They give out fines that are to much and they no that some perents don't have alot of money and struggle to pay them off or you don't have a job and you cannot pay it off. And believe me from where i live its hard to get a job.

Basically if your with Connex Ill rip your face off.

The Connex police were kids that were losers in life who think they can get back at people through dishing out fines same with parking inspectors.

Rant Over.

I feel a lot beter.

its called paying $2 for a ticket.

The reason the fines are so high is to have the exact impact that u described, theyre meant to be hard to pay off, and frustrating etc. so people will learn to stop breaking the law and buy a ticket.

dont get pissed at them, theyre nice people, i mean, if u abide by the law.

... i knew someone once who accumulated $8000 worth of public transport fines, which he never paid off.

I'm still trying to figure out how he pulled that off.

technacly under the transport act 1983, they cant touch u in any way shape or form. and this means that you dont have to show them id because they arnt the victorian police or higher, due to u saying, i have ID on me, but im not willing to show you.

basically, u can give them a false name and adress, and walk off, while they cant do anything about it.

goto love flaws in the connex systems. lol

nope that doesnt work, it is legal for them to aprohend you until the police arrive if you dont comply or if they arnt satisfied with the information you provide to them

Some of us are not lucky enough to live close to the city connex has only just got a bit cheaper for a ticket it is $5 for a concession now and adult is like $11

quote "its called paying $2 for a ticket.

The reason the fines are so high is to have the exact impact that u described, theyre meant to be hard to pay off, and frustrating etc. so people will learn to stop breaking the law and buy a ticket.

dont get pissed at them, theyre nice people, i mean, if u abide by the law."

i do pay 4 the ticket but my freind got fined for having his feet on the seats for one second whilst tieing his show is the Just??? And there not nice they tend to laff at you while you get your fine.
Don't jump to conclusions saying that i didnt buy a ticket
Connex = Pricks

yeh they can also do that unfortunatly, citizens arrest . but they still cant touch u

and thats true there sam, $12.40 (not sure what it is now on the new system was a full fair daily, zone 123, which for the low paid, or young adults is a shit loads of money just to go into the city.

That, and when the train gets hit by lightning, after paying 12 bucks for a ticket, and getting stuck in zone 3, they dont compensate you, because it wasnt an act of nature and was unforseen. Or cancle trains all together when your in a unknown place because ur at a mates place in the middle of no where, and when u get to the station, u find out 20 min that the service has been cancled, and the only way to get back to the city is a tram about an hour walk in some unkown direction.


damn connex!! GRR!!!

remember there is no zone 3 now

yeah i am glad they got rid of zone 3 it was the reject zone anyway.

Was not a great zone.

Wrong: Direct quote from the act you stated:
Go check for yourself at http://www.legislation.vic.gov.au/Domino/W...3;OpenDocument#


Nope, wrong again. When under arrest (no such thing as citizens arrest in australia, just non-police can't do quite as much) they may use any means appropriate to restrain you until the police arrive (My father was security guard and the first to get 100% on the law exam in his company. Guess who got to help him study )


I figure you're talking about the Daily zone 1+2 tickets. Adult tickets are actually $9:70 so not really $11. Also $5 or even $11 is really not that steep for unlimited travel for a whole day right across the whole area covered by Metlink. Think about how much just a taxi into the city would cost, or with petrol prices these days driving in and finding a park.


Okay, if they laughed at you then you should be able to report them. Ask for the name and details for your own records, then when you get home report it to connex (I've done similar things with annoying people at train stations who don't give me the ticket I ask for)
But as for feet on the seat their are signs right across most carriages, it's on the website so I feel if you're stupid enough to do it while the Ticket Inspectors are there then you deserve the fine.

*claps*

connex members are known as security officers, eg. Chub, who are not the Police Force, thus the only power they have involves no contact, unless defencive, or protective.
For all other matters the police have the only power to actually perform arrests.

For Example, If i get touched by a connex personal, i can say, stop fair go, failure on that, i can say stop stop stop, and failure to comply to that, i then can declare defensive, which is perfectly legal, because i have stated 2 times to stop, and i have stated that im going Defense, thus i can perform any manouver which inflicts no perm damage for no longer then 1 hour.



