jayeless_archive | GO TO HELL MYKI

This post is a crosspost from my Tumblr, and can be read in its original location here.

If you don't know myki is Victoria's ~~upstart usurper of a ticketing system~~ ~*~smartcard ticketing system~*~ where you like get this credit card thing and you're supposed to ~~tag on~~ and ~~tag off~~ every time you get on or off a train, tram, or bus.

(Actually technically you're not supposed to tag off when you get off the tram, unless your tram trip was wholly within the zone 1/2 overlap, in which case you are. METLINK'S ONLY HOBBY IN LIFE IS BEING CONFUSING ok.)

myki may sound like a "good idea" if you geek out over science fiction-y smartcard systems (understandable that was my own reaction when myki was first supposed to be introduced.............. in 2006) but if you consider that Melbourne already has an A-GRADE AMAZING TICKETING SYSTEM called METCARD it basically sucks. And basically there's two reasons for this:

metcards work.
mykis don't.

OKAY OKAY I am being a little bit unfair because they basically mostly work on trains so far as I can tell. BUT BUSES. ok don't use myki on buses unless YOU LIKE PAYING EXTRA MONEY BECAUSE THE MYKI READERS DON'T WORK.

This happened to me yesterday.

See I had to go to the city to get a new ID (eighteen on Monday yes yes yes EXCITE) soooo I went there on my myki. Then I had uni, so I had to catch the train ALL THE WAY BACK to Huntingdale. Which I did. Then I caught the bus to Monash and didn't have to pay anything because the tag-on reader was broken (lol myki). Then after uni, I had to catch the bus back to Huntingdale to go home, and this time the tag-on reader wasn't broken so I had to pay (utter tragedy). But...

...the tag-off readers WERE broken. BOTH OF THEM.

Which meant that when I got off the bus there was no way to get it into my dumbass myki's head that I WAS GETTING OFF THE BUS so STOP CHARGING ME RIGHT NOW OMGGGGG.

Of course if the ticketing system wasn't 100% STUPID it'd have guessed where I got off the bus, because I promptly tagged on again at Huntingdale station and seriously, if I board a bus at Monash and board a train at Huntingdale WHERE DO YOU THINK I GOT OFF, MYKI. (Hint: it starts with an H and ends in "Station".)

I don't know where the fuck my myki thinks I got off but it clearly thinks I got off in zone 2 because it fucking charged me ONE DOLLAR AND ONE CENT for NO APPARENT REASON because by that time I was already up to a daily zone 1 ticket.

I don't even know how my myki figured this shit was cost-effective because the entire 630 route stays within zone 1 the whole time!!! (I mean part of that is the overlap zone but it's still aaaaaall zone 1.)

So basically the moral of this story is... myki should go and die.