  They are completely separate "agencies" all happy to take cash off the balance of your Clipper Card.

Some agencies (eg BART) also seems to offer passes like myki pass, but getting a pass loaded seems to be a bit of a mystery.  It's also not obvious if a pass covers only certain parts of the system or the entire system or if they use some other method to calculate how it would work.  Needless to say I didn't bother with that and just used Clipper Cash. 

  

BART 

The Clipper Card costs $3.00.  On arrival at San Francisco International Airport we headed to the information desk near the BART station and bought our cards, topping them up with $17.  This was more than enough to get us all the way to Berkeley (an hour trip) for $8.80 each.  The Airport BART is a no brainer, very easy and convenient.

There are no shiny new faregates here.  They all seem ancient and would appear to have had the Clipper Reader retrotfitted as per our Frankenbarriers, though the reader is on top of the gate.  Every read was flawless and fast, no slowness here.  There is a very small screen which shows you the fare you paid and the balance remaining on you card, just two amounts with no indication what they actually mean, but like myki most people don't bother stopping to look at it except Noobs like me!

Topping up at the Vending Machine was a similar process to how we do it, except that you actually have a choice to receive some change if you top-up with cash, though only up to $4.95 (strange amount!).  There appears to be no option to receive a receipt.  I only topped up with cash, and never tried EFT or Credit Card.  

MUNI

Using Clipper on Buses (the system is called "Muni") and also Streetcars (Trams) and another underground Metro System which is essentially underground trams, is even easier:  You pay $2.00 per trip, which is charged when you "Tag on".  There is no need to "Tag off" on Bus, Tram or Metro, the gates just let you out when you approach them in the underground Metro Stations.  When the Metro "Trams" exit out onto the Street, you use the readers on the Tram to Tag on.  Easy.  Again, all readers were lightning fast, and I never had any problem.

CALTRAIN

I also used "Caltrain" which is a Vline style diesel service.  When you Tag on at Caltrain (There are readers throughout the station or on the Platforms), you are charged the maximum fare to the end of the line (which is $12.75).  Then, when you arrive at your destination, Tag off and are credited back the difference.  I wonder if myki should do it like this on Trams and possibly Vline when it starts.  Might make things easier for people to understand rather than charging at Touch off or the next touch on (and getting rid of default fares).

Of course Short Term Tickets are still VERY popular in San Francisco.  You can buy a short term ticket (like a metcard) at the same vending machines as you can top-up your Clipper Card.  On my brief observation, Clipper/STT use is about 50/50.  Most tourists don't seem to bother with Clipper and just buy tickets as they go.  The lesson here for Melbourne is painful, and obvious.   

I didn't actually buy one but on buses I watched people buying tickets, the drivers seem to have almost a mini vending machine which customers feed coins or small notes into and are then sold a ticket, the same on the Streetcard/Trams.  On the Metro, you need to prepurchase your ticket before boarding.  

You can also use Clipper on the famous San Francisco Cable Cars.  It's $6.00 for a one way trip, charged by the conductor to your card from a handheld reader.  

I registered my card on the Clipper Website, again, similar to myki.  All hardwired transactions (eg from readers which weren't on a vehicle like a bus or tram) appeared almost instantly on the website, no 24 hour or longer wait.  You download transactions in a PDF.  

Online top-up apparently can take up to 5 days(!).  Autoload would appear to be very popular.  

Due to the nature of the separate transit agencies in San Francisco and the non multi-modality, if you are travelling a lot it can get very expensive very quickly.  In the 6 days I was there I was travelling all over the place, and I spent a grand total of $110.50 (ouch, seems expensive!)  Though having said that, having to buy separate tickets for each mode of transport I used each time would have been quite painful, and no cheaper.

Compare that to myki and skybus.  If I'd visited Melbourne, and used Skybus, and myki money, and done a day trip to Ballarat on Vline, it would have cost me about $95, so I guess not that much difference.  

