After years of being underwhelmed by myki, exceptions are low whenever Public Transport Victoria announces an ‘upgrade’ to the system – however this one takes the cake.
I recently spotted this notice affixed to a Myki machine at Flinders Street Station, informing passengers that the machine will be unavailable for “a short period of time” while upgrade works are undertaken.
So what were the works? I happened to stumble upon a machine being ‘upgraded’.
Just some poor bloke pulling off the blue stickers on the front.
And after hacking away at the machine with a razor blade for almost an hour, a new set of grey stickers were placed on the front.
Worth the effort, wasn’t it?
So why the rebrand?
Moves towards a new Myki brand started in October 2013, when Public Transport Victoria trademarked an updated Myki logo, with the logo being soft launched from January 2014.
On July 5 2016 Public Transport Victoria tweeted about the “fresh new look” for Myki machines.
This year #myki machines are getting a facelift with a fresh new look & contactless payment! https://t.co/FNRUTUZnKF pic.twitter.com/0XnK9peHm7
— PTV (@ptv_official) July 5, 2016
Gotta look after the things that matter!
As for the actual upgrades
Despite Public Transport Victoria wasting money on new stickers, the past few months have seen actual progress made on real improvements to the system – in January 2016 the rollout of contactless payment at myki machines commenced, followed in June 2016 by a trial of new ‘Quick Top up’ machines across the network.
Hopefully this new focus on something other than new stickers continues.
Footnote – caught in the act
@themykiuser on Twitter was in the right place at the right time when they captured this photo – the Myki machines at Hawthorn railway station caught mid rebranding.
Has anyone else had problems with the keypad on the upgraded machines? The buttons are way too small for any sensible use!
I’ve had exactly that problem – time to use a dialling wand?
Are you taking bets on whether the launch of TFV will require another rebrand of the machines?
I’ve curious as to whether Transport for Victoria will take over the PTV and VicRoads brands, or only the transport planning sides of both organisations.
The ‘upgrade’ was about increasing the contrast on the fascia to make it easier for people with a range of visual acuity to read. The same changes will happen to the screens as well. So it wasn’t really a chance to rebrand but a chance to try and improve something that had not been touched for a long time.
White text on grey is more visible than the previous blue backdrop. I’ve also noticed that the Braille text still features.
PTV staff have been told that PTV and the PTV brand will continue to exist, that it will only be the planning areas who will move to TFV, affected staff who are moving have just been told last week.
So I very much doubt that they will rebrand again soon.
They haven’t upgraded the horrible blue colour on the screens!
I’m assuming software updates are a $$$ change request with the original developers – maybe they will roll the rebranding into a wider upgrade of the ticket machine user interface?
This might also seem very wasteful as well – they also “upgraded” the Myki machines at St Albans, and they are going to have to remove them when the station is demolished in a few months time!
I’m assuming that the ticket machines from St Albans will go back into the pool of spare machines, to be installed elsewhere – other station rebuilds have seen ticketing equipment provided at both the old and new stations at the same time.
[…] It took until July 2016 for the ticket machines to be rebranded – thanks to some new stickers. […]