Waking up in Geelong

I’ve posted about the issues with Myki a few times over the past month: first I wrote about congestion at City Loop stations in peak hour, and yesterday I mentioned the lack of account information the system gives to commuters. So what have the head honchos at Myki been doing in that time?

You could say not much, but just on a month ago they did issue a decree on the correct way to use your Myki:

15 March 2012

MYKI USERS URGED TO TOUCH, NOT SWIPE OR WAVE
As more passengers make the switch to myki, public transport users are urged to ensure they touch on and off successfully.

Transport Ticketing Authority Chief Executive Officer Bernie Carolan said it is encouraging to see so many people making the switch from Metcard to myki, but acknowledged there are reports of difficulties when passengers ‘swipe’, ‘wave’, ‘rub’ or repeatedly ‘tap’ their myki at the myki reader.

“The most important tip is for people to touch their card to the centre of the reader and hold it still to ensure a successful touch on or touch off, rather than swiping, waving, tapping repeatedly or rubbing their card across the reader.

“When passengers are more familiar with myki they will find it takes about a second to touch on or off, meaning they easily enter or exit a gated or ungated train station, tram or bus.

“The main message is: touch, don’t swipe, touch, don’t wave, touch don’t rub, touch, don’t tap.”

To assist passengers, the Transport Ticketing Authority has uploaded a brief video tutorial to the myki website demonstrating how to touch on and off successfully, but more importantly, what not to do.

The video in question is here:

The above video does illustrate how one should successfully touch your Myki to the readers, but what good does it do if the message doesn’t reach those who are actually travelling on Melbourne’s public transport network? One month on, it appears someone at Myki head office has finally decided to roll out the campaign to somewhere that matters – the City Loop railway stations.

This animation appeared on Monday morning at Southern Cross Station on the large advertising screen outside the Collins Street ticket barriers. It reinforces the “don’t swipe / don’t wave / don’t tap tap” message, as well as the sometimes incorrect “always touch off, even if the barriers are open” spiel.

The same kind of message is also being spread by these cardboard signs between the escalators at City Loop stations.

The wheels of Myki sure move slowly – my last question is: why did it take them a month to roll out all these signs?

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