Sydney gets My Zone, and we get stuck with Go Card

[beauyboy]

May I just state I hate Sydney right now,
see this link and you will understand.
http://www.myzone.nsw.gov.au/

I also hate the QLD gov for not realising this is the kind of fare structure we want.

Donald

[SockGap]

I didn't think I'd ever be jealous of Sydney but from a quick read of the MyZone website they seem to have got it right.  3 Zones - who needs 20-something zones to the Sunshine Coast when you can have 3 zones all the way to Newcastle...

And on the map page (linked from the FAQ under Q4) they say

Tickets that won't change

Some popular tickets will remain, but their prices may change:
- Half-fare concession discounts
- $2.50 Pensioner Excursion Ticket (No price change)
- $2.50 Family Funday Sunday tickets (No price change)
- Offpeak discount of 30% for return train journeys
- Newcastle time based bus fares and Newcastle Travelpasses will remain
- Periodical tickets such as monthly, quarterly and yearly passes

Oh to have monthly tickets available on the Go Card.  So much for the Smart State...

Reading a bit more about the options it seems to be quite confusing.   I must admit I don't know the Sydney system that well so I'm trying to work it out without much background.   Looking at the tickets they do MyBus, MyFerry, MyTrain OR MyMulti (which covers all three).   There seems to be a Single ticket option for the three stand-alone types but the MyMulti only comes in a weekly.  (Weekly seems to be the same as in Queensland - price based on 8 single tickets.)  So if (like me) you only travel 4 days a week (I drive to work on Wednesday and go straight from work to play sport) and you change from bus to train at some point then you're stuck with buying singles for every trip on the train and a MyBus TravelTen (Ten Trip Saver equivalent) for your travel on the bus.

Interesting thing I've just noticed for the MyBus Single:

Break of journey is not allowed. Exit at any point prior to your destination constitutes a completed journey.

Maybe it's not possible for any one PT provider to get everything right for everyone...  But Daily, Weekly and Monthly capping for the Go Card would come pretty close!

[beauyboy]

True true, but oh the that weekly is what
WE WANT
WE CRAVE
WE NEED


Donald

[somebody]

Sydney's ticketting system is considerably inferior to ours.  This change will mean that private buses no longer have their own ticketting systems, and the multi mode weeklies will be accepted on them.  Also a reduction in the number of zones.  Seems to be the main changes at a quick glance.

At first I thought that IPART (Independant Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal) had been overruled. Their attitude was that anyone daring to change between modes or between busses or bus/ferry should have to pay.  But unfortunately not, they still appear to have the same attitude and their view is still accepted.  Morons.  Notice that you have to pay more for a combined mode ticket as compared to a single mode ticket, and that combined mode tickets are only available in weekly.  Stupid.  It makes connections even more unpopular than they need to be.

I also hate the QLD gov for not realising this is the kind of fare structure we want.

In case it's not obvious from the above, I strongly disagree.

[beauyboy]

Yes I agree,
it is just that the weekly thing I agree with.
I agree the single day thing in sydney is still very undersirable but the weekly thing they have hit the nail on the head

Donald

[verbatim9]

May I just state I hate Sydney right now,
see this link and you will understand.
http://www.myzone.nsw.gov.au/

I also hate the QLD gov for not realising this is the kind of fare structure we want.

Donald

They have done this to simplify the rules before the announcement of the new touch cards in which a tender is meant to be announced in the coming months. http://www.pttc.nsw.gov.au/news.html

[Derwan]

The complex fare structure was possibly something that caused Sydney's first attempt at smart card technology to fail.  I know it was a huge factor in the delay of the Go Card for us.

We learn from our mistakes.  Sydney has simplified the fare structure so that the next attempt at smart card technology is less likely to fail.

Our current fare structure is crazy.  There are too many zones.  Even then, the calculation of fares is crazy.  If I travel by train from North Boondall to Carseldine (both zone 4 and just 2 suburbs away), I have to pay for an extra zone, simply because I have to go to Northgate and change trains.  In the past, this may have been necessary as your paper ticket had to reflect each zone you were travelling through to enable ticket inspectors to effectively check tickets.  But this should never have been incorporated into the calculation of Go Card fares.  Additional zones should only have been added when travelling through the city.

Better still, implement line-of-sight fares that calculate the distance between origin and destination based on direct line-of-sight.

If people started rethinking fare structures earlier in the Smart Card project (like 2003), they could have been changed and we would've had the Go Card sooner.  I guess hindsight is a good thing.

[somebody]

The complex fare structure was possibly something that caused Sydney's first attempt at smart card technology to fail.  I know it was a huge factor in the delay of the Go Card for us.

We learn from our mistakes.  Sydney has simplified the fare structure so that the next attempt at smart card technology is less likely to fail.