As i stated previously, if you state that you have no id on you, they cannot do anything about it, because it is a reasonable response.


correct, but the restaint cannot involve any physical device such as cable ties or hand cuffs. aka, they can only sit you in a room and await police to arrive, thus what i ment by citizen arrest. which in tern means they can hold you untill a victorian police member arrives.

As for getting 100% on a law exam, then i suggest you go to your local police station, or security branch, and ask them for the guidelines on how to detain a persons without any physical touch.
The only exception of this rule, is if being defensive (eg. someone is about to cause physical harm to yourself) or protective (eg protecting a person from being injured by the suspect), or suspect to hold weapons (airport security).


hope this clears everything up there fedora

The "Connex police" are known by the term "Authorised Officers" So the power they have is that given to them while on board public transport and at stations, as well as that of a standard citizen. So the ability to arrest and restrain when given sufficient belief that the person has committed an appropriate type of crime (if you really want I can get the terms and stuff, I don't know them of the top of my head). And they can use force as I said as long as they arrest you first.


last time you said "i have ID on me, but im not willing to show you." not quite the same But yeah you can say I don't have any id, in this case they generally get you to call someone to confirm your identity, though I'm not sure how legal this is and if you have to comply.


Yeah that's right but they can still physically restrain them with themselves (ie. sit on you)


As I said in my post "any means appropriate" though the correct term is resonable, but as my dad puts it "when you've arrested someone, you own them. Just arresting them with in the guidelines is the hard part".
I work at K-Mart, on three occasions I've seen the security guards who man the door use force to restrain and protect


Defensive is correct but as far as I know (I could be wrong here, haven't taken much of interest here) protective only applies if what your protecting is somehow attached (not physically) to you (as in your property, your family or friends), but any judge would be hard pressed to convict you because you protected someone as long as it was with a reasonable method. As for the weapons I think (same as before) this one only applies to those given the powers (as you mentioned airport security). Think about it, if I thought someone had a gun so I went up and punched them in an attempt to disarm them it's assault.

As far as I know both parties can be charged with assault, there's none of that playground "but he started it" if both people do something to cause physical harm to the the other where a different approach could have been taken (ie. Ducking, redirecting the blow, restraining the other person).

But hey, I never did legal studies or anything. I'm just a guy who likes to know his rights and how the system works, so a lot of what I know is quite sketchy.

are you really arguing with shadowxdragon right now? IS THIS REALLY WHAT THIS BOARD HAS STOOPED TOO?

ach mein lamen!

i take the tram everyday, if i had to pay $9.70 for every ticket i would be spending $67.90 everyweek, id only spend a net time of about 2 hours a day on the public transport system, i have an income of around $50.00 a week, my parents do not pay for my public transport, i also need to eat durring this day.

My sister is struggling to live on her own at the moment and go to uni which restricks here ability to have a job, but she does, and that money goes to eating and paying rent, if she had to pay $67.90 a week on transport she would starve to death. luckly we both live within zone one and are graced with cheaper tickets, but its NOT easy for some people, not everyone is blessed with dissposable money, tickets are certainly to expensive for students and low income people out side of zone one

Also, I think having a ticket that lasts for a set amount of time (2 hours) is a little silly, especially if you only need to travel one station down the line, or 10 minutes to a friend's house. I always buy a ticket - it sure beats getting a $150+ fine... but that's why whenever I'm done with my 2 hour ticket (usually 15 minutes after purchase when I just need to travel home), I leave it in the ticket machine box for someone to pick up and use.

It's like buying an ice cream with 20 scoops and only eating 3 of them. It would be stupid to just throw the other scoops in the bin. You paid for 2 hours, so whether it was used by you alone, or more than one person, in my eyes it doesn't matter... it should atleast yield it's value if you fully paid for that amount.

But that might just be the Jew inside me talking.

Anyway, I think a pay-as-you-go system would be much more sensible for trips under 2 hours - but I see how something like a daily or even a 12 hour ticket would be more practical for those traveling long distances.

