This afternoon at the Busport, I noticed that Transperth’s talking SmartRider (on the posters in the information office) has grown legs and arms. And he’s now got a buddy, a talking MultiRider who’s half his height and seems rather mopey about being phased out. Alas, I don’t have pictures, but suffice to say the cheese factor is way up there.

I look forward to the day that the dude in a SmartRider suit — for that’s what the photos on the posters showed — stands around on platform E and hands out pamphlets to unwitting commuters as they head to work.

Meanwhile, the use of my real SmartRider (which is devoid of limbs, lest it be unsafe for my pocket) continues to plod along with the same level of reliability as most state government IT projects. In other words, it works fine as long as you follow the instructions … unless the machine reckons the bus hasn’t reached its stop yet, or is among the string of buses I caught last week with “Out of Service” machines.

Proof positive that everyone in the trial only cares about the free stuff: the other day, when they offered $50 to SmartRider users for being in a focus group, their first quota was filled in 40 minutes and their second quota in two hours.