Categories
transport

Train map: frequency

There’s a good map doing the rounds showing the sections of the Sydney Trains network that run every 10 minutes on weekdays off-peak. Bambul has expanded this into a blog post, which also includes another map of 15 minute frequencies. A couple of people asked if there was a Melbourne version of the 10 minute  ... [More]

Categories
transport

How much would trains every ten minutes cost?

One of the gaping holes in Melbourne’s public transport system is the lack of an all-day every day frequent service on the backbone: the Metro suburban train network. Melbourne is one of the few cities in the world, outside North America, which doesn’t have frequent all day trains. Other Australian cities are moving towards this.  ... [More]

Categories
transport

Melbourne buses: many less frequent than 25 years ago

The Public Transport Not Traffic campaign organised a story in this week’s local paper, via campaigners Tony, Danita and Oscar setting up a fake bus stop to call for better bus services. Among the quotes in the story from locals is this one from me: “Bentleigh has less frequent buses than it did 25 years  ... [More]

Categories
transport

PTV finally starts promoting the good stuff

You might recall a while ago I posted about the lack of awareness of $3.50 cheap weekend fares, and frequent (every 10 minutes) trains on some lines on weekends. Well, finally PTV are promoting both. This is a step forward. It’s a shame the imagery in the frequent trains ad uses the outer stations’ buildings  ... [More]

Categories
transport

#FrequencyIsFreedom – even in the country

Overheard near Nagambie, about travelling to Melbourne: “A lot of people go to Seymour to catch the train. There’s one once an hour from there.” Yep. At stations beyond Seymour, where the Shepparton and the Albury line branch off, there’s usually only about 3 trains each way per day. But at Seymour, there are 20  ... [More]

Categories
Consumerism transport

10 minute trains are great, but why is the promotion of them so incredibly vague and uninformative?

If you improve a product, and want it to sell well, you need to make people aware of it. When they launched trains every 10 minutes between the City and Ringwood, Dandenong and Frankston last year on weekends, there was an initial bit of publicity via the media, but very little else. Metro did some  ... [More]

Categories
transport

Have higher weekend train frequencies resulted in huge traffic jams at level crossings? No.

There was speculation from some quarters that introducing 10 minute train frequencies would result in long traffic queues at level crossings, similar to those seen in many suburbs during peak commuting hours. I think this was unfounded. Looking around Bentleigh on a recent weekend, it seems no worse than when trains ran half as frequently.  ... [More]