Some observations from the first week of full Metro Tunnel operation.
First, let’s summarise the changes:
- Sunbury and Cranbourne/Pakenham line trains moved out of the City Loop and instead now run through Melbourne CBD in the Metro Tunnel, via new stations at Town Hall (next to Flinders Street) and State Library (next to Melbourne Central)
- Frankston line moved from running direct to Flinders Street, to the City Loop, running anticlockwise
- Werribee line continues to run direct to Flinders Street, terminates there. (Later it will connect through to the Sandringham line)
So how did it go?
On Sunday morning the switch officially started when the first trains through the tunnel ran at about 7:30am, the first regular (non Night Network) services on Sunday morning.
For day one the line colours had been swapped over on screens, and some maps in trains were updated, though this might take a while to be completed.
As I explored, I spotted Metro and DPT senior management having a look around the city stations keeping an eye on things. They said it had run pretty smoothly with only minor problems but that the real challenge would be peak hour – on Monday but even more so on Tuesday given larger numbers of people commute to CBD workplace mid week.
Also saw some people from the Department of Transport and Planning keeping an eye on things.
I noticed a fault which at first looked like an issue with Platform Screen Doors but was actually was the PSDs detecting that an arriving train had a couple of faulty doors. Clever.
There were disruptions on Sunday night, with tunnel trains terminating at Hawksburn for a while.
On Monday the first peak hour test.
Some delays during morning peak at Arden station apparently due to platform screen door issues.
At least three cancellations on the Frankston line which affected people changing from the Cranbourne/Pakenham lines to City Loop at Caulfield/Malvern – which in the first few days has been a lot of people.
There did appear to be a number of passengers unaware of the changes or who did not understand where the Metro tunnel runs. Understandable – not everybody feels the need to closely watch these projects.
Some people seemed to think:
- it bypasses the CBD completely (is it possible that some people have conflated the Metro Tunnel with the Suburban Rail Loop?)
- it doesn’t stop anywhere near Flinders Street or Melbourne Central stations (the two CBD stops are underneath those stations)
- it’s best to change at Caulfield or Footscray rather than change in the City (sometimes not correct)
Tuesday. Oh dear. Several trespasser incidents didn’t faze them too much, but in the evening peak a train brought down power cables near Armadale. Two trains were stuck between stations with people having to wait hours to be evacuated.
The State Government announced they’d refund fares for those people… but only if they apply for it. Ridiculous. Get your data wrangling wizards to figure out who was likely to have been on the two trains, and credit the money back.
In any case, the tunnel was closed for the rest of Tuesday evening, with passengers packing onto other lines.
On Wednesday morning, some hangovers from the night before – quitr a few cancellations due to “train sets are out of position”.
Wednesday evening saw a train fault cause issues, and fire brigade request at Town Hall in the evening.
The rest of the week, a smattering of delays from fire brigade requests, track and equipment faults, trespassers. (As I write this on Saturday, there’s a police request at West Footscray causing minor delays.)
So for a first week, quite a few issues, a mix of internal and external factors.
No wonder some mornings they had buses on standby at strategic locations.
Observations
A lot of new signage has been switched on, for instance in the Campbell arcade showing which station and platforms you should go to for which lines.
I assume the clock for Pakenham and Cranbourne is destined to be stuck showing this. The Flinders Street clocks used to be updated regularly to reflect line changes… but now we seem to be stuck with 1995 heritage.
On the screens inside the station the line is relegated to one corner of one screen. Sunbury line people might take a bit of time to get used to looking for Blue instead of Yellow.
The newly opened entrance to Town Hall station on Swanston Street was up and running but still partially boarded up so it’s not looking its best.
Peak hour at Town Hall is so busy that they’ve been switching all three escalators from the middle-north of the platform towards Collins Street to Up. (Lifts and other escalators were available for people heading down).
There’s extra zebra crossings at the Town Hall tram stop in Collins Street, and even crowd management in the morning peak. (I’m told it’s been extremely busy at times, though not in this pic.)
