Go cards, nice idea, poorly implemented

Acursed Go Cards!

This started as a reply comment to one of my previous posts, but as the ranting continued I thought it deserved its own post (especially since its so long since the original post).

So on the way home, Toowong train station is definitely one of the busiest 'off' stops. There is a pyramid set up where steps about 2 carriages apart both lead up to the same platform, and once up that platform, you must move to the single exit point like below:

|---|

X...|

|...|

A...B

|---|

Where X is the exit, A and B are where the two stair cases come up to the platform.

Anyway,X used to be a nice wide exit, which was great, as people would come up the two stair wells at the same time, and a steady stream of people could exit the station.

Now with Go cards, they have put go card 'barriers' up across this exit. There is small exit on the near side (close to A) of the exit, then next to that the barriers begin. Closest is a wide gate that is always open, then 3 or 4 narrow gates that only open when a go card is swiped. So what happens in practice?

For everyone exiting, the nearest exit is the non baricade exit. So those without a go card would prefer to exit there. Those with a go card that have to swipe then prefer the next closest exit, which is the open one that doesn't require a swipe.

So now when coming up the B exit without a go card, you have to cross a sea of people coming up from A and also B trying to get to that very narrow exit. If you can't make it there, you go the only other option, the open go card gate. If there are no go carders, you pass through quickly. But go carders pause and block the gate to swipe there card, so you get a backup.

The backed up line causes another person barrier to form, stopping any go carders from exit A from being able to get to other go card gates. So only the very few Go carders from exit B who have gone right early get a chance to use the narrow gates.

In general, you only see a few people using the narrow go card gates, and I've never seen anyone exitting from stair well 'A' use any of those narrow gates. These narrow gates take up half the previous exit space.

Now double the people are trying to fit through the left side of exit, and half of that space only allows oner person through at a time.

They took a very streamlined exit and screwed it up. Wish they'd looked at crowd dynamics. I choose to presume they were absolutely boneheaded in screwing this up, and it wasn't intentional to frustrate everyone into getting a go card.

Brisbane's 3 Public Transport methods

So in sunny Brisbane we have three different mediums (is that the word?) which are integrated into our public transport system. Bus, Rail, and Citycat (there are ferries, which are a poor mans citycat ).

So they all have their uses, but one interesting thing I find is how their ticketing acquisition structure differentiates.

Bus - buy ticket from driver WHEN you get on
Train - buy ticket from vendor/machine BEFORE you get on
Citycat - buy ticket from vendor/mahine AFTER you get on

Which is better? Let's discuss buses vs trains for a bit, as this is what I have most exposure to.

You are running late for a train, you see it pulling into the station as you run to catch it. But you don't have a ticket. Do you jump on train without a ticket and risk a fine, or buy a ticket but accept you will miss that train, possibly waiting half an hour for another? But you run to a bus stop just as the bus is arriving! hurruh you made it. you jump on and get a chance to fish some cash out and buy a ticket.

So now we are on our form of transport we carry on. However the pro/con is now reversed. At each train stop, there is a specific stop time, usually under a minute where people can get on/off the train, and we continue on. All very uniform, no delays.

As each bus stops, you get everyone fishing their cash out, trying to find change, ask the driver what ticket they need, and you can end up with lengthy unpredictable delays at each stop.

Now look at the city cat. With the city cat, there is only a small delay at each port allowing people on and off the citycat, no requirement to have a ticket for this part. One on the cat (and after it has perhaps taken off and you are en route along with all other passengers), you can purchase your ticket.

Citycat is obviously superior! Why can't we use this on other forms of transport?

When visiting Melbourne, the Tram system there is run like the Citycat. The driver is seperate and only responsible for driving the tram, each tram has a ticket machine on board so you can buy a ticket. Would be great to have something similar on trains, though with the overcrowding we have I guess that's almost impossible to use in rush hour.

