The First Tap-and-Go Bus in Victoria
Riding Wangaratta's new contactless payment buses
There are many things that are used as part of the back-and-forth between Melbourne and Sydney, the two largest cities in Australia which are eternal rivals. When it comes to transport specifically, there’s a number of things people like to bring up.
Melbourne’s tram network is large and covers vast swathes of the inner-city, while Sydney has much fewer lines that serve a more limited purpose. But Sydney has a driverless metro system, which Melbourne does not.
Melbourne has night trains on Friday and Saturday — Sydney got rid of theirs. Sydney has a train to the airport — Melbourne is constantly dragging its feet on one. As a proud Melbourne resident since birth, I will always defend the superiority of our transport network over Sydney’s, despite the fact that our buses are kind of shitter and our non-radial transport abysmal.
But one area where Melbourne lacks in comparison to Sydney is tap-and-go payment. In Sydney, while you can still touch on1 and off with your Opal card, you can use a contactless debit or credit card — whether physical or on your phone — to pay for transport. It’s not perfect — it charges you an adult fare, so if you need a concession or a senior’s discount you still need an Opal — but it’s still convenient.2
Melbourne does not have this. To pay a valid fare, you must have a Myki card on basically every bit of the metro network. The same is true for a good chunk of V/Line services. Some long-distance V/Line services use paper tickets, and some regional buses still operate with cash, but for the most part, I’d wager a substantial majority of public transport fares in the state of Victoria are paid with Mykis.
As of Monday 25 November 2024, though, there is an option to tap-and-go on limited Victorian public transport services. I distinguish between tap-and-go and credit/debit card payment — obviously you can use a card to buy tickets, but you still have a physical ticket. Here, you touch on with your debit or credit card, and that’s the ticket. You’ve paid and have a valid fare.
This limited scheme is being rolled out in the bus network of the regional town of Wangaratta. Much like Sydney’s, it only applies for adult fares, so if you have a concession fare or are connecting to V/Line services, you are instructed to pay for your ticket as normal.
Being from Melbourne and a concession card holder, both of these things applied to me. But this was not going to stop me from going to Wangaratta and trying it out for myself.
I took the 07:35 service to Albury from Broadmeadows station. I could have, and arguably should have, just planned to get on a random bus when I got to Wangaratta. However, I had a plan. I take iron and Vitamin D supplements, and by pure coincidence, the morning I had planned to go to Wangaratta was when I needed to get more of them, because I had run out.3
So I found a pharmacy a good distance away from the city centre, called them to see if they had my medications in stock, and decided I’d take the bus to and from there. Google Maps directed me to board at a bus stop next to the station, however as my train pulled up to Wangaratta, I realised that the bus stop I was going to board from was closed due to works.
I assume (this is a complete guess, the PTV website was frustratingly nondescript and I didn’t ask anyone) that these works were probably related to the ongoing Inland Rail project, for which there was lots of very visible signage for.
UPDATE (29 November 2024): I don’t think this was the case. After publishing this post, I noticed the Inland Rail shopfront was open and so I went in and asked them if the bus stop closure was because of them. According to them, it was not.
Anyway, I decided I would go to the Northern Health bus stop. I walked across the Wangaratta station footbridge to get there.
Then walked for a couple of minutes until I arrived here.
The bus I was taking — the 401 to West End — ran every 30 minutes from 9am to 5pm, with three services on Saturday and none on Sundays or public holidays. The bus arrived promptly on time, so I boarded it and prepared to pay.
Here’s the reader. I thought it was pretty intuitive and also cool-looking. I touched on with my Visa card.
My assumption was that I would have to touch off also, but a sign next to the validator helpfully informed me I did not have to do that. I assume this is because Wangaratta has a flat fare system, with 2 hour fares costing $2.80 and daily fares costing $5.60. There were also leaflets explaining the new trial system.
There was more signage on the bus advertising the new tap-and-go system, explaining who should and shouldn’t touch on and including a QR code for feedback.
When I arrived at my bus stop, there was a poster with similar information.
And the leaflet contained this helpful information.
I got my medication from the pharmacy and also a coffee. Because the 401 operates as a one-way loop, the bus I would take back into town wasn’t for 30 minutes, and I’d need to get on from the same stop I got off 30 minutes earlier. My next destination was the Wangaratta library, to write the blog post you are currently reading.