They're implementing a new system end of this year which is more pay-as-you-go. And it is more of a prepaid system where you get a 'My-Key' ( i think that's what its called) card and its like 10 cents per station you travel or something. It's complicated but much better. I think its adapted from Hong Kong. Anyway, read about it a year ago. Sketchy on the details.

Me and 3 other friends didnt buy a ticket for our train..
I feel guilty...
But the ticket machine was broken and we didnt have time and yeah.

http://www.myki.com.au/

Basically, its just a keycard which you can either store money on, kinda like a bank debit card, or you can connect it to a credit card, like... well... a credit card. The benefit for this is that you dont have to carry around money with you everywhere, just the card. So when you go on a tram or train, you just scan in. The main benefit is that it calculates the best ticket for you. There are no new pricings, like JPRG suggested, although personally i believe that would be a much better system, but it just uses the current tickets, ie. two hour, daily etc.

For example, if you went to work on tram in the morning, but didn't expect to tram home, you would normally buy a two hour ticket. If you were expecting to walk home, say, but it rained, you would buy another two hour ticket, costing more than a daily. With Myki, it would automatically adjust the ticket from two hour to daily when you went on the tram a second time.

In Sydney they have the "pay-as-you-go" system and it all turns out pretty expensive.
I spent about $15 a weekend on public transport.

In Perth we're in the process (just completed the process? I'm not too sure, as a student, it was all done for me through my school) of implementing the new 'smart riders'. A 'pay-as-you-go' type idea, one puts funds onto the card (which does resemble a credit card) by any means you like (there's about 7 ways to do it), and then one simply 'tags on' when they get on the bus/train/ferry, and then 'tags off' when the leave. It then calculates the fair according to the time spent on the bus and the route travelled. As a result, if you're only on a bus for 10 minutes, you only get charged 50c, or whatever the concession price for that time is (or adult price if you happen to be an adult). Personally, I think that it is a much more effective method than those in other states of Australia, however we're yet to get the actual public transport up to Sydney and Melbourne levels.

My two-cents worth!

Melbourne's getting the same system implemented later this year. Personally I can't wait, because it takes out all the hassle of picking the right ticket before your trip, as the best fare is automatically calculated for you.

As an everyday public transport user, here is my wishlist for Connex:
- Increase trains to every 7 minutes during morning peak hour and every 12 during afternoon peak hour.
- Scrap away those old Hitachi trains. They smell of burning rubber.
- Increase sercurity and/or staff presence at train stations and on trains and trams.
- Install new train information screens at all stations, not only premium stations.
- Introduce a new fleet of trains and trams to replace the second generation fleet.

I want less buses and further out trams cause no one likes using the buses anyway! And on that note trams every 6 minutes, trains every 5-10. Oh, and late night trains and trams on the hour in case of emergencies and late parties. That's what I'd feel right paying for. Otherwise, make it free.

I take the train and tram everyday, and because of that I get a monthly, not a daily ticket. Also as a uni student your sister should be able to travel on concession tickets (as long as she paid that measly $8:50) which means it'll cost her $76.40 for a zone 1+2 for the whole month, which is approximately 4 weeks so that works out at $19.10 a week. That's an awful lot cheaper than you're making it out to be by buying the least economical ticket possible.


I totally agree with this but it probably won't happen especially for me The line I'm on (werribee line) has two routes, the regular route and the express route. The express route simply takes a more direct route and by passes a section of track that is only 1 track for two directions, because of this trains on the regular route cannot run more often than once every 20 minutes. On this section of track are three station (Seaholme, Altona and Westona) which practically no one uses anyway. When compared with my Station (Hoppers Crossing) the number of people who use those three stations is about half of the number that use my one station alone - that's just one station that isn't even premium. So the express route is far faster, can run more regularly, and only inconveniences a tiny minority who could easily be serviced with the same system as Williamstown; a separate train running out of Newport.
So with all this information, guess how many trains use the express route per day? A grand total of five! 3 in the morning peak into the city, 1 in the after noon peak out of the city, and another into the city at around 7pm. It's just stupid.

As for the old Hitachi trains, the Victorian government just bought more! Well not more as such, just some old ones that they sold really cheap and to my understanding just bought them back for about 5 times the amount they sold them for.

