Have card, will travel in Victoria

A report in The Age says that if you’re reading this page and you regularly use public transport, the chances are you’re going to like the new Myki ticketing system.

In fact, you’re probably going

to like it a lot.

According to extensive research of Victoria’s public transport users carried out for the State Government, there’s a good chance you are what market researchers call a “confident regular”. That is, a well-paid smartypants who uses public transport regularly to get to their white-collar job, yet still has time to read The Age.

The new scan-card technology that Myki offers is going to appeal to your modern way of life, and your desire to try the latest technologies before they become mainstream.

It’s going to suit your existing comfort with electronic payment and will probably fit nicely in your wallet next to that credit card you use for many of your purchases.

But unfortunately, this is not all about you.

That older, distant relative of yours might not be so happy about the big changes that are likely to sweep across the public transport system sometime in the next 12 months.

First flagged as a replacement to the present ticketing system before the 2002 state election, Myki will revolutionise public transport travel in Victoria.

It’s a credit card size piece of plastic embedded with a microchip and loaded-up with your credit.

Passengers will swipe their Myki on scanners when boarding their carriage, and swipe off when they disembark, allowing the technology to calculate the appropriate fare.

So big and important is the project, the State Government created an entire authority – the Transport Ticketing Authority – to conduct preparations, award contracts and control the ultimate release of the new technology.

In September last year, then Transport Minister Peter Batchelor unveiled the look of the new card, brandishing the slim, yellow piece of plastic.

And though its mainstream release is still to come, the finetuning has continued behind the scenes under a degree of secrecy, with a single bus in Geelong to be fitted with scanners and will conduct the first real trial of the system later this year.

Myki is expected to be in use across the rest of the public transport network sometime in 2008, but the Government is still reluctant to offer an exact date.

The ticketing authority’s performance has been questioned by some, with two probity audits taking place into the awarding of contracts, and the Auditor-General is expected to report back soon into the tendering process.

Other revelations about the thousands of dollars spent on hats, drink bottles and other merchandise hasn’t helped its public image either. But another of the authority’s major investments has been in market research.  To assist in perfecting the new system, it commissioned huge amounts of research on Victoria’s public transport users through 2005 and 2006.

Access to the hundreds of pages of customer profiling, research and recommendations was initially denied, but the documents were ultimately obtained by The Age under freedom of information laws.

Supplied to the authority by market research firm The Klein Partnership at a cost of more than $800,000, the documents offer a revealing and frank assessment of who will be the winners and losers of the new ticketing system.

The research divided public transport users into six groups based on such information as income, age, frequency of travel, media habits and even behavioural traits such as whether they regularly ate fast food.

Six demographics were formed: passive progressives; confident regulars, traditionalists; followers; dependent frequents; incidentals.

People who do not travel on public transport regularly – a trait common to traditionalists, incidentals and followers – loom as the strugglers, the ones who are not going to like the new system, and won’t use the system frequently enough to get over their confusion.

“Encouraging adoption of the new ticketing system could be more challenging among traditionalists because of their fundamental conservatism and aversion to change,” the report advises.

Dr Paul Mees, senior lecturer in Transport Planning at Melbourne University, says first-time users will find the system confronting, intimidating and inconvenient, a situation that risks turning them away from the system permanently.

“It takes time to become used to using it … what about tourists?” he says. “This ridiculous idea that everybody is going to be forced to scan their ticket twice on every journey – once when they get on and again when they get off – is going to drive people mad and in particular it’s going to cause infrequent public transport users, which is the majority of the population in Melbourne, to be more reluctant to use public transport.”

Customers will be asked to have faith that the new technology charges them the cheapest applicable fare, and Mees says there will be potential for more conflict with ticket inspectors.

“When you validate your Myki ticket, how do you know whether it actually validated or not when you went through the door, it’s just a piece of plastic,” he says.

The Government appears wary that people may initially find the new system confusing.

Earlier this year, Transport Minister Lynne Kosky said the existing system was likely to be kept on to complement Myki, at least in the early days of the new system.

“There won’t be a big bang,” she said. “We will keep the (old) ticketing system going alongside the new Myki system for some time until people feel comfortable with the new system.”

The research also advises that people who are typically not comfortable with new technology and electronic forms of payment will find Myki confronting.

Traditionalists, who enjoy quieter pastimes, including religion and gardening, may struggle with Myki’s “lack of a human interface”, the report warns.

Australian Privacy Foundation chairman Roger Clarke says these people are right to be concerned about the ability of Myki to track their movements and financial habits, even given the ticketing authority’s assurances about taking privacy seriously and the option of anonymous cards with no personal details attached.

The group dubbed “followers” are “skewed towards being technologically un-savvy” and the report warns it is difficult to envisage them adopting the facilities for topping up their Myki credit levels.

Even if the technology can be mastered, Council on the Ageing Victoria executive director Sue Hendy says elderly people may find it difficult to physically use the system on crowded carriages, given its requirement that people walk to a swipe-on terminal, then to their seat and then to a swipe-off terminal before disembarking.

Then there’s the concept of paying for your travel in bulk. Fine for the wealthy, but less appealing to students (dependent frequents) and people who use the system only every six to 12 months (incidentals).

The report advises “incidentals” as being initially “extremely negative” about the new ticketing system, with a sentiment summed up by the statement “why pay for a card I rarely use?”

The “dependent frequents” – who, as the tag suggests, are dependent on public transport because of their low incomes and single status – expressed concern about the new system raising ticket prices and creating a credit problem for them.

The report suggests payment options similar to pre-paid mobile phones as one possible option to making the system work for dependent frequents, who are often university students.

Victorian Council of Social Services policy and public affairs manager Kate Colvin says any time low-income people are made to pay in bulk – whether before the purchase or after purchase – it puts a strain on their finances.”

“It’s not realistic for people to buy in bulk when they are on a low income, people just don’t have that sort of cash flow,” she says.

But the ticketing authority is confident this particular problem can be managed, with general manager of customer strategy Duncan Bryce saying there are plans to offer top-ups as small as $1 when the card is ultimately released.

“You can reload it very frequently with minimal amounts of money,” he says.

Colvin says VCOSS is also encouraged by the ability of Myki to sell flexible fares, which it hopes will be used to make travel cheaper in off-peak times, rather than more expensive during the peaks.

So while they seem to be pressed very close together as they pack into overcrowded carriages every morning, Victoria’s public transport users are expected to be poles apart when it comes to adopting the new ticketing system.

Given the barriers to adoption predicted by the report, taxpayers should expect extensive marketing and information campaigns aimed at alleviating their various fears when Myki finally becomes operational.

Expect assurances of customer privacy, financial security and the security of jobs on the public transport network to be aimed at the conservative, older sectors of the community.

Variable payment options could be unveiled for the cash-strapped young, while the possibility of using the card to pay for things other than the ticket – maybe newspapers or drinks – may be aimed at people who don’t use public transport, with the hope of luring them onto the occasional tram or train.

As for you confident regulars; you already know it all, don’t you.

Report by The Mole