Speaking of crowds, as predicted, Caulfield station has become very congested at peak times with lots of people changing trains. (This is not helped by Google Maps recommending overly complex journeys when a change at one of the City stations is probably easier.)
Malvern too, to an extent, helping to share the load, but the inconsistency of peak Frankston expresses stopping here in AM but not in PM is not ideal. (That line probably needs a further boost to cope with the crowding. Obviously there’s a long list of lines needing various upgrades.)
This is good: on the tunnel platforms they’ve modified the screens at the non-operational doors (for future longer trains) to make it clearer you need to move up the platform.
People have noticed the long dwell times. I’m told they’ve been conservative in some cases, and it’s a difficult balancing act given the line shares with V/Line at both ends, but I hope this’ll be reviewed and revised once things settle down.
I am not totally convinced the naming and the signage for the lines and stations is as intuitive as possible. It’s probably adding to the confusion for passengers.
Telling them their train runs to a destination they’re unsure of, through the Metro Tunnel (for which they don’t know the route) and via Town Hall and State Library (which they’ve never been to) and not even mentioning City in there at all, isn’t as helpful as it could be.
A lot of the signage emphasises directions to a specific station, not to a specific line, which again, is confusing for people whose lines have moved to a new station.
And then there’s the whole debate about whether the new stations are really part of the old stations or not, and whether the lines need better names.
But I need to think about this a bit more. Something for a follow-up post.
Options for passengers
Passengers are starting to find their way around the reconfigured network. Plenty are grumpy about losing their One Seat Journey and having to change their usual commute. This does always happen to an extent when these types of changes come in, but hopefully people will get used to it in the coming weeks.
If this is you, do try the different options. Personally I always like to consider how to get to my destination, rather than my old station. I used to use Flagstaff to get to Bourke Street – when my trains stopped going there, I found walking from Flinders Street was almost as fast. Now they’ve switched back, I’m trying Flagstaff again, but also trying walking from Town Hall.
With various incidents, it’s been a somewhat rocky start to the new tunnel, but hopefully no more major issues in the near future.
Once peak hours settle down, the next big test will be events: the footy resumes next month, but there are also Ed Sheeran concerts at Marvel Stadium in late Feb.
I’ll be watching with interest.
Edit: Added a photo of the Tuesday evening incident.
35 replies on “Big Switch: the first week”
My observation:
On Saturday 31 Jan, I travelled from Brighton Beach to Oakleigh by train. This involved two separate train journeys, one change of platform and included a partly-express journey.
Now, this trip involves THREE trains, TWO platform changes and all trips are stopping all stations.
Trips from, say, Surrey Hills or Glen Iris station to Oakleigh would involve similar journeys.
So, unless you live on the Dandenong line, the new metro tunnel has created more inconvenience than benefits.
@roger, definitely not ideal, though there are other options which don’t involve 3 trains/2 changes.
You can change once at Town Hall/Flinders Street. It’s probably a bit slower overall, but less waiting around.
Another option (still 2 changes) for some trips is cross-suburban tram or bus for the middle leg.
Plenty of cities rely on interchange for these types of journeys. But the key difference is they provide higher frequency so it’s not so much of a hassle!
Those graphics in the Campbell look like a dead ringer for London Underground line signs, right down the the font.
They have made adjustments to the messaging. Theyre telling people to stay on trains at change at Town Hall for Flinders Street and State Library for Melbourne Central.
My main observation has been that there are a lot (A LOT) of people getting off trains from Cranbourne/Pakenham at Caulfield and changing to a loop service, despite it being a slower option for all but a few passengers. It makes sense if you’re heading to a station between Armadale and Richmond, maybe if you’re heading to Parliament or returning from Southern Cross. Everyone else should stay on the train, perhaps needing to change in the CBD. It’s overwhelming Frankston trains unnecessarily.
You can make the argument that people should probably be more observant about the thing that’s been routinely interrupting their commute for nearly 10 years, and has been promoted for months, but it doesn’t matter, TV have to work around the behaviour of people and it feels they’ve failed to do so thus far.
