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]
Category: transport
All forms of transport, including gunzelly
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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]
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]
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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]
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]
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]
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]
A number of seats in the November state election were won and lost because of public transport — and the Frankston line in particular. Statistics continue to show that the line is the worst for punctuality in Melbourne, with a 12 month average of just 69.6% of trains on-time within five minutes. Perhaps it’s fitting ... [More]
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Armed guards at stations
The debate around armed Protective Service Officers on stations is heating up. The Police Association, the Rail, Tram and Bus Union and the Public Transport Users Association want a high-level meeting to develop the best way of tackling crime and safety problems. … Support for the armed guard plan is evaporating. … There now appears ... [More]
Now there’s no excuse for not standing on the left of the escalators going into Parliament Station. Surely nobody could miss this new signage. Mind you, “exit promptly” doesn’t really apply when you’re on your way in. But full marks to Metro for addressing this problem here… now if they can get prominent signage into ... [More]
Melbourne’s busiest bus street, Lonsdale Street, has a bus every minute or two. By my estimate, based on looking at the Melway (because there is still no system-wide PT map available) and checking a few timetables, between the peaks on weekdays, on the busiest section of Elizabeth Street to Russell Street, we have… routes 200/201/203/205/207: ... [More]
Regional Rail Link is a $5ish billion project to separate out V/Line trains, by running the Geelong line via new stations at Wyndham Vale and Tarneit to Deer Park, then into the City (along with Ballarat and Bendigo line trains) on dedicated tracks. Yesterday it was confirmed that it would go ahead. The idea of ... [More]