Is your local railway station suffering from queues thanks to slowpokes trying to touch off their myki? Just add more myki readers!
As part of the initial myki rollout Newmarket received a pair of readers on platform 2, which were somehow expected to cater for the large crowds who use the station to change to the route 57 tram.
In April 2012 the number of readers was doubled to four, when an extra fence was added in the middle of the platform and two additional myki readers added alongside it.
But the obvious fix was missed – take out a panel of the fence and widen the platform entrance.
It took until 2015 for that to happen – the number of readers double again, with a total of eight now available for exiting passengers each evening.
A possible reason for the years of waiting – an advertising screen needed to be moved out of the way.
Another example of commercial interests and “revenue protection at all costs” trumping passenger convenience?
Footnote
Since the January 2015 change that made zone 1 travel the same cost as a zone 1+2 journey, there is no longer a financial reason to touch off – which makes the wait to exit the station each evening even more infuriating.
Batman station has had this problem for the longest time. One day I saw them removing a barrier next to the readers and for a moment I thought they were resolving it. Unfortunately all they did was add a different barrier so the tram tracker screen would fit above it.
As one wag on Twitter pointed out – you can now check tram times at the railway station, but you can’t find out the train times!
[…] presumably includes vending machines, station booking office equipment and so on. The number grew in part due to the slow response times of the original […]