Some observations on passenger information (long one sorry):
– Not enough emphasis on how close Melbourne Central and Flinders St are to their respective tunnel stations. This includes if that station is your destination (perhaps they should appear on the PIDs in small text underneath the new stations for a while), or if you need to change trains. I don’t think people realise how close the stations are until they visit, it takes 3-5 minutes to change for an average person.
– Wayfinding between the pairs of CBD stations feels substandard in places. The worst example I saw is on the Flinders St Station main concourse, where there are corflute signs saying “Cranbourne/Pakenham/Sunbury trains no longer stop here, go to Town Hall station via the Campbell Arcade and the Degraves St Subway”. Okay, Campbell Arcade has been closed for the better part of 4 years so it’s not a totally familiar landmark to many people, and there’s no directional signage attached to that message. Those unfamiliar wouldn’t realise that you have to walk down onto the platforms to get there. Same deal on the PIDs there (as per your photo). Sure, they leave from Town Hall station, but how do I get there? Some other examples, when you come up the escalator and appear in the Swanston St concourse coming from the Town Hall platforms, the only sign to Flinders St Station is way in the corner, it can take some time to spot. In your photo, the State Library/Melbourne Central concourse PIDs should be swapped around so that Metro Tunnel lines are to the left, closest to the platforms, probably with a sign underneath pointing you straight towards them. The Campbell Arcade photo that you posted is a perfect example of what we need more of: emphasise the train lines and emphasise the direction you need to go.
– Information at suburban stations needs to be clear about the best place to change to get to particular city stations. A lot of the messaging is about “changing to a city loop service”, but that’s a bit of a complicated concept. Is that just the underground stations, or is it the whole loop of 5 stations? Either way, it includes Melbourne Central, which you don’t need to change trains to get to. As mentioned before, you shouldn’t change at Caulfield or Malvern to get to the city in most circumstances, but the general messaging still advises that. The messaging should be directing people to individual stations, it may be more wordy but it’s less ambiguous. From Dandenong, need Flinders St? Get off at Town Hall. Need Flagstaff or Parliament? Change at State Library. and so on. There’s a (perhaps slightly overcomplicated) infographic on r/Melbourne showing this basic concept. Further to this point, the queue for trams to Docklands at Town Hall is damning. This might be quicker for some (especially if you’re going deep into Vic Harbour), but most should probably be directed to Southern Cross via a train at Flinders St.
– When you walk into Melbourne Central from State Library, as apparent in your photo, there’s no information on the next train directly to the other city stations. This kinda exists at Flinders St. If I want to find the next train to get to Flagstaff from the Metro Tunnel, the concourse PIDs don’t help me at all, you have to know your loop operations (at least they’re more consistent now).
I think generally there needs to be a lot more physical promotion (like posters and signage) at train stations rather than directing people to a website. It needs to be clear and right in front of your eyes when you need it. Also, from a marketing POV, promote the speed of the thing! Agree on cutting dwell times, which will make it even better, but pump up how this saves you X minutes return if you commute to Flinders St, for example. No more going the wrong way round the loop.
I’ve noticed the new style PID information at Footscray and Sunshine but not at West Footscray. It’s probably needed more at West Footscray, where your next train may not be on Platform 1, and is likely to be going somewhere you haven’t heard of, like Westall.
I did also notice on Friday after 9.30am at West Footscray (I was travelling from there to Sunshine to catch my V/Line, for the first time in the week), and not sure if this is scheduled or not, but the next train to arrive from the tunnel terminated at West Footscray and was taken out of service but presumably then was heading empty to Calder Park (i.e. not turning back), if that’s scheduled it doesn’t make sense (although around that time on the old timetable there was an outbound express that didn’t stop at West Footscray). I’ve also noticed trains sitting outside West Footscray waiting to come into a platform.
And I also noticed in the PTV app on Friday evening as I was looking to see whether I should get off at Sunshine or Footscray that the summary view in your favourites only appears to give the upcoming line – the next train at Sunshine was the 7.01pm to Cranbourne, and then it gave the next two times 20 minutes apart – I initially thought that sucks, it’s still a 20-minute frequency at that time (and better to go to Footscray and backtrack if I’m going to miss the 7.01), but when I got off at West Footscray I realised that was wrong and the app wasn’t showing the East Pakenham times in the summary. Seems like a bit of a mess in terms of how the lines, destinations, etc. are being handled in the background.
