November 18th, 2009 (Melbourne metro)

Updated 4/3/2010

Amidst continuing speculation about the future of the Myki system, more and more people want to know answers to basic questions, such as how much they will get charged when they travel.

This web page is an effort to help people understand how the system will work, and answer the questions we’ve been getting about it.

When will it start in Melbourne?

Starting 29/12/2009, Myki is now running on trains (including V/Line services) in zone 1 and 2, though some railway station machines and the web site continue to have problems.

Because of these problems, at present we recommend that Melbourne public transport users do not use Myki for now, but stick to Metcard.

It’s unknown when it will start on trams and buses, or V/Line trains beyond zone 2.

Myki is running on regional town buses in Geelong, Ballarat, Bendigo, Seymour and some areas of Gippsland.

How will the fares work under Myki?

In most cases, Melbourne fares will be the same as now under Metcard.

Short term tickets (for occasional users such as tourists) will replace the single-use 2-hour and Daily tickets available now.

Or you can buy a Myki and use that to get discounted fares based on the 10×2 hour Metcards/Weekend Saver/Sunday Saver/Senior’s Daily/Earlybird (known as Myki Money) or weekly/monthly/yearly fares (known as Myki Pass).

How will short term tickets work?

This is the option if you don’t want to buy a Myki.

You’ll pay for your fare at the machines or pay the bus driver or over-the-counter at a staffed station, and be given a blue cardboard ticket. You’ll need to touch-on, touch-off as you travel.

These tickets will be available for 2-hour or daily fares, full fare or concession, at the same prices as Metcards are currently.

Zones	1	2	1 and 2
2-hour	$3.70	$2.80	$5.80
Daily	$6.80	$4.80	$10.60

Concession fares are roughly 50% of the above prices, but vary in some cases (same pricing as Metcard — see current pricing). No discounts (eg Sunday Saver) apply to Short Term tickets.

How does Myki Money work?

You will buy a re-usable Myki card and load money onto it.

As you travel, you touch-on and touch-off, and the system will charge you as you go.

The fares are the equivalent to using a 10×2 hour Metcard (see Metcard prices at the Metlink web site).

Zones	1	2	1 and 2
2-hour	$2.94	$2.02	$4.96
Daily	$5.88	$4.04	$9.92

Concession fares are 50% of the above prices. Discounts (eg Earlybird $0 on trains before 7am; City Saver $2.18 for a single trip within the City Saver zone; Weekend Daily Saver $3, no concession) apply to Myki Money.

The same rules apply as with Metcard: the 2 hours starts from the next full hour. After 6pm, the 2 hour fare applies until the end of the day (3am).

A “daily cap” will apply: if you make multiple trips in one day, the system will charge you a maximum of two 2-hour segments, eg the Daily fare. If your travel is valid for the $3 Weekend Saver daily fare, then it will charge you a maximum of $3 per day (Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays). If you’re a Senior, your travel on a day will be capped at the Seniors Daily rate, and so on.

How does Myki Pass work?

You will buy a re-usable Myki card and load a “pass” onto it — for 7 days, or anything from 28 to 365 days, for the zone(s) you want.

The prices are almost identical to Metcard prices, with some minor exceptions, for example the price for a month is slightly different because it is based on a particular number of days, not on a calendar month (where the number of days varies).

Zones	1	2	1 and 2
7 days	$29.40	$20.20	$49.60
30 days	$108.00	$72.00	$166.80
365 days*	$1170.00*	$780.00*	$1807.00*

Concession fares are 50% of the above prices. We’ve shown the 30 and 365 day prices above, but you can buy anything from 28 to 365 days. For full pricing details see the Myki web site, or the table on page 59 of the Myki Fares and Ticketing Manual.

*Note that discounted Yearly tickets are available via PTUA Commuter Club. These are Metcards currently, but will switch to Myki later in 2010, and existing Metcard Yearlies will be changed for Myki cards for free at that time.

Can I combine Myki Pass and Myki Money?

