Travellers Aid do good work helping those who need a little extra assistance getting around. They have a fundraiser on at the moment: Myki card holders, for $2.50 postage and handling, and they invite you to add a donation (which I did). My sister loves the Keep Calm meme, so I got this one for ... [More]
Category: transport
All forms of transport, including gunzelly
Having spent all that money on GPS in the buses, transmitters and receivers to get the bus locations onto electronic signs, wouldn’t you think they’d think carefully about where those signs were located? Exhibit 1: Lonsdale Street, near Hardware Lane Exhibit 2: Dandenong Station (I’ve circled it in case it’s not obvious) To be fair, ... [More]
Some years ago I wrote about issues with the City of Melbourne policy of allowing motorbikes and scooters to park on footpaths, except in a few locations where it’s specifically banned. The problem is, most of the guidelines seem to be ignored. The guidelines Here are the guidelines (see also: PDF version): DO dismount and ... [More]
…documents obtained by the Greens through freedom of information reveal that the positive results did not include many trains that were affected by the knock-on effect of a cancelled or delayed service. Of the 437 trains surveyed, 113 were excluded. — The Age, Train overcrowding getting worse: Greens Here’s the thing. Load surveys aren’t measuring ... [More]
Works on the new Elizabeth Street tram platform stops are going full steam ahead. This is significant, because with the rollout of the new E-class trams onto route 96, it’s expected some low-floor trams will be available for the first time on Elizabeth Street, at last providing accessible services from the CBD to the Hospital ... [More]
From the (hopefully) easy to change, but quite beneficial department: What if they ditched the rule that to touch-on a Myki (without an active Pass on it) you need at least 1 cent, and made it zero instead? Why would they allow touch-on with $0.00? Well… Pros Myki cards would become a de facto single ... [More]
Half the gunzels in Melbourne are chattering about this: through the wonders of green screen and stock footage, the most recent episode of How I Met Your Mother (which aired last weekend in the USA, and on Thursday night in Australia) featured a Melbourne Comeng suburban train in Connex colours. Update Tuesday 2/10/2013 7:30am — ... [More]
The Metro app is quite handy for finding out what’s happening on the train network, and can send notifications/alerts to tell you when something’s affecting the line(s) you use regularly. As previously noted, it’s not perfect — the SMS alerts that it replaced were customised to your specific station, so you didn’t have to try ... [More]
Refactoring is a legitimate strategy in software development. It’s where you feel the design is (more-or-less) right, but the software implementation has gone wrong, and needs to be completely cleaned-up, by chucking it out and re-writing it. So here’s a thought: if the single most annoying, unreliable, sluggish part of the Myki system is the ... [More]
I noted this tweet from my local state MP, boasting of improved punctuality on the Frankston line since she and the Coalition came to power in November 2010: Frankston line punctuality in Nov 2010 86% & Aug 2013 93% =7.6% improvement. Vic Coalition delivering 4 #Bentleigh &Frankston line commuters — Elizabeth Miller MP (@EMillerMP) September ... [More]
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Invasion of the dinosaurs #AusVotes
The other day, local Federal Liberal candidate (and Finance spokesman) Andrew Robb’s minions had left signs at the station, but apparently didn’t have the nerve to actually face people and try and sell their policies… which of course include refusing to fund urban public transport. Mind you, Robb’s campaigners were out at the station a ... [More]
I found myself at a party recently chatting about public transport. Not just late trains and packed trams, but specifically buses. Who said buses aren’t interesting to anybody? It was in the broader context of sustainable transport in the inner-north, but one of the anecdotal snippets was this: one of the people I was chatting ... [More]