Opals before Swine

I know I've tried to be positive in this blog, relating the little stories that happen on my train journeys, but I got so annoyed & felt so ripped off that this usually up-beat little black duck had to vent.

I'd been discussing the new Opal card on the Sydney transport system, which now covers (as we speak) ferries, trains within & to some places out of Sydney, & soon all buses. The chap I was talking to was an early adopter who not only knew more than the brochure, but also gave me some tips on how to beat the system & make the weekly cost less.

It was while I was still prevaricating over buying the card & sacrificing the advantages of my current scheme of weekly tickets that Easter came around, butting against Anzac Day. This meant a four-day weekend followed by a three-day one, or, if you like, a four-day week followed by a three-day one (beautifully symmetric).

I vaguely recalled seeing a sign saying something like "weekly tickets purchased between ... will get an extra day!!!!!" (probably not that much punctuation in the original), & it never occurred to me to read the fine print. It wasn't until I checked my ticket (which had been bought on a Monday) on the holiday Monday of Easter, that I realised that my extra day was a holiday - that is, there was only one day being given away (that I couldn't use), but there were two days that could have been given - & there was still no mention of Anzac Day.

Now I couldn't recall getting an extra day for a public holiday in quite some time. But that always used to be the case, & at some point they stopped doing it. I can remember my weekly tickets slowly rotating through the week as holidays pushed them another day along. No longer, it appears.
When did commuters start being treated like morons?

Going back to reading the fine print of the Opal card, there was nothing there to convince me to switch from my current system:

• "take eight journeys, get the rest of the week free" - just like a weekly ticket
• "travel off peak & save" - just like a return ticket
• "travel for very little cost on Sunday" - just like anyone else
• "quick stop-overs in the journey are free" - that is, they don't count in your eight trips
• "the default trip cost if you don't tap is assumed to be at the maximum rate" - WTF!

So, what do I get out of the card, after all that? I don't have to play with the ticket machine every week ... but I won't loan it out to my teenager on the weekend, in fear of losing it (whereas a weekly is already 'spent' by then, as far as I'm concerned).
It's thicker than a piece of cardboard - easier to find, harder to carry - & more-or-less needs to be carried all of the time.

Worse, I know why transport systems the world over love the card - tracking the usage more cleanly than tickets can (actual commuters/tax-payers, rather than numbers of journeys), & less litter. This does nothing for me. I have also seen no projected savings leading to lower prices - unlikely in the short term, because of the all-out cost of introducing the system in the first place.

After all that, I am now headed over to the website to sign up. At the very least, it means progress, & I'd never want to stand in the way of progress in a transport system - they move slowly enough already.