Categories
transport

Metro 1/Metro 2/Metro Rail Capacity Project – The Metro rail tunnel’s many names

There seems to be a little confusion over the various names of the Metro rail tunnel — for instance the name Metro One pops up regularly, especially out of the City Of Melbourne. The confusion is not surprising, as the name and design of the tunnel has changed a bit over the years. Origins The  ... [More]

Categories
transport

Smoking banned completely from railway stations and tram platform stops from 1st March

From next Saturday, 1st of March, smoking will be banned from the entirety of all railway stations and tram platform stops. The new arrangements will extend the existing smoke-free zones, which currently only include covered areas of railway platforms and inside covered tram and bus shelters. “Extending smoke-free areas is good news for public transport  ... [More]

Categories
transport

Investment in motorways vs rail capacity – where are we at?

There’s been some speculation about who is running the SpringStSource Twitter account and web site. The web domain name is registered through WhoIsGuard, a Panama-based service specifically for hiding details of people who want to remain anonymous. It’s not hard to see whoever is behind it is well and truly on the side of the  ... [More]

Categories
transport

Some local PT issues in Bentleigh #SpringSt

The Public Transport Not Traffic campaign held their PT To Parliament event on Thursday morning. Locals were encouraged to invite their local MPs to catch public transport with them into Parliament House, and discuss PT issues with them along the way. My local MP, Elizabeth Miller, was sadly unavailable. So we invited ALP opposition candidate  ... [More]

Categories
transport

PTV’s plans for in-cab signalling – could boost track capacity by 50%

A while back I had a read through the PTV rail network plan looking to summarise their view on the rollout of high capacity (in-cab) signalling. Sorry this post has been so long in coming. This short (three minute) video explains it nicely, but one analogy is that the current system is like driving around  ... [More]

Categories
transport

Are the PSOs having an effect? Survey suggests no, but anecdotal evidence suggests yes.

Interesting article: PSOs do little for train passenger confidence: Data from a survey conducted by the Australia New Zealand Policing Advisory Agency shows in 2012-13, 24.2 per cent of Victorians reported feeling safe or very safe on public transport at night. This was a small increase on the previous year, in which 23.7 per cent  ... [More]

Categories
transport

The 601 is the most important train-bus connection at Huntingdale. Why is it missing from the signs?

The 601 Monash University express shuttle service runs every four minutes during semester time weekdays. It provides a high-frequency, rapid connection from the station to the university campus. Thanks to good publicity from the University, it has a high level of awareness among students and staff, and is used for tens of thousands of trips  ... [More]

Categories
Melbourne transport

Service Kilometres Per Capita – are public transport services keeping up with population growth?

In the face of Labor’s proposal for 24-hour trains and trams at weekends, the State Coalition has been talking up its credentials in public transport. This tweet from Acting Public Transport Minister David Hodgett for example: Only the Coalition can be trusted to deliver better public transport for Victoria: 1,078 extra metro trains &3,870 extra  ... [More]

Categories
transport

Labor’s all-night PT proposal (and how do other cities manage 24-hour trains?)

Sometimes you see claims that lots of other major cities have all-night trains (so we should have them too). Recently I went looking to see which do. Well, a lot of the world’s biggest cities don’t. Paris — last train around 12:30am Hong Kong — last train around midnight (some earlier, some 1am) London —  ... [More]

Categories
transport

Summer timetables = planned train crowding (See a problem? Get the evidence)

If you missed it last night: Channel 7: Frustration over summer timetable: Scores of train services have been cancelled and the Metro system will run to a limited summer timetable, even though most people will have returned to work. Jacqueline Felgate reports. Here’s a PTUA press release, and the raw footage: It was shot on  ... [More]

Categories
transport

How many “bus lane” signs can you ignore? Better enforcement needed?

If you frequent the area, you might have noticed that the Ballarat Road has a lot more buses than usual. Not for the first time, the Regional Rail Link project has closed part of the Sunbury line, with buses ferrying passengers between Albion and Flemington Racecourse, resulting in convoys of buses doing train impersonations: Sensibly,  ... [More]

Categories
transport

Good news – they quietly fixed a #Myki problem. Touch-on with zero balance now possible.

Happy new year. A few months ago I wrote that allowing a Myki touch-on with a zero balance would bring numerous benefits. Well in the brand shiny new 2014 PTV Fares And Ticketing Manual appears a small but important change. Unlike the doom and gloom of fare rises, this is a positive. Yep, you guessed  ... [More]