Yes, you can have a single Myki card which has a Pass for your usual zone(s), and Money loaded as well for occasional trips into other zones (including V/Line, once Myki is working there, and some regional town buses).

What about V/Line fares?

V/Line fares will be roughly the same as now for Short Term tickets, and a little bit cheaper on Myki Money. For full pricing details see the table on page 59 of the Myki Fares and Ticketing Manual. Note that an off-peak discount of 30% applies to V/Line Myki Money fares — and this includes all long distance services, which are timetabled to arrive/depart Melbourne outside peak times.

V/Line fares will include travel on Melbourne services and the regional town buses where Myki operates, in the same way that applies now.

Regular V/Line users will be able to use a Myki Pass, for cheaper travel, for 7 days, or 28-365 days, the same as Melbourne users.

How do I touch-on and touch-off?

Touching-on and touching-off is how the system will know what to charge you.

You touch-on the ticket at a scanner as you enter the station, or board the tram or bus.

You touch-off the ticket at a scanner as you leave the station, or leave the tram or bus.

Response times are a little inconsistent — we’ve seen scanners respond in under a second, but some that are much slower, at 2-3 seconds. Hopefully they’ll all be responding quickly once the system is properly running.

How close to I have to be for the machines to detect my card? Will it work through a wallet?

We’ve found the card has to be within about half-a-centimetre of the scanner, but preferably touching it.

Sometimes it’ll work from within a wallet, especially if the Myki ticket is in the closest pocket, but this isn’t guaranteed. Also it may not work if you have other cards of a similar technology in your wallet which may confuse the scanner.

For best results, you need to touch the ticket flat on the scanner. Don’t “swipe” it, or wave it around, it’ll just take longer.

Is it going to slow things down?

Probably in some cases. Busy trams particularly are likely to be a problem, as people try to touch on and off in crowded doorways. Station exits during evening peak may become congested as a train-load of people queue to touch-off. On the other hand, buses may benefit from faster boarding times, since a Myki will be faster to touch-on than a Metcard is to validate.

Whether delays occur may depend on how fast the scanners are, and how many there are, but it’s notable that London’s buses and trams switched to flat fares, with no touch-off, to avoid these problems.

My station doesn’t have enough machines/scanners.

At some stations not all of the machines have been installed yet, as the Metcard equipment is in the best spot for them, so Myki equipment won’t go in until later.

Some stations have no Myki vending machines at all at the moment, which means those using Myki cannot topup at those locations. (List of stations on the Myki web site.) The TTA has advised us they are installing them.

Do I get charged for another 2-hours if I touch-off after the expiry time?

No. Under both Myki and Metcard, your ticket is valid as long as you start your trip (that is, enter the station, or board the tram or bus) before the expiry time.

Do I really need to touch-off?

The official line is yes. If you don’t touch-off, you may get charged a default fare.

The default fare is when the system doesn’t know where you got off the train/tram/bus, and it assumes you went to the end of the line (on a tram/bus) or to the last stop of the longest line on the system (metropolitan trains).

In other words if you don’t touch-off, the Myki system may assume you took a two-zone trip, and charge you for it.

However, the default fare does not apply to short-term tickets (since you paid up-front for where you are travelling) nor for a Myki Pass when you touched-on (started your journey) in your usual zone.

They say they’ll get more useful statistics about passenger use if people touch-on and touch-off every time. Then again, they get some quite useful boarding statistics with the old Metcard system, and through manual surveys, and that hasn’t stopped services getting very crowded due to a lack of forward planning and investment over the past few years.

Do I really need to touch-on every time?

Officially, yes, you need to touch-on every time to ensure your ticket is valid for travel.

In reality it will be similar to Metcard: you have to validate/touch-on the first time you use a ticket to set its expiry date/time. Not doing so is fare evasion.

You also need to do so (even if your ticket is already valid) when boarding buses, so the bus driver knows you have a valid ticket, and when boarding at railway stations if your destination is a gated station, otherwise the gates may not let you out.

