Equality and Government Accountability

Myki Fines and Confident Commuter

 

After working with Julian Burnside QC’s Myki Flying Squad to fight unfair myki fines, we created mykifines.org.au.

The website’s aim was to give commuters the information they need when caught without a valid ticket. At the time, commuters had to decide whether to take a $75 on-the-spot penalty fare, which they could not challenge, or be issued with a $223 infringement which they could challenge through the internal review and court processes. Many commuters felt they were being bullied into paying on-the-spot penalty fares without understanding their rights.

Upon its launch on 4 April 2016, our website received more than 35,000 views, and was covered by 3AW, ABC Radio Melbourne, The Age, Triple R, Broadsheet, Junkee, Pedestrian and Channel 9 News.

In May 2016, the state government announced that it would be scrapping on-the-spot penalty fares and implementing fairer guidelines for internal review. As of 1 January 2017, on-the-spot penalty fares have been abolished.

Now, we’ve created Confident Commuter a website that helps people understand their rights and options when faced with a myki fine or ticket inspectors.

  • Website: Confident Communter

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  • Website: Myki Fines

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After the success of Myki Fines, we still had a constant stream of emails asking for help with myki infringement notices. As Emma Buckley Lennox writes, this made us determined to make Confident Commuter.

 

Meet Hannah

In August 2017, Hannah hopped on the 58 tram from Brunswick to the city to watch Essendon take on Carlton at the MCG. After searching through her bag, she realised she had left her concession myki at home.

“I freaked out and thought I could get off at Flagstaff and just buy an adult myki, and use that for the day,” she said.

When ticket inspectors got on at Flemington Road, the Melbourne University arts student panicked.

“I always travel with a myki and usually have a backup myki as well, but I brought the wrong bag that day,” Hannah said.

She wasn’t sure what to say to the ticket inspectors, so she said nothing. A friend who was with her told her she’d probably be able to contest it later.

Hannah, like the many other people who had emailed info@mykifines.org.au since on-the-spot penalty fares were abolished on 1 January 2017, needed help.

She needed Confident Commuter, the website we’re proud to launch today.

How could Confident Commuter have helped?

Because Hannah had never had a fine before and made an honest mistake, we think that if she’d said that to the ticket inspectors, it is likely she would have received a warning instead of a fine.

Our new website, Confident Commuter is designed to help Victorians like Hannah, by:

  • Giving public transport users tips on what to say to ticket inspectors.

  • Providing public transport users with information on how to apply for internal review.

  • Helping public transport users draft their internal review applications using our three-step questionnaire.

  • Explaining the myki fine system in a clear and concise way.

Since we successfully advocated for the removal of on-the-spot penalty fares through www.mykifines.org.au, the government has made a few positive changes to the myki fine system. The problem is that it has failed to communicate them properly to commuters. This is where Confident Commuter comes in.

We hope our new website will help commuters when they need it most: when they’re faced with an intimidating ticket inspector; when they’ve received a myki infringement notice in the mail; and when they’re curious about their rights and the myki fine system.

What’s different about Confident Commuter?

As proud as we are of Myki Fines, Confident Commuter is so much more. We successfully secured a grant from the Victoria Law Foundation and were able to secure developer Allan Walker and graphic designer Andrew Dore to make a website that is much more extensive.

We were also lucky to be selected as a project as part of General Assembly’s Pro Bono User Experience Program.

This meant four of their students applied what they’d just been taught to the Myki Fines model, and came up with a better way to structure the website, with usability at the fore. And, they came up with the name Confident Commuter.

Check out Confident Commuter here. Share it. Save it. Use it. Be a Confident Commuter.