All forms of transport, including gunzelly
I know I’m not the first person to find this happening, but here’s an example of why you should be particularly wary about the Myki web site. The actual Pass expiry date, which is correctly recorded on the card and displayed on the scanners, is Friday the 14th of May (or to be precise, 3am ... [More]
If you buy daily tickets (currently available as Metcard only), the per weekday cost is Zone 1 $6.80, Zone 2 $4.80, Zone 1+2 $10.60. Obviously there’s no reason to do this on a regular basis, since you can save a substantial amount of money by using the bulk fare options. But which one? That is, if you usually travel by ... [More]
The Age: Melbourne trains fail world ‘metro’ test Based on this study: PTUA: Melbourne Metro by name, but not by nature, which looks at the biggest thirty cities in the developed world by population, and which of them have a metro — that is, a high capacity, high frequency (every 10 minutes all day, every ... [More]
Why aren’t there more Smartbuses? Smartbuses work. Smartbus is a fancy marketing name for buses that run more frequently than most other routes, have some bus priority and realtime electronic signs at major stops. The figures in this government press release show the upgrades of routes to Smartbus result in strong patronage growth. I’ve excluded ... [More]
Sometime in the last 24 hours, my Myki online topups finally got resolved, some 24 days after they got stuck. Last week I used the web site feedback form to point out that the topup from 2/3/2010 had got stuck, and the one from 4/3/2010 was stuck behind it. They unjammed it somehow, and by ... [More]
I’ve written about this before, but just so it’s absolutely clear, I’m going to include a picture[1] with the text: When turning left or right at any intersection (except a roundabout) you must give way to any pedestrians crossing the road you are turning into. — source: VicRoads: Driving in Victoria — Rules and Responsibilities, ... [More]
You want to know why Melbourne’s trains are so crowded? Well, that might be because in the last decade, patronage has gone up 77%, but services have only increased by 17%. And the trams too? Patronage up 36%, services increased 5%. Just for completeness, here’s a graph of all the patronage figures from 1999-2009. Source: ... [More]
A number of traffic lights used for crossing the “little” streets in central Melbourne don’t have green/red men. Some do, however, particularly along Swanston Street where there are heavy pedestrian flows and — I suspect — more people likely to be just following everyone else like sheep, and not looking for cars before they cross ... [More]
I got to have a short ride in the new X’Trapolis train introduced into service today. The government calls it “Train 2”, however the journos prefer call it after the month it was meant to be in service, eg “The January train”. For all the consternation about a reduction in seats, seeing it in the ... [More]
For $1.35 billion, you’d hope there would be some benefits to Myki. Here’s one: if you take a little care, it can be used from within a wallet. So you need never take it out, unless an inspector needs to see it. At least once this has enabled me to validate and jump on a ... [More]
I’ve got a spare Myki card that I’m testing online topups with. $1 at a time, to see how long they take to come through. How it should work is this: You make a payment via the web site The web site and central database sends out a message to all the Myki vending machines ... [More]
What’s so special about King Street, in Melbourne’s Central Business District? Well, it’s the only main street in the Hoddle Grid which has absolutely no scheduled public transport running along it. So you might think, given the rhetoric is to help people get onto PT, especially for trips into the CBD, that they’d avoid giving ... [More]