One day, our elected officials will realise it’s not always about them. That the decisions they make for technical expediency are not necessarily the best for the people they represent. That strictly business decisions, while admirable, are not the best domain of those who are entrusted with developing the social architecture.
They dabble in business and typically find themselves outmanoeuvred by teams of corporate lawyers, but pretend it didn’t happen in order to move on to the next Great Event. Toll roads, airports, retail developments, even theme parks fall victim to the utter self-belief that a career politician is an astute businessman.
Here in Melbourne, we have the soon-to-be-opened toll road that we were promised would never be tolled; the sea-side public open space that would be kept in tune with its surroundings and the public transport system that…. well, who knows what it might have been without incessant meddling (or should I say ‘bumbling?).
The latest Grand Scheme revolves around a new ticketing system, although what makes it any better than the last is entirely beyond me – especially given both the impending problems and the astonishing difficulty they’ve thus-far had in making it work.
For the non-Victorians in the audience, here’s how it works. You pre-purchase a stored-value smartcard-based “Myki.” Like every other solution, its credit-card sized. Whenever you step onto a bus, tram or train you wave the card at a reader; whenever you step off, you again scan the card to allow the system to determine how far you went. You can ‘register’ your card with the authorities so that if it’s lost, they can cancel it and transfer the balance to a new one.
The scheme is now 15 months overdue and they’re telling us the next trial won’t be until later this year. Meanwhile the old system is slowly crashing around their ears – equipment breakdowns lack of parts etc.
Just a few weeks ago, the New South Wales government cancelled their own equivalent system with delays, cost over-runs and the lack of any clear viable outcome anywhere in sight. Victoria’s government is considering something similar. Unfortunately, in Victoria’s case, there isn’t a fall-back position as NSW has already bought up all the spare (obsolete) equipment from Queensland.
This article will give Victoria’s politicians a few more reasons to consider cancelling it.
The Transport Ticketing Authority (TTA) has published a wonderful “Privacy Management Plan and Policy” which essentially gives them permission to do just about anything they want with whatever ‘private’ information they collect. But it’s OK – they have a privacy policy!
Here are a few scenarios that warrant closer attention.
When a public transport user purchases a Miki, they have the option of ‘personalising’ the card, which essentially allows a couple of things. Firstly, the card is linked to your identity for the stated purpose of allowing a lost or stolen card to be cancelled and the stored value transferred to a new card. If you lose your non-personalised stored-value card, good luck! The new holder of the card gets to keep it all. Secondly, you can imprint a photo (maybe yourself or your dog!) on the card.
All this is optional. EXCEPT if the traveller is a concession-card holder – then it is mandatory to have a personalised card with the photo of the holder. At the very least this is discriminatory as the holder is denied any kind of privacy in their use of public transport.
Although lip service is paid to anonymity, in practice it will be near-enough to impossible to be anonymous on the new system. Of course a traveller can have a non-personalised card, but there is no easy way to add value to it without being irrevocably connected to the card. And once connected to the card, your every journey can be linked to you.
That’s the major problem. TTA have said that journey data will be retained for some period of time to ensure optimal charging. However, reports from around the world have frequently demonstrated that such data is available under court order. For instance why exactly DID you take a tram to that outer suburb when you claimed to be in the office all day?
There will be no such thing as a “cash fare.” In other words, you can’t expect to jump on a tram or bus without a pre-purchased Myki. In fact, there appears to be no way at all to step out of your door as a person newly arrived in Melbourne and legally board a passing tram or bus. Fabulous, there goes the tourist trade! More generally, there will be regular occurrences of people forgetting their wallets – they may-well have a few coins in their pocket, but clearly those will be useless! Silly me – I still thought cash was legal tender in this state; apparently not!
Does the system actually alert the traveller when their card has been successfully scanned? It’s highly possible that a person could travel all over town without realising their card is no longer in their wallet, until an inspector demands to check their Myki!
So, how simple is the system to rort?
This is not intended as a suggestion that you do “cheat the system,” instead I’m simply trying to identify failings in the design.
The biggest problem is the scan-on / scan-off process. By reducing the level of human involvement, the ease and desire to ‘bypass’ the system increases. So, how difficult will it be to scan on to the vehicle, wait a few minutes and scan off again? When you eventually reach your destination, simply avoid the scanner. If challenged, simply scan – it will be recorded as the start of a new journey, and suddenly you’re out-of-sequence! Use your next journey to re-sequence by judiciously scanning three times again.
Alternately, how well does the system handle multiple, repeated scans? I can imagine (no, I’ve experienced it) being so jammed on a tram that my card could easily be scanned repeatedly as I’m pressed against the reader. Alternately, in the same situation, others would not be able to scan off at all. According to the Myki website such situations will be charged as a “default fare.” Which presumably will be the maximum possible fare from wherever those passengers boarded. I’m not too sure I would want to be the complaints officer handling all those calls. Alternately, people may not notice that they’re being regularly overcharged – perhaps that’s how the system will pay for itself!
Some time ago, Roger Clarke, Australia's leading privacy proponent commented “I don't want to be unduly negative, because this is a 10-year-old solution that's been cocked up many times in many places, especially (but not only) in Australia. But the lack of hard information on the site makes you fear that they may have cocked it up again ...” Nothing I’ve seen would suggest any of us disagree.
