Contactless payment with credit and debit cards is a technology that scores of retailers across Australia have supported for a number of years – and in December 2015 Public Transport Victoria announced that they would play catch-up and upgrade myki ticket machines to support the same:
PTV is upgrading myki machines to be EMV (Europay Visa Mastercard) compliant.
myki machines will be upgraded to feature new pin pads with contactless payment capability and EMV compliance for enhanced security.
The upgrade will take place on a rolling basis over early 2016 and will be conducted during off-peak to minimise any possible disruption to customers.
Contactless payment capability will ensure an improved customer experience when using myki machines.
As originally deployed, the payment terminal fitted to myki CVMs looks like this – large metal button buttons flush with the keypad, and the entire unit recessed deeply into the machine.
The new readers can’t be considered any more user friendly – the screen has shrunk in size, as has the buttons on the keypad, and the whole shebang is still deeply recessed from the rest of the machine.
However in my travels I’ve spotted a different way of mounting the payment terminal into the machine – at a slight angle, and almost flush with the front of the machine.
So why the difference?
The above machine was found at a railway station rebuilt as part of the Regional Rail Link project, so is newer than my earlier examples of ticket machines found at tram stops in the Melbourne CBD.
In the years since the rollout of myki was first planned, the amount of equipment deployed across the network has grown for two reasons – patronage growth, and woeful system performance.
I’m assuming that the deeply recessed reader was the original design, and when additional ticket machines were ordered, the design was revised to address the previous shortcomings.
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