Bus ticketing machines 'have paid off'

"The investment in bus ticketing machines has paid off and there are hardly ever any problems with them."

That was the verdict of Public Transport Association president Victor Spiteri, who was questioned about the machines following serious doubts over their effectiveness raised in another section of the press and in the light of the subsidy claims being made by the association. The ticketing machines record every ticket issued and were introduced in July 2003 to eliminate the possibility of drivers not declaring all of their takings.

"Most of the very few problems that do occur are with the network system through which the drivers have to download the data from the machines," Mr Spiteri told The Times.

He said it was important to solve the issue of data transfer as this was the only way to check whether all the money collected by drivers was ending up at the ATP.

Derek Broadley, International Executive Consultant for Alberta, who were entrusted with the supply, installation and maintenance of the machines, said that after the machines were installed, some drivers had been trying to find ways of beating the system. But after slight modifications were made, "all the wrinkles were ironed out".

"Drivers have recently requested some modifications to facilitate the issue of certain types of ticket and improvements will be carried out shortly.

"But our experience has shown that the vast majority of the fault reports we receive are not due to machines breaking down but to faulty networks. We have informed the ADT that we are willing to assume responsibility for the network because we are sure that we can solve the current problems. That would also ensure that there will be an even quicker service because the whole system and network would be handled by a single company," Mr Broadley said.

Technicians were on call round the clock every day and the response time to each call was well under the two hours required by the maintenance contract, he added.

"Under four faults are reported daily. Most have nothing to do with the machines. Some printers jam because the quality of thermal paper that is now being used is not very good. Other faults sometimes happen because drivers mishandle the machines.

"But all in all, most drivers learnt how to use and handle the machines very quickly and there were no serious problems, whether with drivers or machines," Mr Broadley said.