Diedre is the public face of the new independent Transport Ticketing Authority. The authority was required to resolve the current complicated and clumsy system that also results in a lot of unintentional fare evasion. So they developed a gigantic brief and went to world wide tender. The winning tender was for $494 million dollars and is now close to be finalized. It is called the Myki smart card system.
It involves every traveller having there own permanent unique card that they can fill up with credits via many ways. The card will then be used on very fast reading scanners that will actually debit the minimum amount based on the most efficient fare level and give a readout of the amount of credit still in the card. The same card will be used on all forms of public transport all over Victoria. On trams they will operate by having a scanner on each side of each door requiring passengers to scan as they get on the tram rather than getting on and waiting to see if an inspector gets on the tram before validating.
Currently there are already hundreds of trams and buses that have the scanners installed. A trial has occurred in Geelong and a full pilot will occur there shortly. Diedre will have a team of about 150 to travel around the state to explain this system that is currently being successfully used in a number of cities overseas including Hong Kong. | 
