Waking up in Geelong

All over Melbourne, the Liberal Government is covering the city with posters promoting cuts to zone 2 public transport fares, as part of their ‘Moving Victoria’ propaganda campaign.

They started on tram stops:

On taxi roofs:

On the side of trams:

And onboard trains:

Cutting fares AND spending millions in promoting it – where is the money coming from? By cutting how long you have to make a single trip on public transport across Melbourne:

Commuters spared stricter two-hour tickets – for now
June 30, 2014

The roll-out of strict two-hour public transport fares has been delayed, as Victoria’s transport authority irons out potential glitches in the new system.

The fares, which would expire after exactly two hours instead of taking effect from the next whole hour after touching on, were due to begin on Tuesday.

A Public Transport Victoria spokesman said the strict two-hour fares would now be introduced next month, although a date wasn’t specified.

The spokesman would not elaborate as to why there had been a delay, other than to say testing was in the final stages and authorities were still ”finalising system requirements”.

Under the current system, travellers can use public transport for up to two hours and 59 minutes after validating.

In a statement, the PTV spokesman said the stricter fare would aid public transport cost recovery and enable greater investment in the system.

Public Transport Users’ Association president Tony Morton said a lack of publicity ahead of the July 1 deadline, would have taken a lot of people by surprise had the new system started on schedule. He encouraged authorities to raise awareness now, ahead of the anticipated introduction of stricter fares in August.

So why haven’t the government told us anything about their fare rises, unlike their months of advance warning on their “positive” cuts?

Footnote

Did you notice the “stricter fare would aid public transport cost recovery and enable greater investment in the system” line from the PTV spokesman?

It is good to know PTV understands how the economics of public transport work – pity the government doesn’t when they make a unilateral decision to cut fares and do the exact opposite to cost recovery!

Further reading

• The “Moving Victoria” campaign was started back in late 2013 – the government added their fare cuts to the promotion within a few weeks of launching it.
• A look at the “It’s part of the plan” campaign from a few years ago – both sides of politics are as bad as each other!
• More on the changes to two-hour tickets by Daniel Bowen – it was first gazetted at the end of 2013, to commence on 1 July 2014.

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