Posts by Sacha
-
OnPoint: Pants != Journalism, in reply to DexterX,
Laura McQuillan was asked to leave
She moved into the public gallery.
-
Hard News: If wishing made it so ..., in reply to BenWilson,
I see that problem as being nothing to do with the ticketing system, and everything to do with the number of buses, and their timing.
At a system-wide level, they are related. Your Melbourne experience shows that the human touch of a conductor may feel better for individual passengers.
However, it doesn't produce all the intended environmental and economic benefits. These new ticketing/payment systems will come into their own when all the routes are re-organised so buses feed into rail stations and ferries and multi-vehicle trips become normal. Sophisticated systems are needed to make that work smoothly, including paying a variety of providers and gathering anonymised planning information (which hasn't been available for contractual reasons) so that routes and service levels can be continuously adjusted as usage changes. If government law changes keep up, naturally.
There's probably nothing to stop human conductors being the point of contact on each vehicle, for safety and social reasons.
-
Hard News: If wishing made it so ..., in reply to BenWilson,
unbeatably efficient
That must be why the rest of the world is changing or has done. You're flogging a dead horse, sir.
-
Staff may also be better deployed interacting meaningfully with passengers than repetitively taking money from them.
-
This is not some sort of wacky unnecessary plan. Bog-standard for decent public transport systems across different modes.
-
Hard News: The frustrating politics of…, in reply to Ross Bell,
kia ora
-
Hard News: If wishing made it so ..., in reply to Matthew Poole,
It's not even anything to do with being trustworthy
Agency theory sure is.
-
Hard News: If wishing made it so ..., in reply to Matthew Poole,
There's collective value and concern as well as individual. Neoliberalism seems to attract the selfish. Who is really going to 'over-use' public transport if the fare is zero. What does that even mean?
-
Hard News: If wishing made it so ..., in reply to Richard Aston,
Would be interesting to see most public services costed for universal delivery with reduced admin costs. And progressive taxation to pay for it, perhaps with universal basic income to knock out most of the welfare system too.
Make a nice change from neoliberal approaches that regard people as fundamentally untrustworthy and needing to be charged fees to motivate responsible behaviour.
-
Hard News: If wishing made it so ..., in reply to Matthew Poole,
given the evidence that no value is attached to things that are given away, it would still be better to have at least nominal fares
lest bored hordes ride the buses all day and night