1y ago

One tourist called it ‘the tram that never comes’. Will new penalties make a popular Melbourne attraction run on time?

www.theguardian.com

4 comments

I love how there's already talk about making it run both directions again. Almost like making it not do that was a stupid idea 🙄
I tried to get on the 35 recently while in Melbourne. Right from the start of the loop at Waterfront City. It didn't show for 3 scheduled departures. I phone the information number to ask if it was running, "yes, it will be there in 5 minutes"... "are you sure, its not been here the last two scheduled times?".." yes absolutely it will be there". Surprise, it didn't show.
I don't mind things not running, life happens... but don't feed bad info to visitors.
I'm going to say no.
It will increase costs which will no doubt be passed on to passengers via a ticket prices increase, which in turn will make people ride less lowering their revenue.
- Not quite. Myki and paper ticket fares are set by PTV/the DTP under the jurisdiction of the state government. They generally only increase in line with inflation once yearly. Fare revenue is then split up amongst the companies, which I believe is a preset percentage for metro and Yarra trams, and just based on patronage for the rest (but don't quote me on that).
  I suppose in a roundabout way we do pay through it, since the operators receive a set rate as part of their contract to deliver services, as well as a small part of Myki revenue, but it isn't really being passed along - more like they get the same amount they always would've, but now less goes back to corporate and the shareholders. They aren't a charity, so would never run the network at a loss, it's just that instead of making, say, $100,000,000 per year in profit, now they'll only make $75,000,000 per year in profit