Not how Melbourne works. As soon as you go over two hours, it bumps you to the all- day fare.
It’s been nearly 7 years since I was in Melbourne, so this might no longer work - but an un-advertised hack then was: The ticket is valid for two hours starting from the next hour. So, if you buy a ticket at x:59, your ticket is valid for 2 hours, 1 minute. If you buy it at x:01, you get 2 hours, 59 minutes. That’s why I said 2-3 hours. When I was there, they’d priced a 2-zone return journey as being slightly cheaper than a daily fare. The daily cap didn’t exist, yet though - these days, it’d likely be $10 for the day either way.
If you touch on/off a tram in the CBD, it didn’t cost anything. I often rode my bike to work and took the tram at lunch. The trips would appear on my Myki history, but the fare was $0.
It wasn’t possible to buy them like that last time I visited (which, as I said, it’s years ago now). You needed to order one with a Perth residential address. I guess it must have been during the initial rollout that they were limiting it. It’s good they’ve fixed that.
If you buy online, you probably need a Perth address. That may be where you have that impression. So long as you don’t need a concession/student card, you’ve always been able to just walk in and buy one. Also, Perth’s SmartRider rolled out in 2002 - it’s probably the oldest smart ticketing system in Australia. Not only that, I have been using the same actual card all this time: it’s over 20 years old. I was actually a beta tester of the system, and still have the very faded “control group” sticker on my card. I sometimes wonder how many of the control group tickets are still in play.
Speaking of smart cards for visitors, it’s a lot easier to cash out unused Myki than Opal.
I’ve never tried to do this in any city. I just presume I’ll be back some day and keep using it.
But in Sydney you don’t need to do that. In Sydney (like London), you can just tap on/off with a regular credit card and it behaves like a full fare Opal (or Oyster in London).
Oh neat! You can’t do this in Perth. Did I mention our system is old?
It’s been nearly 7 years since I was in Melbourne, so this might no longer work - but an un-advertised hack then was: The ticket is valid for two hours starting from the next hour. So, if you buy a ticket at x:59, your ticket is valid for 2 hours, 1 minute. If you buy it at x:01, you get 2 hours, 59 minutes. That’s why I said 2-3 hours. When I was there, they’d priced a 2-zone return journey as being slightly cheaper than a daily fare. The daily cap didn’t exist, yet though - these days, it’d likely be $10 for the day either way.
If you touch on/off a tram in the CBD, it didn’t cost anything. I often rode my bike to work and took the tram at lunch. The trips would appear on my Myki history, but the fare was $0.
If you buy online, you probably need a Perth address. That may be where you have that impression. So long as you don’t need a concession/student card, you’ve always been able to just walk in and buy one. Also, Perth’s SmartRider rolled out in 2002 - it’s probably the oldest smart ticketing system in Australia. Not only that, I have been using the same actual card all this time: it’s over 20 years old. I was actually a beta tester of the system, and still have the very faded “control group” sticker on my card. I sometimes wonder how many of the control group tickets are still in play.
I’ve never tried to do this in any city. I just presume I’ll be back some day and keep using it.
Oh neat! You can’t do this in Perth. Did I mention our system is old?