It’s finally here… almost. Tap and Go fare payments will be trialled from Monday (16th March) on the Craigieburn, Upfield, Ballarat and Seymour lines.
This is important technology. Having bank cards (and connected devices such as phones) as a fare payment option is vital for new and occasional users, including tourists. They don’t want the hassle of figuring out how and where to buy a card, and figuring out the fare system (made worse thanks to the rollout of QR codes to replace posters with actual fare info). Even Android Mobile Myki couldn’t help with that.
So this progress is good. Of course we’d all like the full rollout, but anybody who remembers Myki from the first time round knows they shouldn’t rush to get it in before it’s fully tested.
From what I’ve seen it looks pretty good. Here’s a clip from a few weeks ago in the test centre.
One thing you will notice: it says Tap Successful. It doesn’t tell you if it was a Tap On or a Tap Off. Unless it’s at a fare gate where direction is obvious, it doesn’t know – all the taps are tallied up and at the end of the day, the backend systems work out how much to charge to your bank card.
Other things:
If you want to participate, look for the specially marked card readers at stations on those lines.
I’m told they chose the lines thanks to them having the highest proportion of passengers who don’t interchange to elsewhere, so they’re hoping to have plenty of people try it out.
Full fare Myki Money only for now. Eventually you’ll be able to set up an account to link a bank card to your concession entitlement.
I doubt they’ll implement prepaid Myki Passes (it’s so fiddly to preload them that it defeats the purpose), but they absolutely should implement an automatic 7-day cap, alongside the existing daily cap.
If you’re using a phone, be aware that when linked to a specific bank/credit card, they use a different “virtual” card number to the bank card. This means the phone’s virtual card and the actual card are treated as separate cards, so they won’t share 2-hour and Daily fares. Stick to one or the other.
The new Express Transit web site has been tracking Tap And Go rollouts across the world. We’re behind the rest of Australia (Sydney 2018, Canberra 2024, Brisbane 2025, Hobart 2025, Perth 2025, Adelaide 2026), but not doing too badly worldwide… a number of major world cities have only got it in the past couple of years, and some still don’t have it, for example Paris.
Of course people can keep using Myki cards if they prefer, for instance if they don’t want anything linked to their bank account (or they don’t have a bank account) or they want to continue to travel anonymously.
But it’s good to have the option.
Comments? Questions fire away!
One reply on “Myki Tap and Go: Public trial”
I wonder which card takes precedence if you have both a Myki and a credit card on your phone. Hopefully the Myki?
Also disappointing they haven’t done anything to resolve the lack of Amex support.