More Transperth ripoffage
Was on the bus on Tuesday and the bus driver missed a stop outside Churchlands High School. One of the students said “You missed the stop”, so the bus driver pulled over. Of course the bus was now out of the GPS zone around the bus stop, so the students with Smartriders couldn’t tag off. “Don’t worry about that” says the driver, so the students trying to tag off get off the bus.
Of course the driver doesn’t need to worry about that, the students will get charged for a trip all the way to Fremantle on the circle route because they couldn’t tag off!
Tags: bus_driver, bus_stop, circle_route, fremantle, gps, smartrider, transperth
September 13th, 2007 at 7:35 pm
Basically the kids parents just need to hop on the phone and complain. And complain and complain. Sometimes the act of tying up their Customer Support lines for several hours will be enough to get things fixed. I did it with some dodgey bank charges on my Credit Card a few years ago.
September 13th, 2007 at 8:51 pm
Don’t students only pay 50c regardless?
September 13th, 2007 at 10:49 pm
Good point, it’s been a while since I was a student
The Transperth site says:
http://www.transperth.wa.gov.au/TicketsandFares/StudentInformation/tabid/148/Default.aspx
“Students will pay a maximum of 50c when travelling to or from school on a Transperth bus, train or ferry or on any regional bus service for three hours, regardless of how many zones they travel.”
So I guess they don’t have to worry after all!
September 15th, 2007 at 6:42 pm
It dunnae surprise me!
I was on a bus in early August that had a malfunctioning Smartrider system (front and back tagging box thingers) and was tagging everyone off as default regardless. The driver did nothing, said nothing — even after copping abuse from some guy who figured out what was happening, but thought the driver had some control over it. So while on the bus I called Transperth and told them what was going on. The woman I spoke to was VERY cranky about speaking to me regarding it and even huffed, “Well I can’t help you when you’re ON THE BUS,” — an immediate fix wasn’t really what I was after. She eventually gave in and agreed I could do something about it - albeit VERY reluctantly - and gave me the earth-shattering advice to: “call back tomorrow, our Smartrider section is closed.”
So I announced what to do to all the remaining passengers — and damnit, I got my 89c refund or whatever it was. I DID have to keep on them about how long it was taking to arrange the refund, though. It was just shy of a month when I got the money back.
September 16th, 2007 at 6:25 pm
Just get off at the front of the bus! Only the rear reader is disabled between stops, the front reader will always work and will tag you off at the last stop that was past.
September 17th, 2007 at 2:15 am
Thanks for the tip, I didn’t realise only the back reader was locked out.
September 17th, 2008 at 11:21 pm
I dont know why everyone HAS to have a go at the bus driver, as a driver I can easily say it is not “OUR” fault when the smart card system is down. What people dont realise, is that it is very frustrating for the driver as well, when this happens it slows down everything and before you know it your service is late, the only people who can fix this is to call 13 62 13. Grrrrrrrr…………………………..