Making a direct comparison between the two systems is difficult.  On reader speed, Clipper wins hands down.  It was consistently fast and problem free.  I put it in my wallet in the same place my myki normally lives.  I saw people have way more problems with short term tickets than with Clipper.

If you look at Fare Structures and how you are charged, myki wins easily, though that is a completely separate issue to the technology in use.

Trivia:  A myki held to a clipper Topup machine tells you to "See attendant".

And why did I take that Caltrain trip?  To get this shot, of course.

Finally, why some myki's stop working: YOU.

EDIT:  Yes, of course it's an April Fools fake.  Though, with some of the bizarre management decisions myki seems to make, would we actually be surprised if they did implement something like this?


As many know, myki cards are prone to fail, often for no apparent reason.  A myki card is meant to last four years, but many have had cards fail, either becoming intermittently faulty in being recognised by readers and vending machines, or often just dying completely.  This can cause much consternation for travellers, since no short term ticket solution means that the only option is to buy a replacement card while a sloppy backend process eventually replaces the faulty card.

Well, apparently myki have been doing a lot of research into why cards fail, and, to cut a long story short, the main reason:  YOU.

myki is an RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) based smartcard system.  inside every myki card is actually a very small computer, and an antenna array.  When your card comes into contact with the magnetic field produced by a myki reader or machine, the card comes to life and communicates with the reader.  This happens each and every time you touch on and off or top-up your card.  

What myki have found, is that because your body produces an electro-magnetic field of its own, there is a good possibility that your personal bio-electric field might interfere with communication between the reader and the card.  This can cause disruptions or corruption in the card storage matrix, meaning your card will either respond slowly (and sometimes intermittently fast) or, more often, not at all.  Meaning your card needs to be replaced.

myki have however come up with a solution to this.

For people who have regular problems with myki cards, they will be supplying a bio electric field inverter.  This device (about the size of a packet of cigarettes), worn either on the wrist or belt, will counteract the effects of your personal bio-electric field, by producing a field about two metres in diameter.  The device will come with a Lithium Ion battery and USB charger, and will require charging about once a week.

While being worn, there is almost no chance you will have problems with your myki card.

Because this problem only effects certain individuals, myki will be charging a fee for the device, apparently $19.95.  The device will be available to order on the myki website in the next few weeks.

Personally I think it's a bit rich that myki are charging for this, and I'm sure there are other solutions.  Perhaps fit one of these inverters to each reader or at station entrances and exits.  I know the problem only affects certain individuals but making them pay to fix it hardly seems fair.

Melbourne Central: How I hate you.

No, I don't mean the station itself (though, it does have it's moments).

I mean the damn abomination of a Shopping Centre that sits like a massive leech on top of it.

For those of us who remember, getting into Melbourne Central (then Museum) station was very easy.  It was escalators down from Swanson Street direct to the concourse.  It was the same, with a very direct route, from Elizabeth Street.

And the Concourse... the concourse itself was a large, wide open space.  Lots of room to move.  There was even a void from the concourse that looked down into Platforms 1 and 2 (in fact my hazy memory tells me there were two voids, one where the existing Coles end booking office now sits, and the other were KFC and Salsas now sit).

But as we all know,  Melbourne Central was renovated and they had to squeeze as much retail space as they possibly could out of every square inch they could find.

So, the easy ways in had to go.  Damn those annoying Public transport Passengers.

Getting down to the platforms from Swanston Street is more like flying the Millenium Falcon through an Asteroid Field.  There are several ways to go (none of which are as quick as the original, even when there's nobody around).

You might be able to successfully avoid the shops and food establishments in two of the walkways down to the Shot Tower, but under the Shot Tower itself you are greeted by a myriad of stalls and the odd promotional event, people trying to get you to sign up for paintball or the gym upstairs or sell you that pashmina you've always wanted.  I JUST WANT TO GET TO THE TRAIN.

Then it's down not one, but two escalators, both which are annoying skewed in odd directions, you never know which one is going to be going up and which down, and stupid students don't realise that you need to STAND TO THE LEFT.

