This is how you do optimisation

Press Release: Kellyville Ridge Man scores a perfect 15 in Opal

Kellyville Ridge NSW. Local resident Tim Surendonk is celebrating today after scoring the coveted perfect 15 in Opal. As Tim explains it, a perfect 15 occurs when a user of the Opal card pays the absolute minimum amount for unrestricted travel for 6 days in a week (Tuesday-Sunday).

The Opal rules allow unlimited travel after reaching 8 paid journeys, something which the average commuter will only attain after 4 days of to-work-and-back travel. You may think that this would be easy to do--just take 8 consecutive paid trips on trains, ferries or buses--but Opal rules make it difficult. Each trip must be separated by at least 60 minutes in order to qualify as a separate journey, and the day's paid journeys max out after $15 of expenditure--any trips after that aren't "paid-for" and so do not count towards the 8 trips.

Mr Surendonk managed his perfect 15 after carefully taking 8 minimum bus trips, each separated by at least an hour, paying $2.10 for the first 7 and 30c for that last trip.

"It wasn't easy", Mr Surendonk said. "I pretty much had to devote a whole day of annual leave to achieve it, but I did get to go to the Doctor and return some library books" he admitted.

To celebrate, Mr Surendonk took his kids down to Wollongong on Tuesday for a holiday outing. "I had to pay for them, but my trip was free! Thank you Gladys Berejiklian".

Mr. Surendonk's Opal Statement.

Thanks to Tim, PhD in logic, for writing his own press release! I work with some great folk. Tim did end up getting a letter from the minister congratulating him. More in the Rouse Hill Times.