The big announcement may well come in the next few days: who will take over running Melbourne’s trams and trains from November?
Anybody want to put their predictions on the table? Leave a comment! Your choices:
- Trains: Connex (Veolia, incumbent) or MTM (Hong Kong MTR consortium) or Keolis
- Trams: Yarra Trams (TransdevTSL, incumbent) or Keolis
(I had a Google survey thing here for a short time, but it was too clunky, sorry.)
I think the thing to bear in mind is that none of it will make much difference unless the government commits to fixing the infrastructure and fleet problems that cause most of the issues. If all we get is another logo, little will really change.
That said, there is scope for the operators to run things better: put on more staff, voluntarily run more frequent services (at least outside peak hours, when trains are available), lobby more strongly for infrastructure improvement, better maintenance and security (eg around fleet depots and stations, where vandalism occurs).
10 replies on “Who will it be?”
Responses before I pulled the form:
Trains:
Anybody but Connex: 3
MTM: 2
Keolis: 1
Trams:
Yarra Trams/TransdevTSL: 6
Just heard the announcement will be today.
Keolis is a sure thing.
Keolis. Definitely Keolis.
ANNOUNCED: MTM (MTR) on the trains; Keolis on the trams.
If MTR are allowed to run the system the way they run Hong Kong, then we are in for a golden age of Public Transport. Of course to do that Kosky and co need to throw copious amounts of money and also change the mindset so it’s run much more cleverly than it is now. I doubt we’ll see a system like Hong Kong anytime soon, but I guess to quote Yazz, the Only Way is Up.
Meanwhile, when this news was announced and I shouted it out around the office there were a few cheers to put it mildly.
Now if they could just piss of the Myki and put Lynne Kosky in a cage hanging up at Flinders St so people can throw stuff at her.
Nathan, MTR can’t run it like Hong Kong. The Hong Kong system is newer, and designed from the start as a metro, with no level crossings and few junctions. They’d obviously be aware that Melbourne’s infrastructure is quite different, but they’ll face a number of challenges in making it work reliably.
slightly off topic, but I wonder what a similar map for melbourne would look like:
http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2007/03/17/nyregion/nyregionspecial2/20070318_TRAIN_GRAPHIC.html
I would be interested in knowing what MTM promised (in priority order). I believe passenger safety is number one.
I voted Connex no and Yarra yes. I was wrong.