Finally you make it to the myki barriers (you knew it had to be in here somewhere, right?) outside Coles, but wait.  Even once you get through those, assuming they are working today, you then have to walk ages out of your way to get to the long escalator down to platform 4.  And because of the joys of Melbourne Central above, you miss your train by about 15 seconds that in 1999 you would probably have been home already.

Of course Elizabeth Street entrance is almost as bad.  Lets see.  Let's take a nice wide open entrance to a train station, and cram in as many shops as we possibly can.  And when we've done that, let's put a useless newstand on the footpath outside so that potentially hundreds of people crossing Latrobe Street have to cram into the tiniest space, dodging smokers and the Charity Muggers trying to get you to sign up a credit card direct debit on a form on the street.  Are you people insane?  You seriously think I'm going to give my credit card details to some student in broad daylight on the street?

Thankfully getting down to the platform at the Elizabeth Street end isn't quite so painful once you get past the 7/11, the Newstand, Bank of Melbourne, that phone shop, Bank of Melbourne (again).  I am a customer... maybe I should just walk through there?

A note to the people responsible for making access to Melbourne Central Station the way it is:  In case you haven't noticed, Melbourne is getting BIGGER.  There are more PEOPLE.  It's only going to get WORSE.  And yet you have made it about as annoying and as diffcult as it could possibly be for people to get where they're going, constricting spaces that needed to be made larger, not smaller.

I am not a religious person, but in case I'm wrong I really, really, really hope there's a special layer of hell set aside for those responsible for the way this place is now, who I am almost certain probably visited once after it opened and then never set foot inside it again, while the rest of us scream at the Chuggers to get out of our way on a daily basis.

Oh, and to the blonde cute guy who hands out the MX inside the barriers.  You are very, very nice, but if you get in my way again your MX might end up in the one place it really belongs.

Metro Trains February 2013 Compensation.

THE SHORT VERSION: If you are a myki pass user of 28 days or more and used metro for ten days in February and touched on and off, fill out this form and send it off BEFORE THE END OF MARCH.

http://www.metrotrains.com.au/webfm_send/140

THE LONG VERSION:

So we found out yesterday that Metro is due to pay users of 28 days or more myki pass who used Metrotrains for at least ten days in the month (you need to have touched on and off at different stations on the network at least once a day for ten different days in the month) a daily ticket of compensation for the number of cancelled trains in February.  This means a credit of myki money to the myki card containing your pass.  The amount will depend on if you are Full fare or concession, and what zones your pass is valid for.  EG my pass is zone 1, so I will get a $7 credit to my card.

You can read about who is eligible for compensation at this link on the Metro Website, and how much you are likely to be paid.  The worse they do the more you'll get.

Metro are also being a bit narky and if you don't touch off with your myki pass (which you don't technically need to do) they aren't paying up.  So, make sure you do if you want the chance at compensation.

The trick, of course, is finding out that you are even due for compensation.  Metro don't really shout it to the rooftops or anything.  For instance at this point in time, it's not even on the front page of the Metro website under news.  You need to scroll down to the bottom where the 28 day running performance total is, and click the "What's this" button to be directed to the page above.  Unofficial figures I've been told tell us that perhaps only 5% of eligible customers ever claim for compensation.

Metro don't want you to print out and fill out the form.  For every person who is eligible for compensation and doesn't claim, Metro is SAVING MONEY.  


DON'T LET THEM WIN. 



Until someone in our wacky government grows a pair and forces Metro to make it easier for you to claim compensation (or, better yet, makes it automatic through myki), it takes but 5 minutes of your time to print out the form, fill it in and then post it off the next time you walk by a post box.

Even if you have a yearly or a commuter club pass, do it anyway.  With the ability to by another card or   buy a pass on another card with your myki money, it's worth getting the compensation even if you never actually use it to travel yourself.

To save you time, the link to the form for myki is here:
http://www.metrotrains.com.au/webfm_send/140

This is the ORIGINAL form from the Metrotrains Website.

