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Politics and activism transport

Sometimes it pays to be a packrat

Don’t throw away your February Met ticket: Connex will have to offer compensation for the first time ever to all Connex Melbourne train customers who hold a monthly or longer ticket from February. They got caught by a mere 0.01%, with 91.99% arriving within 5 minutes of their scheduled time, just barely under their 92% threshold.

What bumped them over (under?) the line was the storms of February 3rd. Now of course, the storms weren’t Connex’s fault. But I reckon they had it coming. Despite a year of huge number cancellations in the past year, they’ve so far avoided any customer compensation at all because (unlike their predecessors) their contract is written in such a way that they never have to cough up unless the whole network is equally crap over a calendar month.

So where the government’s contract people failed, Mother Nature has provided. A free daily ticket may not make up for a year of delays and sardine impersonations, but it’s better than nothing. It’s pay-back time: so find that old ticket, grab a compensation form and send it in.

Same deal over at Yarra Trams, just under their threshold, but to get a form from them you’ll need to ring them up.

By Daniel Bowen

Transport blogger / campaigner and spokesperson for the Public Transport Users Association / professional geek.
Bunurong land, Melbourne, Australia.
Opinions on this blog are all mine.

5 replies on “Sometimes it pays to be a packrat”

And how many people do they really think will still have there old Feb ticket? Not that many since it’s now the 9th of March.
I guess I am mad coz I know I have already thown mine out..

Even with those passengers that have still kept a ticket from February who many will go to the trouble to complete and send a form?

I’m amazed at how efficient the refunds for vending machines are. If there’s a fault you simply call a number quote the code of the vending machine and mention how much you lost.

Two weeks later there’s a refund in the mail.

If the State Government, OneLink and the transport operators were actually concerned about the inconvenience then they could do similar.

Alex

Daniel
as soon as I read your article on Met refunds, I rang my wife and yelled: “Take the garbage bin back inside! I have to ransack it tonight”. And she did and I did and I found my Feb ticket. Phew.
PS My wife thinks I’m an idiot, all for the sake of $5.90.

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