Fare Free Friday heralds new era for public transport system

The bus network is terrible because they got consultants from Sydney who don’t use public transport to design the network.

Qwizzy not sure how it works here as i havent used public transport for years, but in sydney you pay more if you use a credit or debit card as apposed to an opal card.

the issue with transferring is you actually need the new card and from what ive heard they wernt available early enough for people to sort out their old to new card transfer

G’day Qwizzy,
True. People don’t “need” a MyWay+ card to travel.
That said, not everyone adopts change readily.
I expect the vast majority of Seniors will want to continue using a dedicated transport card. My wife wants to. I’m inclined to, but I’m a bit more tech savvy than her.
Our son, prefers a card, but in the meantime tried the QR code, and it failed and that’s the problem. If you want people to change their habits, things have to work.
Of course, the old MyWay card system operated on the basis of commuters having credit on their cards (unless you were scamming free rides). TC provided a 5% discount on the fares, if people topped-up on-line, so plausibly people could have a fair bit of money sitting on their old cards. I have heard of people with $100 on their old cards.
Personally, I have $8.40, the Mrs about $20, although we are retired Seniors and only pay fares during Peak. Our son, has about $50 on his old card.
Maybe if the government was offering a refund back to their bank accounts, rather than transferring it to the App or onto new cards, that might help?

It was always easier to transfer a decent chunk of cash to the MyWay card so there was no need to top up for ages and also little likelihood of being caught out without credit on the card. Every time I topped up it was with either $20 or $50 as public transport is how I travel unless I’m walking.

Despite searching online and elsewhere for info on how to transfer my balance, I’ve been unable to get the essential info. The retailers don’t know, the bus drivers don’t know and none of the public announcements have contained this info. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to want access to the money people have already invested in bus transport.

Many people do not want to have to use their credit or debit card for every bus or tram trip. That unnecessarily complicates the monthly statement, whilst increasing the risk of misplacing a card that is otherwise not used often. Much easier to use a dedicated transport card and if misplace it’s much less problematic and less disruptive than loss of a credit/debit card.

It took me all of about 30 seconds to figure out and transfer the balance from my old card to my new account. I’m struggling to see why people would have any difficulty.

I got a new MyWay+ card about a week before the system started, a few days after they said where they were available.

If you have a MyWay+ card and top it up online, you get a 5% discount on the fares (also got this on the old system if you used auto top up or BPay)
There are also cash fares (only available at the ticket machines since they stopped accepting cash during covid). Using a card is around 40% cheaper then the cash fare (though if you don’t tap off, it charges you the difference up to the cash fare)

I usually top up with $100 at a time. I have about $80 left on the ‘old card’ that to date, has not been transferred to the new one due to a ‘glitch’.

I would rather keep my debit card in my backpack so that there is minimal risk of dropping it or accidentally losing it.

It’s also difficult for parents with school kids to link all the children’s tickets to the parent’s credit card. there doesn’t seem to be capacity for that.

Guessing you weren’t someone trying out the system and it not working.

Good organisational change management would have prevented this. It’s about understanding what people will need in terms of information and training for any new system. Simple really. Good preparation and advanced communication on how to manage the challenges that are part of such changes.

As usual, this government has not properly informed their staff, their customers or the general public about how to manage this change. If they had done so, there’d be no hassles for anyone and no complaints. Sadly this has not happened.

Where organisational change fails or creates problems it’s always due to poor planning and consultation, followed by inadequate communication. Research over many years shows this, but unfortunately and implementation. This government has not heeded expertise in this field or is ignorant of it, so has failed yet again.

Your whine about people commenting on a poorly planned and poorly implemented change to services is sad. People are sharing their experiences whilst you are criticising people who are stating the facts of their encounters with the new system. I know which people I would prefer to deal with, the ones who share information honestly rather than those who attempt to condemn them for doing so.