Paper two hour tickets
I have a full set of un-clipped 3 hour tickets from the 80s for zone one and two full fare and concession (the white striped one). Concession meant you had a health-care card (you were low income/on benefits) or a concessions student card, they were about half the price as the full fare. You have to carry your card and be able to prove it was you. By far one of the most common types of fare evasion was people buying concession tickets, so they could exit barriers with a ticket.
At some point three hour tickets became two hour ones (in the 90s when I sold them, they were 2 not three) and this continues today in an electronic form. If you got one after 7pm it lasted all night.
The tickets were stamped by clipping the time am/pm, the date, and the month. From the time clipped you were allowed to travel anywhere as long as your zone on the ticket matched the zone on the map, across tram/train/bus. They were clipped by either the station staff or the tram conductor who had a little punch to do this with.
Ah yes, the three zone system. I got this map from the interwebs.
Metcard
I don’t have any metcards. That makes me sad. I also don’t have any scratch tickets. That’s a whole different post though I think.
Metcard was a direct replication of the paper tickets in electronic form, started being introduced mid-90s and totally in by late 90s. You had to select the zone and time and concession rate of your ticket before you traveled.
Both of these systems were predicated on the theory that you have to decide up front where you would be traveling during the day, you were not allowed to change your mind, and if you did there was the bizzare expectation you’d get out of a train and go and buy another ticket for the jorney…. If on a train trip to camberwell you changed your mind and went to Ringwood instead, if you exited the station with only a zone one ticket, you could be fined.
Of course, the corollary of this was that a lot of people only bought the cheapest tickets for the journey in order to get through a manned barrier at the start of their trip, and then claim they’d change their mind. They’d happily take the risk that there would be no one checking the other end. This is what my job largely used to be: booking people for deliberate fare evasion. You went by feel. Anyone with a Ringwood address, say, I would book if they said they “fell asleep on the train and meant to get off at Camberwell.”
LIES!
It was actually cheaper to be fined once a month than to buy a full fare ticket one/two/three every working day.
There have been a few changes since these times.
Two zone system and myki
First, they have done away with zone three. Now you’ve got one and two. And metcard has been replaced by myki, a credit card shaped generic ticket. One myki covers everything, it determines your journey from start to end depending on where you tap your card, and charges accordingly – actual modern system of ticketing. You top up the money on your ticket. They are I think bringing in a version that is an app on your phone.
If you complete your trip within 2 hours and don’t touch on more that day, you are charged a cheaper rate. And there is a maximum charge. I have noticed if the readers are inactive, you can be charged the full daily rate for one single trip. Happened to me at Soundwave one year. Should have been a two hour/zone one trip for the day and i got charged the full day rate, because the myki readers at the showgrounds were not working. GRRR! Yes you can go through an incredibly laborious process of claiming your money back….
The problem with the current system is you can’t buy a myki at an unmanned station, you have to already have one. I’m sure visitors and new travelers to Melbourne who are not starting their journey in the CBD get very confused. But all stations allow you to add money to your existing Myki.
The zone-cost is different than paper/metcard. Because I have only been a commuter in zone one for the last 20 years or so, I never really paid much attention until recently.
These days you have two types of ticket price: zones 1/2, or just zone 2. Ie, if you’re traveling in zone 1, you don’t have to pay extra to go to zone 2. However if you’re just traveling in 2, then it’s cheaper, probably to reflect that there are less services. I honestly have no idea when this was introduced. I am a public-transport shamed!
Also the lines have been extended as more suburbs have been added to the north and west of Melbourne and the line names have changed from my day of working on them and I always get this wrong.
Broadmeadows trains are now Craigieburn.
Epping are now South Morang.
St Albans is now Sunbury.
Wondering when they will expand out Cranbourne to cope with the massive increase in suburb into entirely new suburbs around there. I’m sure the same is happening elsewhere.
There is also the vline trains: ie out to Geelong, Melton, etc, but that again is another post. I don’t know a huge amount about Vline trains.