To quote the Castle, "tell him he's dreaming". We would all like those things, but they cost money. For example, a new fleet of trains and trams? Well thats only you know, about a $100 million to do. Not that much if you want your two hour ticket for zone one to cost $20. Increase trains to every 7 minutes? Well that means one of two things. Less trains after peak hour, or the need for more trains. To get the trains to run at that time, you'll need about 50% more trains. Thats a whole lot of dough. If you want that stuff you'll have to compensate. And whats more important for you? Price of ticket, or new trains. Personally i prefer cheaper ticket . No public transport system in the world is perfect (except the tube in London). It ain't gonna get a whole lot better any time soon, although it would if it went back to public hands.

And personally i'm indifferent to the new ticketing system. I mean, it means i dont have to take my ticket out much, but i didn't anyway, unless i went to Flinders St. Although it does mean that if i get on a train at wherever to go to the city at say noon, and i take a tram one stop at 2.08pm, my ticket will become a more expensive daily, unless i keep away from the scanning machine, which depending on where they put them, could be difficult. The best thing ever would be free public transport where a levy is paid yearly to the government at about $100 per person, that would be perfect.

I don't know about making the system free quite yet. Just eliminating fares without improving services won't shift the habits of enough people to justify the cost. But if service improvements can attract more people to public transport, we might as well maintain reasonably cheap fares so as to recover some of the cost. As you have probably read from our English stuff sexy, making public transport free would cost $340 million a year. I say delay that for a few years, meanwhile improve services so we can support the extra patronage that we would like to expect.

Yeah, particular as at the moment it can't even support the current patronage.

Well Melbourne has a population of approximately 3.5 million people, so $100 per person, like i said, would cover the costs perfectly. I just think making the service 'free', with obviously improved services (which should be done under a good service operator anyway) would encourage more people to use the service as they are paying for it, they may as well use it.

Although this is slightly off topic... but not at the same time, it addresses the first point that experimentalkid made that they fine you too much. I think it was Fedora.Pirate that said they're designed to be a punishment so of course they will be too much. However, I believe fines should run on an income system, the UK use it - however, I think it's restricted to fines given by police. But i think it's a good system, where you're fined based on what you earn. That way it's still a punishment because it's meant to be a burden, but it's not too high nor is it too low. If you're earning $80,000 a year and get fined $100. It's basically petty cash. $100 to someone who's earning $25,000 - makes a bit of a difference.
There's argument this establishes class-based discrimination, but - as long as we're capitalists, there will always be some form of class discrimination. Hence, this system should be adopted in australia *nodz*.

I always fly there in my gyrocopter....

Never going to happen. Two problems with that: firstly, it would be difficult to work out how much to fine someone. Maybe a dollar per thousand earnt? Sure, go and fine Lindsay Fox $10,000 for not buying a tram ticket, i'm sure he would enjoy that. There's going to be some kind of complaint from someone if that happened. Secondly, (and there are two parts to this), theres a little thing called privacy. Connex isn't allowed to look at my taxes and see how much i earn. It's illegal. It's also illegal for the Government to release that information. Therefore, they would have no idea how much i earn. Also, even if they did find out this information, how would they know if we earnt money in different ways? For example, Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computers earns (or earnt) $1 per year for his work. Does this mean hes poor? No of course not, he's worth millions. And does that mean he'll get a fine of 1c? Yeah, seems pretty fair to me, why not.

income based. INCOME. that does not solely mean what u take home from your job. on top of that, explain why it is effective and does work in other countries? and yeah, it is a thing called privacy - and i acknowledged that it may not apply to public transport given its corporate ownership when i posted it, and even still - the government could take it back. wouldnt be the first time it backed down on selling something.
and yeah lindsay fox might get a $10,000 fine. its a bit more significant to him than $100 isnt it? how does a fine work as a punishment if its basically petty cash? its no chip off his shoulders, and its meant to be.

To go back to your earlier topic, you are extremely misinformed on this subject. You see, the UK do not use it. In fact, they abolished it after 6 months, because... and heres the kicker... the difficulty in calculating the incomes of offenders. Thats quite a system you have there.