On Tuesday’s issue, I wasn’t directly impacted other than getting off the V/Line at Footscray and facing hoards of people coming across the concourse and spilling off the train) as I headed to a Werribee train to head to Aircraft. Good thing I wasn’t seeking to backtrack to West Footscray!
It would be interesting to know what Metro’s contingency plan was for Tuesday’s disruption, and whether they had tested scenarios. Was there also an issue in the west, or can they not run trains beyond West Footscray if there is an issue in the tunnel or on the eastern side? Seems an unsatisfactory solution to need to provide buses to traverse the short distance between Footscray and West Footscray.
The lack of coherent naming of the lines is confusing to me. It seems like this is breaking things like Apple Maps which now shows all services terminating at Town Hall even though they actually travel further, but because beyond Town Hall is Pakenham and Cranbourne it doesn’t see this as the same journey!
I think a Brisbane-like approach to destination displaying could help for these new “cross-city” services.
– City & Cranbourne *via Metro Tunnel*
– City & Sunbury *via Metro Tunnel*
– City & Werribee *via Southern Cross*
– Flinders Street *and City Loop*
Something like that could allow passengers to realise where their service is going without too much of a fuss.
Although I’ve read a lot of people being utterly confused at one thing: thinking that Town Hall/Flinders St and State Library/Melb Central are completely separate stations where you need to exit one to get to the other… Which is not the case, as you can change between both without leaving the ticketed area.
I think they should’ve just made the Metro Tunnel stations mere extensions of their original counterparts with the same names and everything.
I was wondering if Metro Tunnel was going to be given a more permanent name, rather than what I had presumed was the project name.
I then realised that most cities I’ve been in don’t identify routes via infrastructure, they identify them via waypoints. I wonder if we’ll see “via Town Hall” come into use, or if we’ll be stuck with “via Metro Tunnel”.
It’s a mistake to use different station names for stations that are right next to each other serving as an interchanging point. Across the globe from London to Tokyo, these two new stations would have been treated as the extension of the existing ones. The politicians and transport planners of Melbourne lack global vision and failed to think from the perspective of passengers. What they care is that the political effect of building two “BRAND NEW” CBD stations seems to be stronger than just station extension. Ironically this eventually came back to bite them along with the pathetically inadequate, unclear and misleading signage and directions. The chaotic start of the Metro Tunnel will definitely have a negative impact on the Labor Party in this election year.
The additional temporary signs wheeled out at Caulfield didn’t help, I feel.
Having one arrow point to ‘Flinders St via City Loop’ and the other as ‘Sunbury via Metro Tunnel’.
It’s easy to see why any semi confused passenger would choose the former, if mainly due to familiarity. A simple top level header of “Westbound trains to City” or “Citybound trains” to group both as valid options would have gone a long way. You’re right that I saw many catch a loop train because they understood it, while “Sunbury via Metro Tunnel’ was mysterious to many.
My suggestion here:
https://www.tiktok.com/@expresstransitdotcom/video/7603262461357133078
I used the new service from Footscray on Monday and Friday this week. Very large numbers of people were changing for Werribee/Williamstown trains.
On Monday I overheard a staff member advise an intending passenger for Flagstaff to take a Werribee train and change at North Melbourne, which I thought pretty bad advice. Since then the messaging does seem to be encouraging people to change at State Library which I suspect is better, though you’d think many could walk from there or from Southern Cross and it’d end up quicker than changing.
On a personal note, Anzac is far closer to my workplace than Flinders St/Town Hall, so it’s all upside for me!
I wear glasses, so I have good vision when wearing them, and generally, most signage is in a too small font.
The lifts at Town Hall gets quite a lot of use as it seems so much quicker to use the two lifts rather than three escalators.
