Bus Wars Episode V: The Transperth Strikes Back

In the words of the N.W.A., Fuck Tha (Transit) Police.

In some sort of sick poetic justice/Karmic retribution/lawlzj00GOTZpwndzeD, the day after my prior blog entry about Transperth, I get smacked down with a $50 fine. Why? Because I 'attempted to leave a train station without a valid ticket'. I bought myself a concession ticket (from a nice bus-driver who wasn't a slave to a ridiculous bureaucratic system) and as I took my post-city-shopping shortcut through the train station to get to the Wellington Street Bus Station, I get told by an old Italian 'Transit Officer' (read: wanna-be police officer for public transport. Truly a noble occupation) that my ticket was invalid due to not having a SmartRider! Nope, having a full-time student card doesn't prove you're a concession holder at all. Not even with a sticker and a photo. AND since I was attempting to leave the station, I get a nice little $50 fine unless I waltz down to a Transperth Office with my Smartrider to clear it all up!

On top of that, apparently he does this to everyone and wasn't just picking on me and that it was 'for my own good so I wouldn't forget my SmartRider in future'. Wow, as if a 15% to 25% saving on normal fares wasn't a good enough incentive to not forget my SmartRider, it also acts as an arsehole deterrent. It truly is a Smarter Way to Travel!

Now during this whole long, drawn out fine writing procedure (where he proceeded to mangle the spelling of Dianella by spelling it Daniella), he attempted to ask me questions about what I'm studying. If I'm studying something is that not enough evidence that I just MIGHT be a concession holder? Also, does he not realize that when I'm being held up with this sort of bullshit, I'm not exactly in the mood to exchange in meaningless chit-chat? It was only through some sort of sheer force of will that I stopped myself from telling him to go and step 2 meters to his right and lie in front of a speeding train (which wasn't there by the way, thats one of the many great modern achievements of the Department for Planning and Infrastructure. Having a train platform thats not used about 95% of the time is truly a feat to be admired).

As the 'Officer' of the (By)-Law gives me my ticket and I finally go to leave, he tells me to "have a nice day". I'm sorry but I was having a nice day. I WAS until you came along with your little notepad and gave me a fine on that wonderful little generic sheet, y'know the one that DID NOT ACTUALLY APPLY TO MY CIRCUMSTANCE. He asked me what station I boarded the train on but did not comprehend the fact I did not actually board a train. I told him I walked from the Esplanade to the city and then walked to the train station which he took as "boarding at Esplanade Station". Frankly, if the guard at the entrance was actually there and doing their job, I wouldn't have actually been in, and therefore not actually exiting, the station at all.

So, a week after the incident, I went to deal with the incident. I go to the Esplanade Transperth office and they say I need to go to one in Wellington Street. I go to the Wellington Street office, they say I need to go to the Infringements Office at the other end of the train station. When there, I give the surly looking middle-aged worker-drone my ticket and my SmartRider and she disappears then reappears and I ask her whether the problem is dealt with. She replies that no, its not, they have to check whether my SmartRider is a concession one and then they'll send me a letter in the mail.

Now this is what confuses me. Greatly. All these Transperth offices direct me to this one particular Infringements Office for dealing with my so-called 'offense', presumably so they can deal with it quickly and efficiently. Yet, when I go there, they DON'T deal with it quickly and/or efficiently but rather, need to check whether my SmartRider is a Student SmartRider. This brings me to the point that confuses me, why could they not check it out there and then?

What does every single bus and both of those non-Infringement Offices share in common? A little machine that lets you add money to your SmartRider. A machine that also quite clearly says, in a matter of moments, what kind of SmartRider it is. Whether its a Student SmartRider, Vanilla SmartRider, Senior SmartRider, Retarded SmartRider or a Street SmartRider, that pile of nuts and bolts quite clearly states whatever kind it is. You'd think that an Infringements Office would have one of those for quickly and easily determining whether I truly was a concession holder. However, in a triumph of governmental bureaucratic bullshit over practicality, they instead photocopied my SmartRider so they'd be able to look it up on their database.