And you’ll need to touch-on and touch-off if you end up travelling outside the zone(s) you have paid for on a Myki Pass or that isn’t already paid for with Myki Money.

But if you are using a Myki Pass entirely within the zone(s) you have paid for, using only trams and non-gated stations, as under Metcard, we don’t expect you would be fined for not touching-on, since you are not fare evading. But there are no guarantees, since the government hasn’t made a statement to that effect.

I heard weekly/monthly/yearly passes won’t be valid on weekends.

No, not true.

They will be valid on weekends, but only for the zones you’ve paid for.

Currently a single-zone weekly/monthly/yearly Metcard is valid in both Melbourne zones on Saturdays and Sundays. This benefit is being withdrawn when Myki comes in. (The government argues it’s for consistency with regional areas, but oddly, no regional areas have the $3 weekend daily fare offered in Melbourne.)

So Myki Pass users will pay extra if they go into another zone. But it will be capped at the $3 weekend/public holiday cap, and what they’ve already paid towards that will be taken into account.

Will Myki Money always give me the best fare?

Provided everything works correctly, it will give you the best daily fare, by charging you the cheapest possible fare for each trip, and upgrading it automatically, for instance from a City Saver to a 2-hour Zone 1, to a Daily Zone 1+2 — whatever’s cheapest for your day’s travel.

But if you use it every day, it will not upgrade you to a 7-day pass or a 30-day pass etc if that is cheaper. These have to be pre-loaded.

How much will getting a Myki card cost?

Ultimately $10 full fare, $7 concession. There will be special deals making them effectively free during the transition from Metcard to Myki; the first was an online offer in January 2010, but we expect subsequent offers as the system is rolled-out onto trams and buses.

Based on the regional cities, it is also expected you will be able to get anonymous Myki cards for free over-the-counter during the transition period.

You can choose not to buy a Myki card, and buy short-term tickets instead each time you travel (see above), but you can’t get the discounted fares that way.

Sunday Pass holders (such as Seniors) are expected to be sent a Myki by the government to replace their existing Sunday Pass.

I heard you may have to pay extra if the train is late.

No not trains, but you may be affected if you use 2-hour fares and catch trams and buses.

Under both Myki and Metcard, your ticket is valid as long as you start your trip (that is, enter the station, or board the tram or bus) before the ticket expires.

Under Metcard, if your service is delayed or cancelled, you can still make your trip, even if it means boarding after the expiry time. This benefit is being removed under Myki. It’s an issue only on trams and buses, where you validate (touch-on) as you board, since on trains you would have already entered the platform and validated before the expiry time, no matter how late the train is.

If you were paying for travel all day anyway, then it will make no difference to you, but if you were trying to make a couple of short trips in a single 2-hour period, with no other travel that day, you will have to pay again if the bus or tram arrives late, after your 2-hours has expired.

Isn’t Myki switching us to distance-based fares?

No.

Hong Kong and Singapore use fares based on how many kilometres you travel.

Myki does not include this change. The fares will remain almost identical to those under Metcard, based on the zones (which will now spread across Victoria) and time (2-hour, daily, etc).

The PTUA believes that distance-based charging has a number of disadvantages: they may lead to higher fares, and it is quite confusing, as you never know how much you’ll be charged before you travel.

How will inspectors and V/Line conductors check tickets?

There is little or no information printed on the tickets themselves. Authorised Officers (inspectors), V/Line conductors and coach drivers will use handheld devices that can read the cards.

Will Myki be able to track my movements?

Short term tickets are much like 2-hour and Daily Metcards; they are anonymous and disposed of after travel.

Myki cardholders will be able to choose to register their cards, or not, as they choose. If they do register, this provides protection against theft if the card goes missing, as you can report the loss and have it deactivated, and you can set the card to automatically topup money from your bank account.

But unregistered cards still get access to the discounted fares, and eventually it will be possible to get a card completely anonmyously over-the-counter.