Only today have I finally gotten right State Library’s three lifts to surface, and harder still, down to platforms.
How many decades will it take for all platforms on the lines to be extended to take ten carriage trains. I believe in planning for the future, but it is ridiculous to not have planned the stations for seven carriage trains, with the capacity to extend.
Auto announcements as against platform staff announcements? The staff announcements sound nicer and more personal, but please, either one or the other; we don’t need both, one repeating the information.
I’ve noticed on the Metro Tunnel trains, at State Library station the automated announcement to “Change for Melbourne Central Station and City Loop Services” and the one at Town Hall for Flinders Street, but none of the City Loop trains at Melbourne Central have had a similar announcement with advice to “Change for State Library Station” or to change for Sunbury, Pakenham and Cranbourne services which I think would go a long way to embedding the connection in the subconscious of people’s ongoing navigation using the city stations. The effort seems concentrated on having people find the old from the new but not the other way around.
I don’t recall the Sydney Metro causing so much confusion, but granted that was a completely different project that (until the Bankstown line shutdown) simply added a new way of travel without replacing anything. And Bankstown line commuters will be well aware of the new route given their line has been shut down for over a year in preparation.
Also completely agree with @Maximiliano around the terminology that could be used. “City & Westall via Metro Tunnel” or “City & West Footscray” would help get the point across so much more visibly. As would “Flinders Street & City Loop”.
On that note, as @Dan mentioned, is Metro Tunnel a good long-term name? Apart from branding and the obvious fact it’s a tunnel, it’s a pretty meaningless name. I would suggest the City Tunnel instead but I would be afraid of confusion with the City Loop, especially given the colloquial way Melburnians have called the City Loop “the tunnel” over time. The days of “sorry I’m going to drop out because I’m going into the tunnel” come to mind!
A week on and I am still trying to get used to the hot pink Werribee Line colours.
And I feel like they should figure out a way to retrofit a new overhead bridge at Caulfield station just to interchange between platforms, or alternatively a new subway. Also nice if other stations like Footscray also gets this treatment.
Also I don’t think it’s too hard to add stickers to the unused doors at the new Metro Tunnel stations to use doors 1 to 21, instead of using the screens for this.
@Max
“On Monday I overheard a staff member advise an intending passenger for Flagstaff to take a Werribee train and change at North Melbourne, which I thought pretty bad advice.”
It’s actually not bad advice. As frustrating as it is having to change twice (at Footscray and North Melbourne) to get to Flagstaff, it’s still almost certainly likely to be quicker than changing at State Library. By the time you get to State Library, chances are you’d already be on a Craigieburn or Upfield train at North Melbourne heading into the Loop if you took that option.
But since the Big Switch, Flagstaff has turned into an absurd destination when coming from the Sunbury line. You either have to change twice, or choose one of several options whose routes take you further away from Flagstaff before you have to double back.
Tourists and non-regular users will be baffled by the signage. As a tourist, I’d have no idea where Sunbury is. I just need to go to the city!! They need to think from an end user perspective.
I noticed the extra load that the Frankston line had to carry now to get all the Parliament, Richmond, South Yarra etc peeps to Caulfield. If the Frankston line is impacted for any reason, then the Pakenham/cranbourne lines will really suffer too.
The interchange at Caulfield is completely inadequate. Hordes of people trying to exit the platform while an equal amount are trying to enter – all having to touch off and on again. I pity anyone in a wheelchair or with a pram.
I’m sure there are reasons for it but wouldn’t it be amazing if the 2 middle platforms at Caulfield could be the main interchange? Ie both city bound trains arrive on platform 2 and 3 and everyone can easily change if they need to. The same at night. It would make changing trains so much easier than having to fight to get through a ticket barrier, run down and up ramps against crowds and hope to make it to your connecting train…
Personally as a Frankston train user to Parliament it is a good change for me in the morning. Battling the crowds at night at Richmond is not at all fun though.
Definitely need better signage, better interchanges and better app info
@Paul Mavroudis
I’d have thought one change would be quicker than two, but I’ve admittedly not tried it myself. Would be interesting if I have the time to experiment.