You will need to print the form out, fill it in, and post it off.  Postage is replypaid and free.

Assuming your claim is successful you will get a nice letter from Metro telling you as much, and normally around the end of the month the credit appears on your myki card as an online top-up.

Since myki began in Melbourne (and even prior under metcard) I have claimed nearly every month I was eligible and have probably had the equivalent of at least a monthly myki pass, so it is worth doing.

Of course, the best thing of all would be a train system where trains weren't cancelled and always ran on time (and, addtionally, stopped at every advertised station).

Perhaps, one day, Melburnians will get the train system they deserve.

Metro Responds!

So, Metro responded to my feedback of Feb 10.  It's certainly nice to see some money being spent on PRIDE and the PIDS, though how long this might take and how effective it might be remains to be seen.  I'm unsure if this is already common knowledge or not.  Feel free to comment or tweet me if you know more about this.

Dear Mr (my surname here)

Thank you for your email received in this office on 10 February 2013. Please accept our sincere apologies for our delay in responding to you.

You have expressed concern regarding the provision of customer information via the Passenger Information Display Screens (PIDS) in the Degraves subway at Flinders Street station on 9 and 10 February 2013.

Your feedback is important to us and we welcome the opportunity to respond.

By way of background, our Passenger Information Display Screens (PIDS) are run by our train control computer system, PRIDE. Each train has a specific train designation number and PRIDE uses this information, along with information from the signals the train passes, to update the estimated time of arrival for each service. The current computer system is nearing the end of its operational life.

Regrettably, as the current system does not allow for real-time tracking of trains, the time displayed on our PIDS is an estimated time of arrival and therefore, can change prior to train’s actual arrival. This may also impact the accuracy of information regarding departure platforms.

We recognise that on rare occasions the information displayed may be incorrect, blank or unable to ‘keep up’ with the services travelling through the station.

As such, train controllers at Metrol (our train control centre) update staff at Premium stations with real time information which is then manually relayed to customers on the platform, however, we acknowledge that due to the current limitations of the communications system, it is not always possible to relay this information to customers as quickly as may be expected.

We are pleased to advise that the State Government has announced an $88 million upgrade of Metrol. This will include the replacement of the PRIDE system and the improvement of our customer information systems will also be a major part of this upgrade.

We again sincerely regret any inconvenience you may have experienced as a result of inaccurate or incomplete information displayed via our PIDS at Flinders Street station and are confident an improvement in communications standards across the train network will soon be evident

We appreciate you taking the time to contact us as your feedback plays a vital role in the monitoring and improvement of our service standards.

Yours sincerely

(name of friendly Metro responder)

Customer Relations Coordinator

---

Let's provide some feedback to Metro.

This weekend there have been service alterations due to works between Southern Cross/Flinders Street.  Trying to workout your ongoing service was a tad confusing.  So why not write PTV (because you can't complain directly to Metro any more) a civilised note.  I'll post when I hear back from them.


Hello PTV,

I would like to provide some feedback regarding this weekends service alterations due to works between Southern Cross/Flinders Street (9/10 Feb 2013).

I was coming from Hawthorn to the City and needed to get to North Melbourne.  On arrival at Flinders Street, I went down into Degraves Subway, expecting the Passenger Information Display to advise the best train to get to North Melbourne, presumably via Southern Cross Station.

However the Passenger information screen was next to useless.  The problem is that it lists all the platforms, and the next train to depart form each platform.  But in most cases it said "train not taking passengers" or "wait for announcement".  Which is useless.  While standing in Degraves subway there is no way to ascertain which platform to go to for a particular destination, and you can't trust that the destination will suddenly appear on screen.  You also can't go and wait on a platform that might normally be used for a particular line because during service disruptions platforms seem to chop and change at random.  

The end result is that without a clear display of what trains will be departing from where, you are likely to run between platforms and up and down stairs hoping you might find the correct one, and in the process miss your connecting service.