If they were competant in any way, shape or form, they'd actually have that contraption there. Then again, it IS Transperth. The adjective 'competant' would never accurately describe them unless it has the prefix 'in' resting comfortably and perpetually before it. It was also need to be followed by some form of expletive noun. Alannah 'Miss Transperth' MacTiernan (2009 FHM Sexiest Woman of the Year, watch your back Megan Fox) should totally expect an angry email and/or letter. And a petition, yeah, why the fuck not, a petition! And a Facebook group! Online Petition and Facebook group, totally going to be the most successful revolution ever!

(Sieg) Heil to the Busdriver, Busdriver Scam

Well, for my first post in the reincarnation of something I did once upon a time in high school, I figured I may as well start with a tale of immense insignificance from days long gone by.

Back in the good ol' days of High School, if you were a student, you used to get a concession sticker. A magic piece of paper with adhesive on the back that that basically said, "Hey, look I get to pay less than you do to catch public transport until the 31st of March next year! In your face old folks, (except those who are old enough to get senior concessions), in your face!!!".

Fast forward to the present day and the concession sticker has joined the ranks of the dinosaurs, the dodo and the unicorn as one of the beautifully noble creatures that are now, sadly, extinct. How does one get the concession discount fare? By having a SmartRider. What happens if you lose your SmartRider yet still want your concession fare? Well, apart from using a 'dumber' way to travel as opposed to the SmartRider's 'smarter way to travel', one of two things:

1. The super-special-awesome busdriver gives you your concession one zone fare when you ask for it. You pay your 90 cents and sit down. Everyone ends up happy, no kittens die as a result of this action.
2. The busdriver doesn't give you a concession fare because they hate the youth of today and hope they go and wind up in poverty and on the streets because of the extra $2.60 a day they'll end up spending.

I don't mind them following mindless red-tape bureaucracy asking for a SmartRider when I'm catching the bus to uni. I mean after all, I could be one of THOSE DIRTY ASIAN DRUG SMUGGLERS that feature so prevalently on BORDER SECURITY - AUSTRALIA'S LAST LINE OF DEFENSE AGAINST FOREIGN INVADERS. I could be secretly trying to destroy the Australian way of life by SMUGGLING SUBSTANCES INTO AND OUT OF THE COUNTRY AND CATCHING THE BUS CHEAPER.

By leeching an extra $2.60 a day from my disposable income (which I've probably made via smuggling drugs or cute little possums/birds/wombats) I'd otherwise be spending on pocketknives, guns, bling, booze, weed, crack, hookers and suping up my Nissan Sylvia/Skyline/*insert wanky Ricemobile here*, they're merely doing their civic duty to protect the Orrstaylyun way of life from dirty Chinks like yours truly.

What does shit me is when they ask for my SmartRider as I'm leaving from uni. I mean really, join the dots:

• I'm in a large queue populated by uni students
• I'm carrying a large backpack laden with stationary, laptop and enough books to cause dorsalgia
• It takes me about 10 days to get near the level of most peoples' two-day-growth
• And I have my uni card out with a sticker saying "Full-Time Student 2008"

Regardless of the overwhelming evidence in favour of the fact that I'm a student and hence deserving of third degree price discrimination, they ask me if I have my SmartRider... If I had my SmartRider, wouldn't I be using it to claim my concessionality?

Of course not! I'd want to pay 17% more than I'd have to just to simply have the pleasure of asking for a single-zone concession ticket from you in person! I just lack that much social contact that I NEED to just go up to you and ask for a ticket while paying more just to make me feel more complete as a person.

Feel good about yourselves Missus/Messrs tight-arse busdrivers, that $2.60 a day, it totally could have gone to World Vision to save 2.6 starving African children (note: most probably not very likely). Instead its gone to filling the coffers of some government subsidized entity.

Totally not Orrstraylyun of youse!!!