Categories
transport

How many people use each railway station?

All righty gunzel stats nerds, prepare to go crazy. These figures are not an official release, and they can’t be guaranteed to be entirely accurate. In fact the original included the specific disclaimer: This document is supplied “as is” without warranty of any kind, either express or implied, including, without limitation, fitness for a particular  ... [More]

Categories
transport

MMTB and NTS: Old and new manhole covers

Ah, the fascinating world of manhole covers. For you youngsters, the MMTB (Melbourne and Metropolitan Tramways Board) ran the tram system from 1919 to 1983 when it was merged into “The Met”. NTS (New Ticketing System) was the working name for Myki. It still shows up in internal literature, and in things like URLs on  ... [More]

Categories
News and events transport

Sometimes it feels like you might be waiting until doomsday for the bus

Pic taken this morning, if you wondered. Disclaimer: actually bus 223 is pretty frequent, because it’s a former tram route. (Spotted by J.) Update: BBC News: ‘Rapture’: Believers perplexed after prediction fails

Categories
transport

Yesterday’s morning commute. Not good.

8:17 or so, boarded train train at Mckinnon. Not my usual station. Long irrelevant story. Happily got a seat. 8:36. Train stops at Hawksburn. Driver on PA tells us that the train will be delayed at least ten minutes due to signal failures near Richmond. He advises us to go to platform 3. 8:37. Most  ... [More]

Categories
transport

Are the trains getting less crowded?

Here’s the good news: the October 2010 Metro Load Standards Survey (released to the Greens under FOI) shows that overcrowding has dropped markedly. Measured in terms of (deep breath) Rolling Hour Average Loads Above Desired Standards, the number of breaches has dropped from 38 in October 2007 to 6 in October 2010. Part of this  ... [More]

Categories
transport

Timetable Mastermind: confusion on the Frankston line 6pm-7pm

One of the things planners should be aiming for in making public transport easy to use is ensuring that the choices are few. The new Frankston line timetable does this in the off-peak (and evenings) with a consistent pattern: Frankston to Flinders Street (direct), stopping all stations. In peak, in theory, there are two patterns:  ... [More]

Categories
transport

Changing trains is not evil

There’s intense interest in the new train timetable, which technically started today, but has its first actual changes tomorrow. The level of interest should be a reminder to politicians that public transport is still very much a live issue. It should (hopefully) bring some genuine benefits in helping to fix punctuality and overcrowding. There are  ... [More]

Categories
Consumerism transport

Lucky this Age story didn’t make page 1

Probably just as well for this onsert: …that this story landed on page 6, not on page 1: The full story text is here: Stations to lose peak services. And here’s a big version of the map. The document the article talks about is here: Passenger Impact Statement. To decode it, you’ll need to look  ... [More]

Categories
Politics and activism transport

The 2011 state budget

One would hope that the budget following an election would fulfil the promises made during that election, although it would not be beyond the bounds of reasonableness to spread them out over the term of government. Somewhat surprisingly, at least to me, the Baillieu government has largely fulfilled all of its promises with its first  ... [More]

Categories
Home life transport

London Underground shower curtain FTW!

With thanks to my sister, who picked this up for me during a work trip to London last week. (I needed a new one.) If you’re in London you can get them from the excellent London Transport Museum shop. Otherwise, at the online shop. (It’s so big and my bathroom is so small that it’s  ... [More]

Categories
transport

Using Myki to calculate how late my trains are

I have a Zone 1 Yearly Commuter Club Myki, so I don’t normally need to touch-off, but I have been doing so, in order to gather data on train punctuality. Each trip is recorded, with its start and end station, and the time down to the exact second, and can be viewed via the Myki  ... [More]

Categories
driving transport

By my calculations, I fill up my car with petrol every 27.5 days

With the usual media coverage of petrol price rises over Easter (yes, that’s how the market economy works… when demand goes up, so do prices…), I was pondering how much money I’ve been spending on petrol. The car barely goes anywhere on weekdays, and even on the weekends I’m doing perhaps around 50 kilometres. Given  ... [More]