It doesn't help that there are no displays on the platforms themselves to best advise the correct platform to go to for your ongoing service, and only so much information can be passed over PA systems.  I understand that platform assignments can change suddenly due to signalling and other factors but it would be nice if some attempt to provide meaningful interchange information to travellers rather than a single screen just telling you what train is departing from the platform you are on. 

I would hope that this is an area that might be improved, in a similar way to say Richmond station, where screens on each Platform tell you the best platform to go to and the number of minutes you have to get there for all destinations serviced by the station.

I look forward to a your timely response.

The Conundrum of Touching Off on Trams.

I've been using trams a bit more this month due to a small change in travel habits.  The major thing I've noticed is the amount of confusion over the requirement to touch off on trams.

So, the way it works is:

There is NO need to touch off on trams, if your entire trip takes place in zone 1, you will NOT be charged a z1+2 default fare the next time you touch on (like on trains).  The majority of tram routes only exist in Zone 1 anyway.  The three main exceptions are routes 75 (City - Vermont South), 86 (City - Latrobe Uni/Bundoora) and 109 (Port Melbourne - Box Hill).  On those routes, if you travel in the zone 2 only portion of the route, you should touch off to receive the lower zone 2 fare.  But this won't effect the vast majority of tram users.

Confused?  Of course.  In fact when explaining to people how it works, inevitably their eyes glaze over as most normal people really don't care, until it actually comes time to touch off.

When a crowded tram pulls up, people start getting off.  Some of them touch off because they think it's required.  Others who know the rules get irritated by the people who don't.  I witnessed several times this week people advising others that they don't need to touch off.  Of course such advice can come in a helpful friendly tone... but, this being Melbourne, some impatient individuals can actually get quite nasty about it, shouting "You don't need to touch off!  You're holding up the tram!"

I've posted on twitter this week about this and a few of my followers have responded by saying "But I like to touch off on trams, so I know I've been charged properly".  Which is fare enough.  But they shouldn't need to.

As usual, it's not the fault of commuters that this situation has arisen, it's the fault of both our Politicians and myki themselves, who implemented a quick a nasty fix to avoid having to touch off.

Let's look at a scenario.

Say your full fare myki has $3.40 left on it.  You get on a tram in zone 1, and touch on.  You travel for a while, and then get off, without touching off.

You then get on another tram.  When you touch on, you get a "declined" message.  What's happened here is you were automatically touched off from your previous trip, and charged $3.50 for a 2 hour fare.  But that's put you into debit and your touch on won't process until you top up again.  Which, of course, you can't do on trams.

The reason people like to touch off on trams is that it's the only current way that you can see you've been charged the right amount, and that you've got enough left to travel for your ongoing journey, perhaps on another tram.  Which, again, is fair enough.

Now lets imagine a world where I developed the myki ticketing system.

In my world, there is a thing known as a "Tram Touch".

When you get on a tram in my world, and touch your card to the reader, you get charged the appropriate fare straight away.  So, if it was your first trip of the day, you would get charged $3.50.  This would be clearly displayed on the reader and there would be no need to touch off.

If you had previously travelled on another tram or train or bus, the "Tram Touch" would simply display $0.00 charged, because you had already been charged that day.

If your "Tram Touch" took place in zone 2, you would only be charged a zone 2 fare.  If you travel into zone 1, you got to do so for the price of a two hour fare, which in my mind is worth it due to how long that would probably take.  And coming home again, because you would be touching on in zone 1 You would get charged the difference between a zone 2 and zone 1 fare, and if it was outside your original two hour fare period you would get get charged a whole 2 hour zone 1 fare.

If you did try and "touch off" on the same tram on the same journey, nothing would happen.  You've already been charged on that tram for that journey, and the reader would simply display a $0.00 dollar amount and your balance.  The second "Tram Touch" would not show on your travel history.

And hopefully people would soon learn that there is no point touching off any more because it actually doesn't do anything.

And sweetness and light would prevail, instead of the current confused state of affairs that is only leading to animosity between commuters.

Who knows.  It might even lead to something called a "Bus Touch".