The Transport Ticketing Authority has published a privacy policy which goes into some detail about when they might provide travel data to authorities. You can read it here.

When will Metcard be switched-off?

The government has said they won’t switch-off Metcard until substantial numbers of people are using Myki and are comfortable with it. But reality is the government will control the speed of the transition.

During the transition, both Myki tickets and Metcard tickets will be valid. (As at January 2010, Myki is valid only on trains in Melbourne.)

Over the months that Myki is rolled-out, railway stations, buses, trams and retail outlets will switch from selling Metcards to selling Myki.

Once the roll-out is complete, only Myki tickets will be available for sale, with Metcards still valid for travel.

Then we expect the government to announce a deadline by which all Metcards must be used, after which they will no longer be valid for travel. After this date they will commence removing the Metcard equipment from the system.

I have unused Metcards. What should I do with them?

The official line is that you should use them all up before the Metcard system gets turned off, probably sometime in 2010.

You can get a refund at any time for them, less a $9.80 administration fee.

Given past experience with the phase-out of scratch tickets in 2002, we would expect that at some point you will be able to get a refund without the $9.80 fee, so keep an eye out for announcements on this, but obviously the easiest thing to do is to use all of them up.

Will Myki all work properly?

We don’t know yet. There have been a number of problems in the regional towns already running Myki.

We would advise early adopters to watch the system very carefully — keep a close eye on the scanners as you use them, check your transactions on the Myki Check machines (blue machines in stations) and via the Myki web site, and ring 13 MYKI if you suspect you have been overcharged.

Should I use Myki?

For now we are advising Melbourne users to stick to Metcard, because Myki is not valid on trams and buses, and also because there issues with train system equipment.

By all means make use of the free offer (when it’s available) to get a card, but we do not recommend Myki for regular use until the system is running more smoothly.

If you are really determined to use Myki, be particularly wary of the web site. We’ve heard many stories of online topups and Pass purchases either going missing or taking an inordinately long time to show up on the card. It’s much more reliable to make the transaction at a railway station vending machine, if your station has one.

Was it worth the money?

Probably not. While the Myki system will bring some benefits, including better access to cheap fares, these are eclipsed by the huge cost of the system. Few passengers wanted a new ticket system, and we had argued that for a fraction of the cost, the Metcard system could have been updated, and the rest of the money spent on more staff, trains, trams and buses.

But the equipment’s all here now, and the money’s been spent, so we’re providing feedback to the Transport Ticketing Authority to try and improve the end outcome for passengers.

They’re saying Student Passes will be Myki cards this year, but how will I use trams and buses?

Unlike other Myki tickets, a Student Pass Myki can be used on trams and buses. Metlink advises that the Myki “should be shown to public transport staff on request when travelling on services where myki is not operating.”

Will the PTUA’s Commuter Club discounted Yearly ticket scheme continue under Myki?

PTUA members who are regular public transport users can buy discounted Yearly tickets, at 9% off the retail price.

This offer will continue under Myki, but for now they’re issued as Metcards. You can see full details of the offer here.

Yearly ticketholders (both Commuter Club and others) will get to switch their Metcard tickets to Myki for free later in 2010.

Commuter Club is also available via some employers.

Further questions?

Email:

with your questions, and we’ll endeavour to find out the answers and post them back here.

If you want to read all the fineprint yourself, it’s contained in the Myki Fares and Ticketing Manual (be warned, it’s over 100 pages, not for the fainthearted).

Update: The Transport Ticketing Authority has finally posted some useful information on the official Myki web site, including questions and answers, which you can read here.

You can also ring them for information, on 13-MYKI (13 6954).

Who is the PTUA anyway?

Founded in 1976, the Public Transport Users Association is the recognised consumer organisation representing passengers of all forms of public transport. We are a non-profit, voluntary organisation, with no political affiliations.

If you want to help support our work, please join us. You get 5 newsletters per year, access to cheap Yearly tickets, and you’ll be helping the campaign for better public transport in Melbourne and around Victoria.