Article: Card ends free rides

[ozbob]

From the Courier Mail 19th November 2009 page 15

Card ends free rides

[Nightwriter]

These are pretty lofty claims to be making, when you consider that not everyone travels to Roma Street and Central (where the gates are closed) - this doesn't take into account the fare evaders who travel outside of these stations.

Also, not all Transit Officers are scanning Go Cards while checking tickets on the train - until this happens, I don't see how the Minister can make these claims.

[justanotheruser]

These are pretty lofty claims to be making, when you consider that not everyone travels to Roma Street and Central (where the gates are closed) - this doesn't take into account the fare evaders who travel outside of these stations.

Also, not all Transit Officers are scanning Go Cards while checking tickets on the train - until this happens, I don't see how the Minister can make these claims.

While it is true not everyone goes to the city I would assume the majority do. Before the gates were closed it was easy to walk past without a ticket. With the gates closed there is only a small area for paper tickets and I have noticed checks there are more thorough. So it could be claimed this has led to a reduction.

I agree with TO's not having Go card readers making it difficult to tell.

Just out of interest do the gates in the city have a light that shows if a person is using a concession Go card? I know in sydney a little orange light comes on so if inspectors are there they stop the person and ask to see their concession card. A simple yet smart way to easily identify that. Of course on suburban stations one can't tell or at least the police checking tickets at my station recently did not ask for my concession card.

[Fares_Fair]

Ms Nolan says that two-thirds of fare evaders were without a paper ticket.
Does that mean that the other one-third were go card fare evaders ?

I watched one punter try to go through the paper ticket egress from Central whilst pretending to touch off with fingers fully extended to be as far from the reader as possible.
Unfortunately for him the guard saw it, didn't hear the beep and intervened.

Regards,
Fares_Fair.

[Derwan]

While the majority of people might be going to/from the city, I'd say a lot of the fare evasion occurs in the suburbs - where people aren't travelling to/from the city.

I regularly see teenagers jumping onto the train at Banyo and travelling one station to Nudgee to go on the skate equipment there.  While I have no knowledge that these kids haven't done the right thing, I find myself wondering if they purchased a ticket for their journey.  Given the small journey and the probably that there won't be any Transit Officers checking at that particular time, it'd be easy to evade the fare.

[#Metro]

I guess at some stations so few people travel it might not be worth installing fare gates given the expense of the machines.
But places like South Bank are worth gating off (perhaps when it gets TOD-ified).

There should also be cameras so that if you can't get through the gate for whatever reason, you can get a remote operator to open the gate for you.

[dwb]

This article is clearly just attempting to make us all forget they're about to put fares up 45%. Don't buy in, let's refocus on the main issue, that we're about to be slugged without release of any of the information supporting the policy!