What libraries can learn from public transport ticketing

Recently I had a bit of a run-in with the bureaucracy running Melbourne’s new(ish) public transport ticketing system, Myki.  It got me thinking about introducing new technology into libraries and how many of the lessons that apply to new technology in public transport ticketing also apply to libraries.  Both of us are in the business of providing public goods to the whole spectrum of society.  Here are six lessons we can learn from the mistakes and occasional triumphs of public transport ticketing around the world.

Identify the problem you are trying to solve

With any new technology - whether it’s a new social media platform, a new metadata standard or a new way of tracking items in your database - the first question you should answer is “what problem is this going to solve?”  If you can’t think of one, it’s worth reconsidering whether you are just sating your techno-lust rather than providing productivity increases or genuine new services to your patrons.

The Myki smartcard system in Victoria has cost AUD $1.35 billion to implement, with ongoing cost of several hundreds of thousands more.  Bemused passengers have continued to ask what was wrong with the old system.  While the Metcard system using cardboard cards with magnetic strips had problems, the enormous cost of the Myki system doesn’t appear to have come with an equivalent increase in functionality.  The system should provide useful data on travel patterns and does enable passengers to casually travel through tiketing ‘zones’ without having to worry about buying a second or special ticket, but these advantages have been marketed poorly and there is little indication as to what the primary advantage of the new system is over the old one.

Policies should not be determined by the technology

Policies - whether on how many items can be loaned at once or how much a ticket from A to B costs - should be determined by what is fair and reasonable within the budget available.  When you start making policy based on the restrictions of the technology you have chosen, alarm bells should ring.  The should ring even louder if your policy is based on the restrictions of a technology you are no longer using.

Myki and e-books display both sides of this common problem.  Under the Metcard system Melbourne was divided into three public transport zones, with the ticket price increasing when passengers crossed a zone boundary.  The principle was that passengers travelling further should pay more, but the inner zone cost twice as much as the two outer zones, reflecting the more frequent and available services in the inner city.  When Myki was introduced, instead of just validating your ticket on entry, there became a requirement to ‘touch off’ to ensure the lowest fair.  The new technology had difficulty working out where it was, however, and eventually the government decided to effectively remove zoning on tram and bus trips travelling between zones.  This policy change was not based on any philosophical change, but rather a reaction to a new technology that could not do the job.

In libraries, we see the other side of the coin when it comes to e-book lending.  As I’ve argued before, lending e-books in the same way as we lend physical books is inherently ridiculous.  E-book technology allows unlimited perfect copies to be made simultaneously available.  E-book ‘lending’ should, at the very least, allow anyone who wants to ‘borrow’ the book to access it without having to wait for someone to ‘return’ it.  But publishers have forced libraries to treat electrons the same way we treat atoms - and librarians have agreed, because our patrons are demanding access to ebooks and aren’t interested in the broader ramifications.  These ebook lending practices are based on a legacy technology - paper books, rather than utilising the functionality of the new ebook technology.

Ensure your solution is not over-engineered, or under-engineered

Just as it is important to ask ‘what problem is this solving’ it is also important to ask ‘is this the best way to solve the problem?’  There were several problems with Melbourne’s transit ticketing system in 2001.  Were there $1.35B worth of problems?  Possibly not.  Indeed, Myki demonstrates how it is possible to simultaneously both over-engineer and under-engineer a solution.  The cost was mostly due to the fact the Victoria’s government decided to start building the new system from scratch, instead of starting with an ‘off the shelf’ solution.  Melbourne’s ticketing system and transport routes were deemed more complicated than other systems using smartcards and thus we needed our own bespoke tickets.  But this complex and costly system has been plagued by poor design and hardware that is simply not up to the job.  The most famous recent example is the short battery