I was wondering what the government meant when they said “high speed scanners”.  Well, I visited Jolimont station to have a look myself.
No such thing as a high-speed scanner.  What they’ve done is add lots of normal scanners.

So assuming 500 people get off the train at Jolimont station station to watch the Cricket at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, how long will it take them to leave the platform?

At a “touch off” time of 2 seconds, that’s 1000 seconds, divided by the number of scanners (8), equalling 2 minutes.

In comparison to 0 minutes under the Metcard system.  The Metcard system didn’t have “touch off” at most stations, including Jolimont.

Now the assumption I’m making is that the 2 second touch off time won’t change increase when 16 people (8 gates per platform at Jolimont) all try to touch off.  Normally a system will slow down when an increasing load is applied to it.

In my last post, Bec summed it up well:

For the amount of money they have wasted on the Myki system (by the way, Myki is an Incan word for shit), they could have achieved all of the following:

• Tram conductors for the next 60 years.
• Every station staffed for the next 50 years.
• Concrete sleepers through the entire electrified network.
• A single signalling system through the entire metropolitan network (currently there are seven)
• Had enough spare change to roll out an extra six new trains.

Related posts:

Myki and Moorabbin Railway Station A week with the Myki smartcard Today’s Myki failure? Try and recharge your Myki card.

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