An interesting thing we saw in Japan with buses was that you pay for your ticket when you get OFF the bus. Gives a bit more leeway, as once on the bus you can sit down and work out how much you should pay. Gives people a chance to organize themselves more than when they get on (when running late for a train, you can't stop and pull out your cash in preparation easily)

More Public Transport Frustrations

So Brisbane has this great idea, night buses! On a Saturday night, they run buses along key routes for standard bus fares, so you can get home for the cost of a bus ride instead of a cab ride.

So we were out at the regatta in Toowong tonight, till about 2ish, and decided to wander back to the RE in the more central part of Toowong as it was more likely to have a Cab line up.

Get the the RE, and we notice the bus sign, which is at the cab rank, is showing that a bus will be coming in 10 minutes!  Well buses are certainly cheaper than cabs, so why not wait to catch the bus a couple of stops?  It's a Night bus, 464.

After a while, the display updates.  Seems our bus is delays. but we can wait a bit longer.

So we wait and wait, a few cabs pull up to see if we want a ride, but move on when they realise we are not waiting for them.

After sitting here waiting for 20minutes, another bus appears on the display, this one is due at 2:44pm.  So even if this one doesn't show, it's nice to know there's another one half an hour away.  Hopefully we don't need it.

So at around 2:20, the display turns off for the now very late bus, and only the 2:44 is left up there. Not happy.

Suddenly, at about 2:25, we see a bus coming around the corner! yay!

We jump about and wave to hail the bus.... but it just keeps going.... all the lights on the bus are on, and we can see there are only 4 or 5 people on it.  But no stopping, it just keep going.

So now we are really furious and realise we need a cab.  But of course it's now 30 minutes after the pub has shut so no cabs are coming, they're all headed back to the city.  Finally after 8 minutes a cab takes pity and turns around to pick us up.

Furiouser and Furiouser now, we get back and get on the phone to complain to translink, who have  a 24 hour complain/contact line.

We get told that night buses only do pick ups in the city, then the rest of the route is only drop offs.  I can sort of see that makes sense, but then why do they have the timetable on at the bus stop?! They say, oh, that's so people know when the bus will be dropping people off.  Pah! That is so rubbish.  I occassionally catch buses from the Cultural center in the city, which is an end of line stop for a lot of buses.  These buses DO NOT show up on the display for arriving buses.  So thanks to their inconsistent logic, we wasted half an hour waiting at a stop.  Thanks brisbane transport.  thank you indeed.

Brisbane public transport is frustrating!

So needed to get from Toowong to the City on Saturday.  On a Saturday trains run every half hour and are pretty reliable, but had just missed one and was supposed to get to the city by 2pm.  Next train wasn't till 1:56pm and would take 15minutes, so a bus seemed a better option.

Buses run fairly frequently, and there are a number of different buses, but they all get you to the city on fairly standard routes.

Firstly, the display board was out, so weren't sure when an actual bus was going to arrive.  Looked at the schedule though and there were 2 due pretty soon.  So about 5 minutes later a 444 bus pulls up, which we jump on.

The bus then sits at that stop for a minute!  While we're sitting there, another bus overtakes us.  Gah!

We finally take off, and get to the stop near the wesley hospital.  I hate this area, because it seems like EVERY time I get a bus, it stops here and they change drivers, which seems to take anywhere from 1 - 5 minutes, but never with any indication.

Yup that's right, we stopped there. Sigh.  So waiting there, and another bus pulls up behind us, i was hopeful that this was the changeover bus.  Nope, it pulls away. damn i could have gotten on that bus instead!  So no indication about when we will be leaving, we just sit and wait on the packed bus.  It's 5 minutes before a driver arrives who gets on our bus, tinkers about as they do, before finally getting us going again.  In this time I count 3 other buses that pass us.

Would be so nice if they could just tell us which buses are the ones worth getting on, I would have happily waited for one that wasn't going to stop at a bus stop for 5 minutes where i'd forced to watch other buses I could be on pass me.