I do still think no change of train and a slightly longer walk would be quicker for a number of nearby destinations.
Honest question: for a train heading out to the suburbs (example Werribee) why do announcements say “this is a … train *direct* to Werribee”? In my ~20 years of using the Werribee Line, I have never experienced it going to Williamstown (serviced by Williamstown Line) then to Werribee – both lines pass through same stations from Flinders and separate at Newport. I’ve been baffled by the use of *direct* in those announcements. The word is fine to use for trips to the CBD but not outward to suburbs.
Some great comments here.
@Guy, definitely not a coincidence that some of it looks like London. Line colours for instance I believe were swiped directly.
@Brad, I noticed AOs on the platform at Caulfield loudly calling “change at Town Hall or State Library for the City Loop”… will be interesting to see if this helps.
@XTR, lots of good info here… one anecdote I heard was a person making their way from Town Hall to Flinders St (into the centre subway) didn’t recognise it as Flinders St. They’d never been in that subway before.
@Steve, there are still lots of problems (particularly in the PTV app) with Cranbourne trains vs Pakenham trains, when the vast majority of stations on the joined lines are served by both.
@Maximiliano, yes – including the word City is vital here.
@Keith, it was ultimately emergency services who wanted separate station names. As I understand it, that was the main factor.
Great points about the naming of the tunnel itself.
@Arfman, they absolutely should have funded a North Melbourne-style upgrade to Caulfield.
Re: the platform screen doors, there is signage on the unused ones.
@Belinda, yes, the Frankston line now has no slack. Any delay or cancellation (especially in peak) is now a much bigger issue than it was.
@RC, is it “Direct” because the Werribee train isn’t running via the City Loop, and/or not running via the Altona Loop?
There was another “Fire Brigade request” at Town Hall on Thursday night (around 10pm), with the station evacuated and closed for about half an hour. I believe trains were also stopped (not sure if any between stations) for the duration, as the disruption was posted in apps as impacting trains.
Is there a reason for the repeated “Fire Brigade requests” at Town Hall?
In terms of stopping patterns, the Frankston stopping patterns at Malvern definitely should be made static across the day – Daniel, is this something the Association can try and get fixed for the Frankston timetable change mid-2026?
Finally, I suspect optimisation hasn’t been done at interchange stations outside of the peaks. With an “at worst” 10 minute headway for Tunnel trains at Caulfield, Malvern and Footscray, it isn’t possible to idealise the timetable from an interchange perspective unless the other lines are also at the same headway. But work could still be done to ensure a Tunnel train isn’t arriving at the same time or a minute or two before or after a Frankston/Werribee train.
Finally, for Night network services, I note that there is a 1 or 3 minute difference between Frankston and Dandenong group trains at Malvern and Caulfield (depending on direction). Granted it only benefits pax at two stations, but surely it’d be better if the services were more evenly spaced?
@RC & @Daniel Bowen
I think it’s a holdover from when the line would sometimes operate via the City Loop.
Until the new timetable came into effect, if one hopped on a Sunbury train at Flinders St the announcement would either say “Direct to Sunbury” or “via the City Loop”, depending on direction. I’d imagine other loops that reverse direction are the same, though I have a vague feeling it may only be Comeng trains that have this particular style of announcement.
Leaving aside any problems specific to Google’s Maps app, the PTV app is *also* saying to change at Caulfield or Malvern to get to Parliament.
I tell it to plan from Carnegie to Parliament arriving at 9am, and it offers 25 minutes departing Carnegie at 8:32 arriving at 8:57, with a 3 minute walk at Caulfield. But there’s an 8:53 Mernda from Melbourne Central arriving at 8:55, and the app says it’s 2 minutes from State Library to the platform. The very same 8:32 from Carnegie arrives at State Library at 8:51. There’s some extra walking from the State Library platform to the concourse, perhaps a minute, but if you miss that connection there’s a Hurstbridge from the same platform at 8:54, which gets to Parliament at 8:58, just one minute from the recommended route with the change at Caulfield.
