Victoria's public transport is a joke. I've only just noticed how freaking behind we are compared to some of the countries I've traveled to over the past few years. I can list so many things wrong with this current public transport. let's start.
Often train delays during the peak times, I know metro posts punctuality reports every month but what you really should post is the punctuality % during peak times, cause thats what really matters most. I bet that's not even above 50%.
Often train closures/bus replacements if they need to upgrade their infrastructure(or level crossing removal works) or if something emergency happened. literally, there are bus replacements somewhere in the network every day throughout the year. NOT TO MENTION THIS ALSO..(this is not the first time it has done that btw) In other countries I've been to, such as (Japan, China, US, Hongkong, Singapore) and even all of the poorer countries I've been to such as Thailand, there is no such thing as BUS REPLACEMENTS. you will never see buses replacing trains, all their trains run perfectly every day, and their train/metro network will not get stupid computer glitches that will shut their entire network down for several hours.
the lack of platform doors in Australia- pretty much ALL the stations in the countries I've been to have platform safety doors installed on every single platform, every single train/metro station. while I understand we don't have as much population density compared to the Asian countries, but the ones in Melbourne CBD should have them installed in my opinion since they can get really populated at times.
Their productivity rate is so slow….. they are building new stations in the CBD and it will take like 7 years for them to complete 5 stations, (they say it will be completed by 2025, but I HIGHLY doubt it. similar to how I HIGHLY doubt the NBN will be finished before 2020.) For your reference, it took 3 years for Shanghai to build the new line 17 which consists of 12 stations.
THE MOST ANNOYING THING OF ALL- OUR PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION CARD MYKI. ITS LITERALLY THE MOST TRASHIEST THING IVE EVER USED. Firstly, especially on buses, the response rate of these 500-year-old machines are so slow! you put your myki on and it takes on average like 5 whole seconds for it to recognise the card, and sometimes it just simply would not work, so not only you waste all that time trying to touch on, I would assume the bus drivers won't be happy about it either since they will be running behind schedule(it will all add up). of course they do have new machines in the city where they are instant but literally, every other machine that's out of the cbd theres a massive delay.
Secondary you cant touch on with your myki with any material that's in its way(including the new ones in the city), therefore you have to literally take out your myki everytime you touch on and touch off. which is very inconvenient. I put my myki in a card holder behind my phone and its literally like 1cm thick and it does not recognise my myki at all….. In every other country ive been to, you can touch on your transportation card without taking it out. I once had my Shanghai public transportation card buried inside my handbag and just leaned it against the sensor- and BAM- it touches me on. i was genuinely surprised by the sensitivity. thirdly, some countries like China and parts of Europe you can use your iPhone's wallet app to touch on and touch off with your card. that is the ultimate dream of where you want to head to. but I know this will probably not gonna get introduced in Australia in my entire life probably.
There are many other issues with our current transportation system such as the high fares and the lack of airport rail, but these are the ones that mainly annoy me. I would assume there are many other Victorians or even people from other states that have similar thoughts as me. I would love to hear everyone's complaints and thoughts about this current public transport not just victoria but other states.. You are also welcome to criticize me on the things I'm saying wrong.
I worked as a contractor for Myki when they were installing the systems before they went live for public use, and spent 3+ months testing extensively all over the network. Touch on times are ~0.2 seconds for wired installations(e.g barriers at train stations) and ~1.3 seconds for wireless installations(e.g. buses). A far cry from your absurd estimation of 5 seconds. The primary problem is people placing half the card on the reader at a 45degree angle, pausing, and then when they finally put it flat on the reader they drag it around in a circle, causing delays in the card being read. Again, ~1.3 seconds if you can hold a card to a reader, but the technology whilst being largely idiot proof is slowed down by people not touching on correctly.
Even today I just put my wallet on the reader and it scans perfectly fine through thick leather wallet, notes, coins, bank cards, ID cards before getting to the Myki card. The sensitivity is fine.
Platform doors are entirely unnecessary with the volume of people in our stations.
Metro as a company(whom I later also was employed by) are bizarrely inefficient however. Privatization of public utilities is always a complete joke as they run it no more efficiently and then bleed the system to death so they can turn a quick profit. Jeff Kennett has a lot to answer for for mainstreaming the privatization of public utilities.