Anyway, before i get onto my next point which i will continue in my next post, i have a little puzzle for kiki. Find something wrong with this scenario:

A man throws his cigarette butt out of his car window when he is driving after he is finished with it. A cop car sees this and pulls him over. The man is fined $5,000.

On isfat? come on you are kidding right? cmon dont play me like that.

I'm sorry, did i disappoint you Kelevra?
How can i make it up to you?

My brother got a $100 fine for jumping over a waist-height fence.
Apparently the maximum fine for "not entering a station by the designated entrance" is about $1000.

Something is very, very wrong with that.

connex dont know anything-bloody french owners

Those trains sound like death when you are on them. You still can smoke on them!!! thats how old they are

I love their sound so much atmosphere, I hate pretty much everything else about them but love the "old clackaties". I would love to ride a Hitachi at night in a thunder storm, I just want the atmosphere that'd give.
I doubt you can smoke on them, especially as you can't even smoke anywhere undercover in the public transport network (stations, bus stops and tram stops) though that's not well enforced.

Well just to dig up an old thread!

I nearly got a fine on the train the other day. I was on my way home from someones house and I didn't have enough sleep the night before and was starting to get a huge headache because for some strange reason the train driver made the ....horn? (I'm not quite sure what its called!) go off every 2 minutes.

So I somehow fell asleep and ended up curling up with my feet on the seat. Anyway the connex guy came along and woke me up and I showed him my ticket and he asked why I had my feet on the seat. I said that i had a headache and fell asleep and he just said he would pretend he didn't notice.

So I guess connex isnt all bad...

No I find quite often the ticket inspectors can be quite nice, I figure it's because they get a lot of hostility in their jobs so when someone actualy smiles at them and treats them decently they can be quite nice. BEWARE: This is a generalisation, not in anyway a rule; some are still quite nasty!

PS. Should i be looking up an old thread to bump back to life; it apears to be all the rage at the moment.

I remember the time some ticket inspectors who I thought were inspecting tickets told me I had a 60+ metcard just as a joke. They weren't checking tickets, they just walked in my general direction and I made assumptions. Still, those guys can be awesome, as Mulch Pirate said.

i don't like them and im going 2 explain two different circumstances

1. taveling on train, without a consession card, without ID, without and prof of who i was, the only thing i had was my met card and why, coz i left my wallet at my friends house which i was on my way to get
they even got me to ring my parents so they could confirm that i was who i was saying and that i was on my way 2 get my wallet
well connex stupid people
fine me $150
not impressed

2. taking the train home at 2am
it stops at springvale station of all stations
and then goes back to the city
40 people were left stranded including myself
there was ment 2 be busses
but connex people had no idea what was happening
i ended up getting on another tain
at 3:45am and then cought a taxi home
connex staff do not impress me at all

Well you can't really blame people for doing their job. You knowingly broke the law so in my eyes you deserve to pay the fine. I'm not going to debate whether a $150 fine is the correct penalty for breaking that law but the fact that you were traveling to get your wallet doesn't legitimize the crime. If someone is driving to someone else's house to pick up their license and they are pulled over and subsequently fined for not having a license on them, would you blame the police? I don't think so.
I'm not the biggest fan of met cops but i think sometimes we blame them for doing their job, much like parking inspectors. I don't understand what you would have had the connex guy do, prince.charming. Perhaps believe everything you said and let you off? If all met cops did that then i would never need a ticket because i could just lie about my circumstances. i could say "Oh, im so sorry. I left my ticket at home" and get off every time. I think sometimes we should just accept our own mistakes and learn the lesson.

As for your second point...well i guess connex just suck

if you're pulled over by police and cannot present your license, in victoria you have a 24hr grace period in which you can present your license to police. similarly, i was under the impression there is a system in place where if you do travel without a concession card within reason and can prove you had the concession card before the infringing incident, there are ways to avoid being fined.

ok that's fair enough. i stand corrected.

Connex are owned by froggies.
That's right, they have a French parent company.


In other news, I think Interscope are pretty radd.

Ok this is just what i heard so it's probably wrong

But wasnt connex taken away from france because it was so bad or something?

france aye? the only time ive ever been close to getting a ticket i just nicked off while they were booking everyone else.