I thought I may as well have a go at some commentary on the Myki system after having enjoyed Octopus for five months. Not the food.
Myki rollout
Obviously the timing could have been better and whether it was delayed due to engineers watching Youtube on their second monitors or something else, I don't believe allowing it to be used only on trains in Melbourne was very useful.
For example, a smartbus driver yelled at a young brunette with earphones in and an older lady who probably doesn't understand all that much English for trying to use Myki. Partial implementation doesn't really help these people and just adds another opportunity for confusion or ignorance.
Is it really necessary to promote a system that's not fully operational with mobile kiosks and all? Especially at shopping centres like Chadstone which aren't even in walking distance of a train station... Fantastic - it'll just make more angry bus drivers and more boarding delays at their bus terminals.
Concession
Concession doesn't really need to be printed onto the card. Really. Octopus allowed time-limited concessions to be applied on photo-personalised cards. The same deal could happen here and upon showing proof of concession, the card could be coded with concession status for another period.
Periodic Tickets
I don't think periodic tickets have any reason to exist anymore. There should be something like "Myki money rewards" instead of periodic tickets where once you spend enough, you get a discount. I think I worked the threshold out to be 18 days of travel in a month for zone 2. Myki is supposed to be able to calculate the best fare for you. I received a pretty boring reply from Myki as regards this matter at the end of last November, suggesting the use of Myki money for uncertain travel (read: I don't know whether I feel like attending class). I still don't believe it should be necessary to commit to such a ticket that doesn't need to exist in electronic form.
Passengers that didn't plan ahead
This one lumps a few issues together. I found that "exact fare only" worked pretty well on HK buses, minibuses and trams. There was also some whinging in the paper about the loss of city saver fares under Myki. Since you can't select anything at the touch-on panel and a tram driver is in no position to change it for each passenger, it doesn't seem like it could have worked. However, I think that an immediate-use fare machine catering for exact fare and Myki will be a suitable compromise. It could be just one specially-marked machine on the tram, replacing the vending machine and giving a paper receipt for exact fare passengers, with a timestamp and route number. The Myki passengers shouldn't need anything since it the system would know about it.
For buses, the bus driver could toggle the fare (rather like how one asks the 'bus captain' for the cheaper Central fare if not proceeding all the way to Causeway Bay on the number 8 minibus). We could have an exact-fare bucket and receipt printer near where the Metcard machine is currently.
Fares don't need to be complicated. A flat $2 for the ride or $1 for concession doesn't seem too far-fetched. Honesty system applies for concession. Interestingly, I've never had my Octopus checked by any ticket inspectors and my classmate expressed horror at the Youtube video of Melbourne authorised officers on the train network.
No-nonsense top up on trams and buses. No change given. However much you hand over is that amount of credit added onto the card. I haven't read any information about how this was planned to work on buses and trams.
My own whinging (not about Myki)
People who complain in the Whitehorse Leader about how hot or cold or whatever Box Hill bus terminal is... in my eyes Doncaster is far worse than Box Hill. The shopping centre grew so much bigger, has a complex active system for counting car park spaces and yet hasn't improved conditions for public transport users. Sure there are two smartbus routes ploughing through but the bus shelters are no more than the standard roadside ones. Puddles form at the waiting areas! Harumph.
On another note, I seem to be able to rely on a smartbus being on time/closer to being on time than a train on the Belgrave/Lilydale line. Weird... and it really shouldn't be that way.
Perhaps I could get a better view of the other side if I were to gain a summer vacation position at the transport department.