Oxley - AVVM out of paper

[ozbob]

This morning I called into Oxley station at 5.20am.  The ticket office was closed.  The AVVM (new ticket) machine was displaying no tickets, no receipts, cards only.

The ticket window opened at 5.30am.  Oxley has recently had its hours cut back.

The station staff were not impressed when they realised the AVVM was not selling tickets. Monday is a very busy day of course.

I caught the 8.58am service from Oxley. The AVVM was still displaying 'no tickets' 'no receipts'  'cards only' 3 and a half hours later ...

This is most unsatisfactory , particularly as the hours the ticket windows are being opened are cut.

Oxley AVVM out of paper!  time 8.50am



Photograph R Dow 28 Apr 08

No tickets is the AVVM display above




Photograph R Dow 28 Apr 08

[stephenk]

Good day for the Transit Officers to fine innocent passengers then!

[Mozz]

Maybe it's time to start flexing the muscles of the most important stakeholder in this whole soap opera (the public transport commuter).

I would suggest a high 95% plus of rail commuters would support stations being staffed from the first to the last train.

However in this day and age of trying to make public transport run like a business (which will never ever ever work but hey let's not let the public transport academics and world wide experience of other jurisdictions inform our decisions.....) there will always be compromise on staffing.

But for the life of me I can't understand the paring back of a few hours here and there across the citytrain network to save a few dollars here and there when QR/QT/TL/TTA choose one or all are patently and I mean patently aware that the TVM's are significantly less than reliable. They run out of coin, they run out of notes, they run out of tickets, they break down etc etc.

I for one am somewhat of a public tranport socialist, make it free and available where it is needed, get rid of tickets and the costly regime which manages it. Imagine if this decision was made prior to the toasting of the hundreds of millions of dollars over the past 6 or so years the smart card has been touted. Divert significant amounts of road funding to public transport!!

[ozbob]

When we raised the possibility of reduced hours following the introduction of the go card (smart card as it was known then)  it was down played of course. See --> http://backontrack.org/mbs/index.php?topic=257.0

Many of the passengers on the first down train this morning (5.08am) from Oxley would have been ticketless! 

Very difficult if they are terminating at another non staffed station.  No chance of reverse ticketing, net result is more expense for the commuter.  Others would have to run the inquisition as to why they were reverse ticketing no doubt.

Surely it is possible to keep these machines functional?

Footnote:  On arrival back at Oxley this evening the AVVM was showing full service. 

[Mozz]

Does anyone know anything about the support framework for these ticket machines, I would expect that when they malfunction it is recorded and then transmitted to a centre which would then despatch a technician to fix the fault. I would expect that this service would at least operate the same hours as trains/buses/ferries are available and best case 24x7??

I hope that the system doesn't rely on human intervention to detect and report a fault particularly with rail staff hours being cut on the basis that ticket machines are available.

[ozbob]

Good question Mozz.  I know with the old TVMs the station staff did basic maintenance and collected the cash.  I am not sure who does the new ones at all.  I haven't seen any of the station staff doing the bits and pieces on the new ones like I did see for the old AVMs.  Maybe it is TL staff on contract or something, which may explain why they (the new ticket machines) are very often not fully operational.  Another con job by the looks of things.

[ozbob]

I think the whole set up is based on the premise that the masses will be falling over themselves to use the fantastic plastic. 

Before that happens though it has to be made fare equitable and reliable on all modes of public transport.

There are still not that many people using the go card as far as I can see.  I continue to use the go card as I travel mostly on rail and with the fixed devices works fine.

[Huggies]

If I remember rightly Chubb have the contract to service these machines.

[Mozz]

Hmm interesting - Chubb might have a contract to service them. However they appear to have been deployed across SEQ on the basis that they won't ever break down or have issues and that in the rare situation they do transit officers will be "IMMEDIATELY" advised of the malfunction so as to not impose a $150 ticket for fare evasion (stealing/theft) as has been previously promoted by the current responsible management.

But somehow it seems that both the maintenance, as well as the advice of ticket machine malfunctions (which appear to be common) may well be dependent on human intervention to report and then wait for the despatch of resources to rectify.

[ozbob]

Issues such as the AVVM running out of paper are of interest and concern to us.

I doubt if any of the so called experts would be concerned with such simple practicalities and their failure but a major issue for the commuters affected.  The contributions OnTopic to this thread are very worthwhile, and will help us highlight these issues to the appropriate places.

We have received feedback on similar problems all over the network, and the shortage of AVVMs in key public transport locations as well.

I must say I am delighted that we can highlight these day to day problems that escape most of the experts.

Cheers
Ozbob

[ozbob]

For your information: Off Topic posts in this thread have been moved too --> http://backontrack.org/mbs/index.php?topic=826.msg3575#msg3575

Cheers
Admin