I touched on again as I boarded this bus, as this was a separate journey to the one I took earlier. They were within two hours, but I wondered if it would charge me twice or just the standard two-hour fare.
As I was on the bus back into town, there was a lovely conversation taking place between the driver and a passenger seated at the front. At one stage, their conversation turned to the tap-and-go system. One of them (I don’t remember who) mentioned that younger people were more likely to use tap-and-go because they didn’t have cash on them.
Being a proud young person4 I told the driver as I left that I had come down from Melbourne to try out the tap-and-go system.
And this is where the post should start to wrap up, as my journey on Wangaratta’s bus network had finished and now all you need are my thoughts on it. But as I alighted, I noticed some people in PTV-branded shirts with a sign advertising the new tap-and-go system.
I spoke to one of them about my blog and my journey from Melbourne, who explained to me that this fare payment system was a trial as a prelude to broader Myki upgrades across the state of Victoria. One of the things I mentioned was that the readers — which were designed with a screen on the top and a “chin” at the bottom, the latter being the location where you’re supposed to pay.
I suggested that this might be less than intuitive for Melbourne residents used to tapping on the screen, as is standard with most modern Vix readers in Melbourne.5
The person mentioned that most Wangaratta residents had tended to find the “chin” touch-on pretty simple, but that a group of cyclists who had come in from Melbourne had been a tad confused. For what it’s worth, although it probably will take some time for Melbourne residents to adjust, I thought these readers were very intuitive and easy to understand.
I also asked about payment processing. Given that I’d paid with a Visa card, I was told that the payments would process overnight, with the system registering a two-hour fare given my journeys took place within two hours of each other. I will update this post when that payment has gone through.
UPDATE (29 November 2024): The payment went through! I was charged $2.80.
UPDATE (1 December 2024): Spoke too soon. I was charged twice, despite both of my touch-ons taking place within two hours. Calling PTV to try and rectify this!
UPDATE (2 December 2024): So, I called PTV last night. I was on hold for five hours. In the first hour, this was fine. Perhaps a bit annoying but not unexpected. By the second hour I was starting to get a little annoyed. By two hours and thirty minutes, I thought I would hop in the bath and shave. I did that, and by the time I left, I was STILL ON HOLD.
Had dinner, and I was still on hold. By this stage, I was starting to assume something had gone wrong, but I didn’t want to hang up out of a sense of stubbornness and also the sunk cost fallacy. I hung up at around 11pm, as I was going to go to bed. But out of curiosity, I decided to call back, and immediately got put through.
Anyway, the lovely person who answered my call told me this had happened in error and would be reversed by the end of the week, and if this doesn’t happen I should call back. I will update this post when one of those two things happens.
Also, apparently this just happens sometimes in call queuing systems, but I did tell the PTV customer service person about my excessive wait and they did pass it on. Thank you very much.
UPDATE (2 December 2024 again): It got reimbursed this morning :)
Anyway, this is only the fourth day that Wangaratta has had tap-and-go payments, so I suspect ironing out any flaws will take a while, and it’ll probably be longer until we see this in Melbourne. I’m curious to see how, if at all, concession fares will be handled using this system.
Something that was also mentioned to me by the person I spoke to was the importance of touching on with the same method of payment — for example, if you touched on with a physical debit card on one journey but your phone’s digital payment system on another one, these would register as two different methods of payment. This one might be more inconvenient if this is rolled out more widely.
But my two cents is that I found Wangaratta’s contactless tap-and-go bus payment system to be pretty easy to use, convenient, and intuitive, especially in comparison to a cash payment. While it might just be Wangaratta for now, this is still an important moment in Victorian transport history in its own way, and I’m curious to see how the wider rollout goes.
I will never say “tap on”.
You might be wondering if I used this tap-and-go system while I was in Sydney. I did not, out of some obstinate patriotism for Melbourne. I even took a bus from the airport to avoid being charged the ridiculous surcharge.
It was only while writing this post at the Wangaratta library I remembered to take them for the day.
I like using cash though!
Some older readers in Melbourne have a similar setup to the Wangaratta readers, with a screen on top and a tapping location on the bottom.
speaking of melbournes myki readers i once saw an american tourist tap the screen because it says "touch here"