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TransLink go card: beginning to irk me

I’m still ahead. But would you believe that, on the very day of my previous post about the go card, the go card machine in the bus failed to work when I needed to get off the bus at Forest Lake? How’s that for coincidence? Exactly the same thing happened again last night when trying to touch off.

What happens is this. I get on the bus at Indooroopilly, touch on, the light goes green and says something about a continuing journey. This is correct, as I change buses at Indooroopilly on my way home from NICTA’s new location at UQ. But then, as I’m exiting the bus at Forest Lake, the go card machine says “Please wait…”. I walk down the front of the bus to speak to the driver, who tells me (on both occasions) “but the machine wasn’t working at the start of the route, so you don’t need to touch off.” I tell him, “No, at Indooroopilly it was working. The light went green and everything was normal.” Rather than holding up the other passengers any longer, I just hop off the bus and call TransLink to make sure I’m not overcharged (except that I haven’t got around to doing that this time).

The thing that irks me even more is the consistent lateness of the 460. It wouldn’t be so bad if it was always late by the same amount, but it’s not. Although my Twitter page records the many occasions the 460 has been late in the evening, it’s my morning trip that really frustrates me. I have not known 8:10am 460 from Forest Lake E to run within 10 minutes of its scheduled time ever since I’ve been catching it. This is quite unbelievable given that the bus is supposed to start at Inala at 7:58am, and couldn’t possibly be getting caught in traffic between there and my stop.

I think overall Brisbane’s public transport is improving. But, jeez, it still sucks so badly, and I’m not sure it’s keeping up with the growth of our population.

By ricky

Husband, dad, R&D manager and resident Lean Startup evangelist. I work at NICTA.

5 replies on “TransLink go card: beginning to irk me”

My observations are that the Go Card generally works properly on the trains and dismally on the buses.

When it breaks for catching the train is generally not a problem with the hardware/software system but with the policies behind it or with the physical environment — eg suburban stations not having gates, making it easier to forget to tag on/off.

When it breaks on the buses seems to always be a failure of the card reader which is really quite remarkable as they are basically radio transceivers and therefore (theoretically) pretty robust.

Unless there is some interactional issue that is not apparent to the ticket-holder like when there was a problem with the machines being on Daylight Saving time and therefore mucking up transfers.

Don’t even get me started about the Go Card. I had the same experience, with the driver taking the “its not my fault, take it up with Translink” approach. But what you have not gotten to is the phone call to Transinfo. After 20 minutes of being on hold, explaining your case, and having you detaiols recorded, you are told that you will get a “credit” to your account BUT just in case it doesn’t go through (which apparently is common) here is a confirmation number to quote when you call back to complain. Now, that in itself is bad enough, but hang on a minute. How can you tell that whether you have or have not been credited? The only way you can tell is if you happened to notice the balance on your card when you got on the bus (not when you got OFF, because it wasn’t working then, but when you got ON, and didn’t bother to look because you didn’t know there would be this enourmous stuff-up to deal with). The Go card can just Go away IMHO. I’m running down my balance and Go-ing back to cash.

Yes, the go card system is pretty bad, my go card refused to touch off this morning, didnt say bad read or anything just nothing…. And now the card appears to be dead for no apparent reason. Anyone else had this? Im sick of all the stuff ups. Perth has a much better system with their SmartRider card system. Brisbane should model theirs on Perth’s equivalent. Capped charges etc… much better.

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