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(AUS)Metcards a piece of Melbourne history


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From The age:

Metcards a piece of Melbourne history

December 29, 2012 - 10:45AM


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Stephen Cauchi

 

 

 

 

At 2.30am on Saturday, a tram travelling from Luna Park in St Kilda to Malvern depot sold Melbourne's last Metcard as the switchover to myki became official.

Public transport users must now carry a myki on trains, trams and buses, or face fines for fare evasion.

A spokesman from the Transport Ticketing Authority told ABC radio that inspectors would be on their regular rounds and while they would not "capitalise" on the changeover, they would not accept not having a myki as an acceptable excuse for not carrying a valid ticket.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is a small peice of that history:

metcards.png

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If I'm guessing correctly, they (Metcards) served the same purpose as the MetroCards currently do here now in NYC, no?

 

It's gonna be a while before the (MTA) does the same here that you guys are doing there - there have beens several pilot attempts, but so far, we are still on the MetroCard. PATH is the only transit system in the NYC region, I believe, that has a form of contactless payment - called the SmartLink. CTA in Chicago uses a mix of a "MetroCard" type of payment and contactless as well.

 

Very interesting! Hopefully the technology makes it way to NYC soon!

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If I'm guessing correctly, they (Metcards) served the same purpose as the MetroCards currently do here now in NYC, no?

 

That's right. Except they were all cardboard and were "Single use" I.e After the fare had expired it's next journey was the bin. You couldn't top up the card

 

Unfortunatly we've made a right hash job of putting in Smartcards. We were going to have disposable short term tickets but the current government decided to scrap them. Meaning anyone who uses Public transport in Melbourne has to have a Myki which is $6 for Full fare and $3 for concession. The problem with that is if your not near a railway station, Tram stop with a CVM or a retail outlet you can't use public transport. You can't even hop on a tram to buy a ticket. The silly thing is the vending machines that were to go into the trams are sitting in a wearhouse gathering dust.

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I can remember getting on a Melbourne tram years ago. They had done away with conductors and installed ticket machines. I went from the city out to Lygon Street, and not one person that boarded the tram along the way bought a ticket.

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