One of the issues that contributes to excessive car use is that it’s not straightforward to calculate the cost of driving. Once you have the car, the cost of each additional trip you take in it is obscured. Apart from tolls and fuel costs, many might see an already-paid-for car sitting in the driveway as ... [More]
The Victorian Department of Transport is expanding, absorbing Vicroads and PTV to one big agency. We’ll have to see, but potentially this could be good. Better integration of different transport planning roles could benefit street-based public transport in particular. Recent changes, moving some PTV roles into DOT (and/or the apparently shortlived Transport For Victoria) were ... [More]
UPDATE: SEE BELOW Mobile Myki was made permanent last month. Even though for now it’s only available on Android phones, it’s great that it’s increased the options for public transport ticketing. So if you’re a senior (60+) and you want to use Mobile Myki? No problem – grab your Android phone with NFC, install Google ... [More]
Here’s another one of my regular posts of ten year old photos. That month I upgraded to a Nokia N95 phone, which took far better photos than its predecessor, the Nokia 6230i. Swanston Street opposite the City Square – the old pre-platform tram stops. I’d actually been trying to take a photo of my London ... [More]
My blog’s RSS feed has been having problems. This has also affected some email subscribers. I think I’ve found the problem, so hopefully both are working again now. Just a quick post: The Age and Herald Sun reported yesterday that Metro Trains Melbourne made an annual profit of $29 million, on $786 million of revenue ... [More]
There must be a Federal election coming. The Greens have declared their support for funding and building a full fast rail network on the east coast of Australia, serving Brisbane, Gold Coast, Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne (as per the official study from a couple of years ago). Yesterday Labor made a pledge to get started ... [More]
I was going to blog a few quick things from the past couple of weeks. That post grew too big, so I’m splitting it up… Bustitution is coming With the number of rail projects underway, it should be no surprise that there seem to be major works happening somewhere, every school holidays. In fact for ... [More]
Sometimes I notice tiny things, and wonder what they’re about. Have you noticed that some bus stops have a small colourful stripy bit of tape? Intriguingly, many of them seem to match the colours of the logo of the bus operator for that route – even if the buses themselves are now all in the ... [More]
On Saturday night at the Croxton Bandroom we saw They Might Be Giants playing a 1990s vs 2000s concert. The night before they’d done a 1980s vs 2010s concert. It was great stuff, very enjoyable. Now that I’ve heard Instanbul, Doctor Worm and Birdhouse In Your Soul live, I can die a happy man. And ... [More]
On Saturday I participated in an Infrastructure Victoria session on transport network planning. It was described as a kind of speed-dating session – seven speakers doing quick 12 minute conversations with groups of 4-5 people. They suggested kicking off with an introduction to your view on the topic, then seeing where the conversation takes you. ... [More]
I’m sorry to go all Neville Shunt on you and drone on about railway timetables again, but I’m going to do it anyway. In an ideal metro system, that is a rail network designed to maximise capacity and frequency, one of the key things is to separate the busiest lines so they don’t share tracks. ... [More]
Another in my series of photos from ten years ago. Black Saturday, 7th February 2009. There were dire warnings earlier in the week about the fire risk, though I’m not sure everyone believed them. It was a stinking hot day. The car thermometer at one stage measured 47.5 degrees – here it is showing 47. That night we had ... [More]
Rail Projects Victoria has released some draft plans for parts of the Metro 1 project. The plans include both portals (where the tunnel connects to the existing aboveground tracks) and the western turnback – a facility to be added at West Footscray station to turnback (terminate and/or originate) train services through the tunnel. Below are ... [More]
Last year the government announced that Myki would be coming to mobile phones. Early testing happened late last year, and last week PTV opened up the trial to up to 4000 participants. The technology allows you to load a “virtual” Myki card onto your Android phone within Google Pay, and use it for travelling on ... [More]
(I’m hoping to blog about the Myki Mobile trial in the next few days, so hold those thoughts) Some time in the last few days, a subtle addition appeared on the platform screens at Flinders Street Station: a countdown to departure. This has been on other displays around the network for decades, but some clever ... [More]
In the past year or two, the Cranbourne/Pakenham rail line has seen numerous upgrades to prepare for the High Capacity Metro Trains to start this year. Some of the upgrades are to power systems. I’m not normally one to write blog posts about new items of infrastructure, but have you seen these bad boys installed ... [More]