13 January 2011

Software glitch hits MyWay tickets

| johnboy
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The ABC has the predictable news that the late and delayed rollout of a ticketing system ACTION can even maintain has hit a glitch.

“The trial’s been fairly successful but there are a few issues that came up from the trial which we’re working through with the supplier at the moment,” he said.

“Mainly software issues do to with the way the system works on the actual bus, so there’s just one or two of those we want to make sure we get right before we roll the system out to the broader community.”

Mr Peters says ACTION now hopes to start the new $8 million system in February.

Despite the existence of thousands of bus systems across the world it appears too much to ask for a standard implementation.

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AG Canberra said :

Oh and to bus driver on the 300 to the City – the next time you fly through a red light I’m gonna report you……

Hahaha, Do you seriously think that wasting your time doing that will achieve anything. If anything, it will give the driver and his boss a chance to get together and have a good laugh about how petty and pathetic some people are and then the boss will have to change the names on the standard letter thanking you and saying that the driver has been spoken to about the serious matter.

johnboy said :

Actually if I had my way we’d stop bothering with collecting fares entirely.

That would encourage sensible use of public transport in our fair city, hardly a goal on our council’s agenda.

The longer it takes to get it right the better I say!

I’m still only paying for about a third of my rides and after getting on a bus this morning that had no old card machine or new swipe points I reckon the ‘software glitch’ is the least of their problems.

Oh and to bus driver on the 300 to the City – the next time you fly through a red light I’m gonna report you……

Actually if I had my way we’d stop bothering with collecting fares entirely.

Yeah, but you probably would have bagged them for wasting taxpayers’ money on new fangled technology that didn’t work properly because it hadn’t been adequately tested in practice and they should have been spending the money on something else that you liked more…oh, but wait, Melbourne beat us to it, didn’t they and that worked well…

I think you need to travel more felix.

London, tokyo, even smaller on-the-ball cities like portland, have had systems like these for a VERY long time.

JB – now you’re putting words in my mouth – I didn’t say anything was ‘good practice’ – it’s just that systems like this weren’t available 10 years ago – and, as it turns out from the Melbourne experience, it was probably wise to let someone else iron out some of the bugs – even with this, the’yv estill uncovered a few new ones!

I’d certainly agree they might have done better with maintenance of the current machinery, which certainly is pretty dodgy by now, I just think it’s a bit unfauir to suggest they should have though of this 10 years ago.

ML-585 said :

No, according The Canberra Times, the problem is that “the fault involved the freezing of the driver’s [ticket machine console]. This was being fixed by the equipment supplier.”

Ta, I’ve just found a copy of the paper and checked out the article.

Also noticed in the article that there are still some buses not equipped with the MyWay ticket console. My current morning suburbian bus hasn’t got a console yet.

Felix said :

JB, is it possible for anyone anywhere to do anything that doesn’t elicit a rather cheap, cynical dig from you?

Frequently!

Why, do you think that waiting until ticket machines are beyond repair before starting a process to upgrade to a technology that’s been around over a decade and still arseing it up is good practice do you?

JB, is it possible for anyone anywhere to do anything that doesn’t elicit a rather cheap, cynical dig from you?

Holditz said :

I would surmise the problems that they may be having is either getting the swipe hardware on the bus to correctly record a ride and debiting the card, or showing the correct amount of credit on the card.

No, according The Canberra Times, the problem is that “the fault involved the freezing of the driver’s [ticket machine console]. This was being fixed by the equipment supplier.”

Swaggie said :

Seems better to me that they run a trial to identify these problems rather than roll it out wholesale then find problems. Could be one of the few things Action have got right recently.

Would have been nice if they started the trial process 10 years ago though.

JB, the fact that there are thousands of bus systems around the world is an argument for why there isn’t a standard implementation. Many of them work on travel zones. Many utilise distances as a method for determining fares. Many have different fares determined on what minority one belongs to. Many are integrated with other forms of public transport, each with different ways of determing fares. There is no off the shelf package that will work generically. You can’t expect to, for example, take the London Transport’s Oyster system and expect that will work for ACTION.

Having said that though the ACTION system is pretty simple. A single zone and three types of fares, full fare, concession fare and free fare. There will be discounts determined by the number of rides you make in a certain period.

However we don’t want to end up with a disaster like what is happening with Melbourne’s myki card system. I would rather that things are delayed until they get it right. Delaying the launch and making sure MyWay works from day one is a lesser publicity blow than having to be ready by a certain date and still have teething problems.

I would surmise the problems that they may be having is either getting the swipe hardware on the bus to correctly record a ride and debiting the card, or showing the correct amount of credit on the card.

Seems better to me that they run a trial to identify these problems rather than roll it out wholesale then find problems. Could be one of the few things Action have got right recently.

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