Government money == needless complexity

Some local examples:

• It is apparently possible to pay for on-street parking in Dublin using a mobile phone. I say apparently, because you need to pre-register on a website (http://www.mpark.de) that is currently dead. Since a mobile phone is a relatively secure micropayment device, why not print three premium-rate SMS numbers on each meter – one for one hour, one for two hours and one for three? No need for pre-registration, no need for expensive mobile operator location service licences.
• For about five years a quango has worked on an integrated ticketing system across public transport operators and modes in Dublin with very little to show for it. The model chosen is just about the most complex possible – a prepaid card which must be tagged on and off for each journey, with the possibility of a discount for a second or subsequent journey within a short time. It is likely that there will be no provision for monthly or other passes.
  The state bus operator has offered a magnetic stripe ticket for a lot more than five years that allows unlimited journeys to start in the 90 minutes after it's first validated. This would be trivial to extend to other modes and operators using a statistical revenue sharing model. Indeed, some cities implement this system entirely manually – the ticket is validated by clipping the date and approximate time off its edge.
• Several years ago there was a farcical, aborted attempt to introduce electronic voting in Ireland. For once, a required complication was not introduced - the Nedap voting terminals were ordered without printers to allow for a voter-verifiable audit trail. However, the more pressing problem was that it was decided to automate the vote tallying process as well as vote collection.
  Ireland uses one of the most complex voting systems in the world – single transferable vote with multiple-seat constituencies and random rather than proportional assignment of surpluses.It eventually emerged that the complex tallying software had been continually upgraded during and after testing, right up to the election where it was to be first used.
  The overlooked simple solution – use electronic terminals (with printers), treat the data collected by each one as a ballot box that supports SQL and perform the tallies by hand.

Comments

[Steph]

I agree with your article, except that I would alter the title a little to say "Unlimited Resources = needless complexity".

It mostly happens with governments because even if they don't make money they can continue to spend. With a business this can only for so long.

And what I've found is that the more money you have the burn, the more crazy features you generally try to throw into. The unfortunate thing is that complexity doesn't increase linearly, it increases exponentially (maybe even geometrically)!

[Scott Carpenter]

We have exactly the same public transport ticket system in place ( http://www.translink.com.au/go
) here in Brisbane (Australia) which requires touching on and off, and a discount system:

"Regardless of whether you travel by train, bus or ferry, go card will automatically provide a 50% discount on every trip taken after the tenth journey in a seven day period from Monday to Sunday regardless of the number of zones travelled. The TransLink frequent user scheme resets every Monday."

The greatest benefit has been the notorious unreliability of the system that gives travelers free trips on a regular basis. :)