The State Library change is undercover and you don’t lose your seat until one stop before the end of the journey. If I still lived in Carnegie, that’s the one I’d choose.
If there wasn’t such excessive dwell at the Metro Tunnel stations and it didn’t stop at Caulfield, that would probably be enough to tip the calculation in favour of State Library and the journey planners (PTV and Google) would be recommending that.
above, I meant to write “didn’t stop at MALVERN”, of course.
Re: Flinders Street clocks. Half the clocks don’t even reflect their current terminus; they should have been updated long ago. Also, bring back the art deco typeface to match the station’s heritage.
With the Altona clock being redundant for decades on end, and the Dandenong and Sunbury lines being moved to the Metro Tunnel, it leaves just enough room to add the Clifton Hill group and a single regional service.
My proposal would be to change the destinations to something that roughly reflects the platform layout:
Williamstown, Werribee, Sandringham and Traralgon/Bairnsdale using the former Burnley group clocks; then Frankston, Craigieburn, Upfield, Lilydale, Belgrave, Glen Waverley, Alamein, Mernda and Hurstbridge above the main entrance.
@Francis, I’d say State Library to Melbourne Central is definitely more than 2 minutes, unless you’re a very fast runner.
Probably about 5 minutes for a brisk walker, longer if you’re not as speedy. And depends which MC platforms you want of course.
@Heihachi_73, the Altona clock is probably the least problematic. They should just use it for trains via the Altona Loop (eg to Laverton at most times).
Last year PTUA did a Facebook post about adjusting the clocks. The backlash was amazing. I *think* some people didn’t read it properly and thought it proposed ripping them out, but a few people seem to firmly want the “heritage” destinations from 1995 to be permanently displayed.
https://www.facebook.com/ptua.vic/posts/pfbid0R1bauLnH3YApHvfeUw7WfU4boHh7FjYSdX98yPmncAPVX7Q92i6DkEttFdx27R23l
The other point I’d make about city interchanges is that, until the Werribee line started to go ‘direct’ to Flinders St, Southern Cross wasn’t really on the City Loop if you were coming in from the West, it was ‘change trains at Flagstaff’. And depending on when/where you’re travelling, the 216/220 buses are also inner west options.
I do wonder why any Sunbury line passengers would still be trying to use Flagstaff for their destination. Depending on where they’re heading, the following alternatives would be far easier and quicker, and avoid changing trains twice:
– State Library + walk or tram
– Parkville + tram
– change at Footscray for Southern Cross + walk or tram
Old habits die hard, but perhaps better promotion of these alternatives would ease the transition.
as one poster already said, if you decide you must change at Caulfield, do it at Malvern instead, less crowded and slightly shorter walk . . . . . .
They probably opted for the self-service option because of eTickets
I do think we need “rules of thumb” that Metro could publish, as XTR suggests. e.g. If you’re going from Cran/Pak to Southern Cross, whether to change at TH/SL. Most people will adopt one route and stick with it.
I’m a Cranbourne/Pakenham -> Parliament commuter who has been changing at Malvern. Even as someone who clearly understands the routes involved, the Malvern change feels far simpler than the SL->MC interchange.
I’m not sure what Google Maps was doing earlier, but now it’s showing me the interchange from SL to MC to be 7 minutes, which I think is fairly realistic. That still results in it being ~5 mins longer than changing at Malvern. Hopefully any issues with it are being fixed, which is important given how many people use it for trip planning.
From your photo of the Collins St exit, it seems this totally new location is even more popular than envisioned.
Hardly surprising once we get past any notion that passenger destination is one of the stations, it’s more often somewhere else in the CBD
@Daniel Bowen re Is it “Direct” because the Werribee train isn’t running via the City Loop, and/or not running via the Altona Loop? – it’s not. If via Altona Loop they use the term stopping all stations AND still the word *direct* as in “this is a service to Werribee stopping all staions direct to Werribee”.
They probably should have listed the new stations as Town Hall (CBD) and State Library (CBD) or Town Hall (Flinders Street) etc. on the PIDs and on the GTFS system until everyone got used to it