I might try Mickey on V/Line tomorrow just to see what happens. Hopefully it's free or next to nothing.
XXXXlbear: Okay, now I'm starting to understand why the free trips work. But it seems very strange to me that they would reward people for short return trips in that way - oh well, who am I to question the wisdom of Mickey. And traveling across one zone in that way; it's illogical that you wouldn't have to pay at all for doing that and as Gwiwer said a few pages back, it's probably the really complicated architecture that's to blame. But again - who am I to question it when you get a free trip.
As previously established: the unavailability of short-term tickets is a political decision, not a technical one.
Actually I figured out why I got a reduced rate on my V/Line trip; it's because there's a set rate on the weekends in the metro area (which under Mickey begins from Bacchus Marsh).
Myki is valid not only in the metro area but V/line Interurban areas as well.
Alos, why you may have gotten a cheaper V/line rate than you first thought is that off peak fares now apply to Myki fares on V/Line services on weekends. This is just moe more thing about using Myki on V/Line services that neither V/Line or Myki officialdom want people to know about.
Yes. That's just the purchase price, even before a family buys their individual train, tram, or bus fares. And it's no good assuming that if one person has a Myki, that that person can top up with enough money for fares for each of their group or family....each member of the family must have a Myki.
I have mentioned before in this thread that I have heard of Simon Owens, panel operator at 3AW, deciding to take his family of 2 adults and 4 kids to to the city on public transport from Ringwood I think it was. This was a once off weekend actvity, and he ended up turning his family around and headed back to their car parked nearby after being told that the total cost would be $71.32!!!!
....6 Myki's for $24 (2 x $6 adult + 4 x $3 child), and 6 x zone 1 + 2 fares $47.32 (2 x $11.84 adult + 4 x $5.92 children).
He said it wasn't so much the daily fares itself that was the problem, it was the price of the 6 Myki's that was...and he felt it was very unreasonable as travelling by public transport was a rarity for his family, and now he knows what the price is, it has probably detered him and his family from using public transport again for a very, very long time.
I can see how Myki can be very discouraging for people wanting to travel once or twice (such as tourists, or in the example above), and very advantagous for people like me who have found little quirks on the system that can give me free V/Line trips -if you happen to know about the 2 hour window when tagging on at your originating station, and zonal travel as opposed to distance travel as mentioned in previous posts (ie Geelong to Malmsbury for instance).
Correct me if I'm wrong but if you get overcharged and then caught by the Ticket Hitlers with a negative balance apparently that's counted as fare evasion and you'll be fined.
Correct me if I'm wrong but if you get overcharged and then caught by the Ticket Hitlers with a negative balance apparently that's counted as fare evasion and you'll be fined.Strictly speaking, you can't touch on with a negative balance so if you are on a tram or train with a negative balance it's because you haven't touched on and are therefore very definitely committing an offence.
Strictly speaking, you can't touch on with a negative balance so if you are on a tram or train with a negative balance it's because you haven't touched on and are therefore very definitely committing an offence.I'm not sure you're right about that one; I've touched on and gone into negative balance at the start of a journey before so I know it's possible.
.......
The cost soon became rather more than they felt comfortable with despite the alleged advantages of then having a Myki for future travel. They clearly don't use public transport in the normal course of events. This isn't going to change that.
I was on a number 16 tram once and they were detaining some poor (obviously psychotic) woman and when the police got there, delaying everyone else's tram journey, they actually told them off for wasting their time and resources and let her go. I also think you have to be sadistic before you can even get a foot in the door with that job; I happened to overhear them chatting away once on a train and a female Hitler was relating to her colleagues with delight how she got the police to strip search a man in public because he had no identification and nobody to call. Charming.
The tactics used by Melbourne's AOs and particularly those of Yarra Trams (as referred to above) are strong-arm by any reasonable standards even with their user-unfriendly zero-tolerance approach but that is a discussion for another thread.Yeah sorry to derail it for a moment but it's a salient point that there's zero tolerance for a card that's in deficit; as the owner of the card you're responsible at all times for the operation of it even if the equipment and processes can undermine your attempts to comply. The fact that the enforcers behave like gleeful sadists when they find someone not complying adds another layer of deterrent really doesn't it.
No correction required.
Any ticketing system should be able to answer the fundamental question of "How much is it from A to B?" with a single cash value. If you get discounts by purchasing a particular product or using the system in a particular way then great. But Myki means there is no answer for those who ask that question. That is very off-putting for anyone less than familiar with public transport such as our many visitors.
So does the announcement of the end of cash tickets for V/Line interurban mean that anyone from interstate who visits must also buy a Mickey if they want to catch a train to (say) Geelong?