Brisbane Airtrain ticket rort

[Mal]

Taxpayers forced to make up shortfall | The Courier-Mail

Travellers riding the Airtrain have found a way to reduce the $16 fare in a scam that is costing TransLink up to $60,000 a month. And under its contract, the privately owned Airtrain still gets paid by TransLink, regardless of whether fares are paid in full.

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The scam involves people buying an unregistered card, getting on the Airtrain - which costs $16 from Central Station - touching off at the airport and then discarding the card with a negative balance of $11. The rorter effectively saves $6 on the fare.

Interesting. I did know that this issue existed (although I've never used it), but not really sure how they are going to close the loophole that allows it... Not a simple fix!

 

[Hvr]

Actually I would suggest it would be fairly easy to overcome. Have special barriers to AirTrain and they don't let you pass through unless you have the minimum amount of credit.

Also looks like the fines are very low. Failure to have a valid ticket in Melbourne, including enough credit for the journey is a $207 fine.

Pretty poor though that the government has to make up the difference for the private operator. Surely if it is their (private operator) system then it it should be their responsibility?

 

[medhead]

The swipe system is nothing to do with the operator of the airport train.

BTW might have been good to quote the bit outlining the scam. Just saying.

 

[anat0l]

Actually I would suggest it would be fairly easy to overcome. Have special barriers to AirTrain and they don't let you pass through unless you have the minimum amount of credit.

If they do this, the barriers of this type should be installed at the airports, with similar barriers to those used at Central Station. At the moment, it's an open slather barrier with a person assigned there to make sure no one tries to evade ticket check / touch off in the mass movement. Problem will be with this kind of barrier is that exiting or entering the station will be much slower. Not good if you're behind someone that doesn't know what to do and you're running for your flight.

If you travel to the airport and don't have enough credit on touch off, you'll be forced to make up the difference at the ticket window. If you travel from the airport and don't have enough to pass through the barrier, it won't let you. It'll definitely give the ticket window people a hell lot more work.

Still a rip job that it costs $16 for the trip on go card. That's the only (I think) ticket in the system where paper ticket and go card fare are the same. You'd think Translink could get a wholesale rate, similar to that sold individually by hotels (i.e. at $12.50 a pop or so).

 

[MarcB]

I seem to recall you pay a $10 fee to get a GoCard...registered or not. So a pretty stupid scam if you ask me as you'd lose this when you discard the card. The $10 price for the card was specifically to cover this situation.

Edit: Just read the article at the link...so it seems the $10 is what they are using...still a lot of effort to save $6

 

[oz_mark]

Also looks like the fines are very low. Failure to have a valid ticket in Melbourne, including enough credit for the journey is a $207 fine.

Myki only requires that you have a positive (Myki Money) balance on the card at the start of the trip if travelling in zone 1 and zone 2. You can go into negative.

 

[NM]

If they do this, the barriers of this type should be installed at the airports, with similar barriers to those used at Central Station. At the moment, it's an open slather barrier with a person assigned there to make sure no one tries to evade ticket check / touch off in the mass movement. Problem will be with this kind of barrier is that exiting or entering the station will be much slower. Not good if you're behind someone that doesn't know what to do and you're running for your flight.

Its just a matter of providing enough "gates" to allow parallel flow for people getting off the train. Plenty of airport trains around the world that carry many more passengers than Brisbane's AirTrain can manage to get people through the gates. End the journey at the airport station with a negative balance and you have to visit a top-up machine or ticket booth window to pay the balance. if you have not allowed enough time to pay for your fare then that is your problem, not Translink's problem.

 

[markis10]

Its just a matter of providing enough "gates" to allow parallel flow for people getting off the train. Plenty of airport trains around the world that carry many more passengers than Brisbane's AirTrain can manage to get people through the gates. End the journey at the airport station with a negative balance and you have to visit a top-up machine or ticket booth window to pay the balance. if you have not allowed enough time to pay for your fare then that is your problem, not Translink's problem.

Ending the journey with a negative balance at any station using go card still results in the gates working. Translink is gone as an entity soon, no doubt for putting in place a system like this.

 

[Hvr]

Ending the journey with a negative balance at any station using go card still results in the gates working. Translink is gone as an entity soon, no doubt for putting in place a system like this.

Basically they are asking for this to occur then. When in Japan using the Suica card if you had a negative balance at your arrival station there were several machines inside the paid area where you could put more money on the card prior to being allowed to exit.

 

[samh004]

Serves them right. It's a blatant rip off (more so from the GC) when the majority of the journey is just a regular journey to the city. If anything, they're charging their rip off fees from the stretch between Eagle Junction and the terminals... so it should be a fixed, lower rate!

 

[Aussie_flyer]

The airport trains are usually pretty quiet when I've been on them, if you have 3 people in the group you might as well cab it, they should reduce the price and maybe people will use the service more often.

 

[richie9x]

I seem to recall you pay a $10 fee to get a GoCard...registered or not. So a pretty stupid scam if you ask me as you'd lose this when you discard the card. The $10 price for the card was specifically to cover this situation.

