When I set out documenting the ups and downs of my early Myki adoption I wanted to achieve two things; publicly document my first impressions and in turn hopefully provide some constructive feedback and guidance for using our whizz-bang new ticketing system. I'm far from afraid of trying new technology and even wear the geek or nerd badge with pride. There's a club for people like us, you know.

I can still see the enormous potential of the Myki system, and quite often over the last few days I have touched on and off with an air of success and wondrous achievement. But today's adventures down Myki Lane took me to an interesting and perplexing dilemma with two options; up to a $9.92 default fare, not knowing which zones my tram travelled through (read on for more on this) or an indefinite extension of my journey. I shall explain.

As you might have read in my first two Myki posts I have determined that when travelling by tram, moving to the card readers ahead of your destination is a prudent course of action. Quite often the first touch off will fail and the machine will stop, wait, and then ask you retry. Which can cause much hubbub when there's a few of you trying to get out a door.

I should at this point remind all of you who are playing along at home that whether you will be travelling by train, bus or tram, you must "touch on" by scanning your card at the start of your journey, and "touch off" at the end. Train stations are fitted with readers in barriers or on stands, whereas busses and trams have small readers similar to those shown above. If you forget to touch off you will be charged the "default" fare, which I outline below.

This morning I was on a relatively quiet number 70 tram that was arriving at Flinders Street. I had touched on successfully and as usual I headed to the doors early. As I pulled my wallet out of my pocket the screen on the reader went blank, a red light came on and the screen came back to life to display "Ticket validation disabled".

So back to my dilemma; do I get off the tram at my stop and hope to hell I don't get whacked with the default fare, or do I stay on board and hope the machine gives me some love before I wind up on the other side of Melbourne? I decided on the option to still get to the office on time, so I whipped out my phone and took the first photo above. Then miraculously the machine beeped and came back to life, so I touched off, took another photo and was the last off the tram. You can see the two images are no more than a minute apart. Phew!

OK, so what would have been the default fare? The Myki website has a simple table of metro fares, along with a Q&A of topics about using your Myki. The short of the long of it is "if you don’t touch off, your myki doesn’t know where you got off and will charge you a default fare", and the "default fare will be based on the zones covered by the service being used". So if you're an adult catching a train you'll get the maximum daily Zone 1 and 2 fare of $9.92 as trains operate in both zones. On trams and busses it depends on the route you're using.

What amazes me, or doesn't, to be honest, is that there are no smarts built into this. If, for example I caught a tram and touched on in Zone 1, I am at least going to be hit up for the two-hour Zone 1 fare. That's simple. But if I then alight the tram without touching off, and touch on to another service in Zone 1 within the first two-hours, be that a tram, train or bus, surely the system should simply continue where I left off. If there are any points where a passenger could avoid touching off in Zone 2, having travelled from Zone 1, then immediately continue an onward journey on another Zone 1 service, the zoning is buggered and they should be rewarded for their ingenuity in beating the system. Keeping up?

With that awkward and confusing scenario done, we're back to the problem of machines randomly disappearing into the depths of disability. My recommendation once again is that you try with all your might to get your Myki scanned in advance of your destination. And if you are forced to opt for the default fare you can try your luck with the Myki customer service lottery.

Finally, I have enabled comments on my site (albeit with some light moderation). I will only ever remove derogatory or inflammatory messages, so please feel free to add your thoughts to the conversation.

Update: Having read feedback suggesting my comments are baseless, in particular my fear of receiving the $9.92 default fare, I have updated my introduction to highlight that I was unaware of the zones my tram had travelled through. I am doing my best in these articles to provide useful, and more importantly factual information and I apologise this point wasn't made more clearly.

I have now confirmed it is only tram routes 75 and 190 that travel into Zone 2. The benefit however of using a Myki, especially for regular commuters who set up auto top-ups is that these details, with the system working as planned, will not be of significance.

Thank you to those who have commented, and for the links... Your feedback is greatly appreciated.