You have Metro Trains Melbourne in blue.

Yarra Trams in green.

V/Line in purple.

And buses in orange.

I cheated on the last one because it’s a van, and it’s operated by outdoor advertising company oOh!Media, who have the contract to maintain the network of around 5,000 bus shelters across Melbourne.

And a few more

Melbourne bus operators also have their own vans so mechanics can attend to broken down buses in the field.

Some of the ones I’ve spotted over the years include Transdev.

Kinetic.

Dysons.

And Sita.

Bus operators in Sydney and Adelaide also have own dedicated tow trucks for recovering broken down buses.

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I recently spotted this notice affixed to a Myki machine at Flinders Street Station, informing passengers that the machine will be unavailable for “a short period of time” while upgrade works are undertaken.

So what were the works? I happened to stumble upon a machine being ‘upgraded’.

Just some poor bloke pulling off the blue stickers on the front.

And after hacking away at the machine with a razor blade for almost an hour, a new set of grey stickers were placed on the front.

Worth the effort, wasn’t it?

So why the rebrand?

Moves towards a new Myki brand started in October 2013, when Public Transport Victoria trademarked an updated Myki logo, with the logo being soft launched from January 2014.

On July 5 2016 Public Transport Victoria tweeted about the “fresh new look” for Myki machines.

This year #myki machines are getting a facelift with a fresh new look & contactless payment! https://t.co/FNRUTUZnKF pic.twitter.com/0XnK9peHm7

— PTV (@ptv_official) July 5, 2016

Gotta look after the things that matter!

As for the actual upgrades

Despite Public Transport Victoria wasting money on new stickers, the past few months have seen actual progress made on real improvements to the system – in January 2016 the rollout of contactless payment at myki machines commenced, followed in June 2016 by a trial of new ‘Quick Top up’ machines across the network.

Hopefully this new focus on something other than new stickers continues.

Footnote – caught in the act

@themykiuser on Twitter was in the right place at the right time when they captured this photo – the Myki machines at Hawthorn railway station caught mid rebranding.

Auspicious Timing

A photo posted by The Myki User (@themykiuser) on Jul 8, 2016 at 11:44pm PDT

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Just an ordinary drink vending machine here… As seen at train stations all around Melbourne.

But what’s this under the drink selections…

Pepsi, Pepsi Max, V, Mountain Dew, water, more Pepsi, Solo, Juice, Coca Cola…

Coca Cola!

But this is a PEPSI machine!

You can buy a 600ml Pepsi for only $2.30, but a Coke is $2.80 (dunno what size though)

I guess the owner of the machine doesn’t believe in letting your taste decide, but rather:

"go ahead, buy our competitor’s product, as long as we can rip you off in the process I don’t really care…"

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