Just how oblivious are people?
Transport Canberra is starting a new ticketing system. The old system was turned off today, with free travel for the next 4-6 while the equipment for the new system is rolled out.
There has been notices on the buses, at major stops/interchanges and on the Transport Canberra websites about this for the past 3 months.
They put notices over the on bus card readers last night.
The amount of people I saw on the bus today getting confused when the card reader failed to read their card (because they were tapping on top of the notice to a reader that was turned off), then get even more confused when they are told it is free (assuming they'd been paying before the system was turned off).
I guess it doesn't help when people keep spewing misinformation about it.
Between drivers and other passengers today, I've heard that it is free "today", "for the next week", "for the next 4-5 weeks" and "until the election". Not a single mention to the confused people that it's free because the ticketing system is changing, and the reason those confused people are confused is because they aren't able to read posters that have been put everywhere related to the transport network for months.