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| Fortitude Valley Train Station |
This morning BrizCommuter stopped off briefly at Fortitude Valley train station to get a can of Red Bull from Foodworks thanks to BabyCommuter keeping him awake all night. BrizCommuter touched back on (journey continuation) using the handheld reader. Unfortunately when BrizCommuter reached his destination he touched off only to see $10 flash up on the go card reader - arrggh! BrizCommuter immediately had a look at the journey history on the nearest ticket machine, to see that the touch on at Fortitude Valley had not registered, and the touch off had registered as a $10 fixed fare and a touch on. BrizCommuter then touched off again to avoid a second $10 fixed fare.
It seems that the handheld reader was not "live" on the go card system, and it is likely that this issue may have caused $10 fixed fares and confusion to hundreds if not thousands of other commuters entering Fortitude Valley train station. This could cause some commuters to be stranded with no go card funds. As per usual, there has been no mention of this issue on TransLink's webpage.
BrizCommuter hopes that TransLink automatically refund all affected commuters as soon as possible for both this fixed fare, and any subsequent fixed fares caused by the go card being one touch out of sync. This situation, in particular the lack of information at Fortitude Valley and on TransLink's website to warn commuters of the fixed fare (and subsequent fixed fares) is totally unacceptable!
Update 9/6/16
The work to the ticket gates has been completed, so no more fixed fares from handheld readers. However the ticket gates at Fortitude Valley are still unreliable, and likely to causing fixed fares and putting passengers at risk of fines due to the usual list of fare gate errors.
My friend was hit by the same problem on night of Tuesday 31st May and copped a $10 fee for failing to touch off. However some of the normal fare gates were operating later that night at least.
ReplyDeleteIt was just by luck that I saw your article on the day of going to this station for a quick meeting before work. I didn't get caught out because of this article. Thank you.
ReplyDelete