Our current fare structure is crazy.  There are too many zones.  Even then, the calculation of fares is crazy.  If I travel by train from North Boondall to Carseldine (both zone 4 and just 2 suburbs away), I have to pay for an extra zone, simply because I have to go to Northgate and change trains.  In the past, this may have been necessary as your paper ticket had to reflect each zone you were travelling through to enable ticket inspectors to effectively check tickets.  But this should never have been incorporated into the calculation of Go Card fares.  Additional zones should only have been added when travelling through the city.

Better still, implement line-of-sight fares that calculate the distance between origin and destination based on direct line-of-sight.

If people started rethinking fare structures earlier in the Smart Card project (like 2003), they could have been changed and we would've had the Go Card sooner.  I guess hindsight is a good thing.

The sheer number of zones makes little difference to the complexity.  Really, things failed in Sydney because they didn't actually want to have an equitable fare structure.  The bureaucrats should be shot.

That sounds like simply a limitation with zones generally.  In fact, you would need to pay for 2 extra zones.  I don't get your logic that transfers through Northgate should be handled differently than transfers through the city.  Really, I would prefer a zoneless as the crow flies calculation, which should be possible with the GPS data.

[Sunbus610]

Check out this story re the new My Zone from the Daily Telepraph newspaper today.

[SteelPan]

To be honest, Sydney has had better ticketing than SE Qld for as long as I can remember.

IS ANYONE IN GEORGE STREET LISTENING           - we have far to many zones...it's crazzy....also, no matter how Anna & Co spin it, Public Transit is now EXPENSIVE in SE QLD particularly given the overall modest service levels.  Kinda weird, given how the State Govt tell everyone about all the growth going on....

[longboi]

To be honest, Sydney has had better ticketing than SE Qld for as long as I can remember.

Buying multiple tickets for different modes and for different operators...right 

[somebody]

To be honest, Sydney has had better ticketing than SE Qld for as long as I can remember.

IS ANYONE IN GEORGE STREET LISTENING           - we have far to many zones...it's crazzy....also, no matter how Anna & Co spin it, Public Transit is now EXPENSIVE in SE QLD particularly given the overall modest service levels.  Kinda weird, given how the State Govt tell everyone about all the growth going on....

The only things that are cheap in Sydney is long distance commuter train travel (like to Gosford or the Blue Mountains) and very short bus trips.  The MyBus 1 Travel Ten is $1.60 per trip, but that really only compares to a 1 zone journey.  My Bus 2 = $2.64 per trip, probably a rough equivalent of a 2 zone journey, but no off peak discounts.

I could go on, but I think I'd be wasting my time.

[dwb]

For a large system, 23 zones makes reasonable sense in ensuring that if you use the system more you pay more. This is fair, this is just and it makes sense.

In the future, I see little reason they couldn't change to some sort of GPS line of sight style charge instead of zones, however 23 zones is a good place to start. Reducing this makes little sense in my mind.

[somebody]

For a large system, 23 zones makes reasonable sense in ensuring that if you use the system more you pay more. This is fair, this is just and it makes sense.

In the future, I see little reason they couldn't change to some sort of GPS line of sight style charge instead of zones, however 23 zones is a good place to start. Reducing this makes little sense in my mind.

Agree.  Nothing I can add, except that they need to keep the zones to keep the paper tickets, even if they don't apply to the go card.

[O_128]

For a large system, 23 zones makes reasonable sense in ensuring that if you use the system more you pay more. This is fair, this is just and it makes sense.

In the future, I see little reason they couldn't change to some sort of GPS line of sight style charge instead of zones, however 23 zones is a good place to start. Reducing this makes little sense in my mind.

Agree.  Nothing I can add, except that they need to keep the zones to keep the paper tickets, even if they don't apply to the go card.

Once paper is out i would like to see a move to Distance pricing Eg 50c a Km

[somebody]

Once paper is out i would like to see a move to Distance pricing Eg 50c a Km

I think paper should be retained for tourists, very infrequent users etc.  Just at a price differential.  After all, isn't that what London has done?

[dwb]

It should probably be a non linear cost, ie the rate per distance decreases as the length of the trip increases, this is to ensure equity for long distance travel, especially as it is cheaper per km for instance to provide a train for a longer distance than many buses for a shorter distance.

[somebody]

It should probably be a non linear cost, ie the rate per distance decreases as the length of the trip increases, this is to ensure equity for long distance travel, especially as it is cheaper per km for instance to provide a train for a longer distance than many buses for a shorter distance.

Yeah, but not to the degree it's done in Sydney.  A one station train ticket costs $3.20, while trips to Gosford are $8.60.

The long distance trips are excessively subsidised.

[Derwan]

The problem with distance-based costing is that it's not clear up-front how much a trip will cost you.  This should be less of an issue with the Go Card, but some people may have a problem with it.

[somebody]

The problem with distance-based costing is that it's not clear up-front how much a trip will cost you.  This should be less of an issue with the Go Card, but some people may have a problem with it.

That's a good point.  Probably if the journey planner could calculate the fares, that would go some way to reducing this disadvantage.