Edit: Just read the article at the link...so it seems the $10 is what they are using...still a lot of effort to save $6

You pay $10 but $5 is deposit and $5 is balance on the card. As long as your balance is positive you can still use the card. So the trick is you use just under $5 first, then you go to airport. So provided you can use the initial $5 balance wisely then you will be about $10 (or more) ahead. Still a bit of mucking around, but some people will go to such lengths to save $10.

When the gocards started out the deposit was $10 for adult cards ($5 for other cards). At that level it would be much less of an issue. The deposit was decreased from $10 to $5 about a year after it was introduced.

 

[Mal]

I wonder if airtrain care about the issue. They get their cut regardless. I can't see translink having enforcement officers at the airport for all departures and arrivals to monitor go card abuse (and seeing its legal to have a negative balance... ). I've never seen translink on an airtrain past eagle junction ( outbound) as its a private train line and thus not their issue.

A later article says it could take months to fix, and now that the whole world knows about the problem (I bet its shared on backpacker boards etc as well as other travel sites) , one does wonder how they are going to sort out the mess.

 

[JohnK]

At $16 it is a total rip-off. I try to avoid it if at all possible.

Still a rip job that it costs $16 for the trip on go card. That's the only (I think) ticket in the system where paper ticket and go card fare are the same. You'd think Translink could get a wholesale rate, similar to that sold individually by hotels (i.e. at $12.50 a pop or so).

If you purchase a return airtrain ticket to Brisbane city online it costs $27 ($30 if you purchase at the airport counter) and they give you a paper ticket valid for that day and one of the green cardboard tickets valid for up to 18 months depending on the expiry.

If you purchase the green cardboard tickets from hotels etc they are now $14.50 so a small saving.

For me I go via the DFO on a Friday afternoon and the trip costs me nothing as I have already done 9 trips for the week. And if I am returning before 6:00pm on a Sunday the trip via the DFO costs nothing as well.

 

[Mal]

I wonder whether forgery of the cardboard tickets is an issue for airtrain? Pretty amateurish really and someone with a scanner, Photoshop and maybe 200gsm (guessing) cardboard and maybe another cutting tool could do a good job. And seeing the cardboard tickets are only sighted (but not retained) when departing the airport...

 

[Hvr]

I wonder whether forgery of the cardboard tickets is an issue for airtrain? Pretty amateurish really and someone with a scanner, Photoshop and maybe 200gsm (guessing) cardboard and maybe another cutting tool could do a good job. And seeing the cardboard tickets are only sighted (but not retained) when departing the airport...

Guarantee it is a problem with those slack standards. It was a problem in Melbourne 20 years ago.

 

[anat0l]

I wonder if airtrain care about the issue. They get their cut regardless. I can't see translink having enforcement officers at the airport for all departures and arrivals to monitor go card abuse (and seeing its legal to have a negative balance... ). I've never seen translink on an airtrain past eagle junction ( outbound) as its a private train line and thus not their issue.

A later article says it could take months to fix, and now that the whole world knows about the problem (I bet its shared on backpacker boards etc as well as other travel sites) , one does wonder how they are going to sort out the mess.

Of course Airtrain don't care. As you said, they get paid regardless. That's why there's a boldfaced statement in the article which clearly says that taxpayers are paying for it. Well, to be accurate, it's fare paying customers and tax payers (not sure of the proportions, but let's be clear - if taxpayers were really picking up the entire bill, then why are we paying fares?)

So, Airtrain have no incentive to participate in rectifying this problem. If anything, the structural aspects of how the entities are related can be an impediment to solving the problem, e.g. if Translink want to have officers or more barriers at the airport stations, they have to gain agreement from Airtrain, as the latter can argue that changes that Translink want can impact negatively on Airtrain numbers, viz. pax throughput or what not. It's a recipe for madness.

I wonder whether forgery of the cardboard tickets is an issue for airtrain? Pretty amateurish really and someone with a scanner, Photoshop and maybe 200gsm (guessing) cardboard and maybe another cutting tool could do a good job. And seeing the cardboard tickets are only sighted (but not retained) when departing the airport...

I guess they are presuming that many people can't be buggered going through this whole rigmarole just to get a free ride (minus the cost of construction materials for your forged card).

That said, doesn't help with the cardboard tickets that the date etc. is handwritten on, and no official stamp required.

I suppose if someone really wanted to, you could mass produce forgeries, then create a dirt cheap black market selling these tickets for rock bottom prices. Then, we're going to get ads from Airtrain, "Make sure you have a genuine Airtrain ticket!"

 

[Robert K]

why did they decrease the deposit in the first place?

seems like a trivial problem. Increase the deposit amount, problem solved.

 

[samh004]

why did they decrease the deposit in the first place?

seems like a trivial problem. Increase the deposit amount, problem solved.

Or install gates that require a minimum balance at the airport to open... not that I want them getting their greedy hands on any more money!

 

[Mal]

why did they decrease the deposit in the first place?

seems like a trivial problem. Increase the deposit amount, problem solved.

Iirc it was to encourage takeup of the card. Not enough people were switching from paper tickets.