Session Details
Room: Regent
Format: Question and answer
No. of attendees: 9
Host name: Adrien Webb, Peter Parker
Scribe: Sarah Roberts
Challenges in working in planning, if you say something is a priority it means other things are not priority. Planning becomes very negative due to political reasons.
This session will be about topics that don’t get discussed or released to the public.
What happened with myki?
The wrong contract being employed.
Analysis was conducted on the metcard system and issues it had.
It is better to have multiple contractors for the different parts of the system (hardware, software, manufacture, etc). This allows contractors to be replaced if there are issues.
The original proposal for myki would take 5 years. This was said to be too long, so people were employed who said they could do it in 3.
· They went with one contractor, which created the issues and the 11 year production time.
Myki was the most advanced ticketing system.
However due to incorrect explanations to the public this technology was misunderstood by the customers (particularly the top up element).
Fares
Melbourne has had a number of fare structures.
Myki has the most advanced fare system (peak and off peak), but it is not used. Peak and off peak pricing is based on the end of peak (good for customers going to the end of the line).
Peak and off peak pricing
· Sunday saving ticket, early bird. Very successful in creating different timed travel behaviour.
· PTV implemented buses running on Sunday, more frequent trains, more carriages.
Family fares
Smart card travel internationally is not suited for group travel
Families as a demographic are harder cater for with PT due to living location and their travel behaviours.
Fare evasion on buses.
Tram has less fare evasion than buses, even though tram drivers are not involved in the ticketing process.
Surveys are conducted to discover fare evasion stats.
Bus companies don’t have a revenue risk.
People will still not touch on if the bus driver is there.
Most people if asked to buy a ticket will.
By law the drivers must ask passenger to touch on, if the passenger says no, that is enough.
The way fare evasion occurs is very diverse
Fare evasion on buses is about 8%
If public transport was free
- 30% uptake. If you spent the money you were going to lose from free transport and spent it on service improvement instead, you would get a higher uptake
- Making it free, doesn’t necessarily make a trip more appealing. The cost might not be the barrier.
- Travel time is the most important factor for travellers, cost is generally ranked 5th
Dandenong corridor, why not quadruplicate the train line?
We don’t need to do this now. The boom gates would stay down.
High capacity signal is coming in so we will be able to run 10 car trains.
We have enough demand to see the forcible future.
Freight does not need to go through during peak hour
Does speeding up Vline services help the cost? Probably not
Could bring the Vline and freight through other corridors
Long term plan, service Monash and Chadstone.
Planning is the art of what you do next and it is all based on priorities, but so it doesn’t inconvenience the thing you want to do after that.
Combing PTV and Vicroads into transport Victoria, how do you feel?
Being mode agnostic is a challenge. Have to consider if particular trips are best serviced by public transport or the car or cycling? This way of thinking is new and different.
Broadens the modes that need to be considered.
More projects, makes it more daunting. Need the right people for the right task.
Myki will be supporting paywave in the next couple of years.
Your Myki card, can activate your daily cap, you can’t do this with master cards.
It will be a limited market for tourists.
The white T doesn’t come on all the time at traffic lights (tram priority), why is this?
Don’t necessarily need the T for priority.
- A virtual loop will be used in the future, that can change priority at any time.
- If done well, motorists might not notice that this is being implemented.
Other points to consider
- Millennials are moving away from the car.
- Melbourne is most likely perceived as more PT based than Sydney. This would be interesting to find out if it is true.
- 70% of Melbournians have used PT in the last 3 months. It is easier to convince infrequent users to use PT rather than non users