THE MYKI MOUSE CLUB

Myki. M-Y-K-I.  It’s a dirty four-letter word that Victorian Premier John Brumby must be hearing in his sleep. The new so-called smartcard for public transport users is way overdue, way over budget and still underperforming in trials. After a full week of use in guinea pig Geelong Myki’s been given the thumbs down by commuters and bus drivers. Too unreliable. Too slow. And the much-vaunted ‘touch on  touch off’ is actually slowing down bus services.

In a Herald Sun experiment Terry Brown took 12 swipes before it stopped saying ‘Card rejected. Blocking period applies’. In another attempt it took twenty swipes.

Welcome to the Myki Mouse Club. A club that is now costing Victorian taxpayers more than $1.3 billion.

I said a year ago the new ticketing system that was supposed to revolutionise public transport was already three years late (now make that four), already costing a billion dollars (now make that 1.3 billion), already hundreds of millions of dollars over budget and no end in sight.

I also said it has made the government a laughing stock over rolling stock.  And, to keep the transport analogies going, on this one the Brumby mob wouldn’t know if a tram was up them until the conductor rang the bell.

A successful scanned-ticket system in Japan cost $440 million when installed in more than 400 stations. Did we ask them to sell us their technology?  Or how about the Octopus card system in Hong Kong?  And London?  Fast, clean, efficient. You can even use your rail card to pay for car parking.

Last year, just before they sacked him –presumably with a Gold Pass – the then Myki boss Vivian Miners, said ‘All projects this size  encounter problems… but if you look overall at the project’s progress, it’s actually well ahead of industry practice’.

And he predicted ‘Victoria can still be confident that it will have a world-class ticketing system’. When? For a billion dollars they could gold plate the carriages. For a billion dollars they could let everybody ride free for an eternity.

Like Disneyland. Like Myki Mouse.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

© Copyright Derryn Hinch 2009