While smartcard ticketing for transport networks is a fabulous idea, the debacle that is the implementation of the Myki system in Victoria just goes from bad to worse.
| Myki Glitches Leaving Users Feeling Ripped-Off |
“He said the clock on the myki top-up machine was 15 minutes fast, so his pass was not technically active when he touched on before boarding the train.”
“When the call centre worker touched off at Southern Cross, he was docked $11 of myki money instead and could not use his myki pass until he paid back the $11 to get the card’s balance above zero.”
How the hell in this day and age, does a computer-based system that relies on time-sensitive transactional information, not get time synchronisation right?
Particularly since the Network Time Protocol (NTP), which is the standard for time keeping and synchronisation on computer networks – (and which was first defined in September 1985, almost 30 years ago) – should be in place?
Was the system engineering so bad on this project that not one engineer involved thought to use it?
I would find that difficult to believe – but it’s such a simple solution towards time-keeping on a network, that clearly they aren’t using it or it has been so incompetently implemented that the issues described in the above article are allowed to occur.
As an IT professional, I’m astounded by this.