My car has a spot in the central console area thingy that looks like it has been designed to store your mobile phone so you can kind of see the screen while driving, for navigational purposes. At least, the manual doesn’t seem to document its purpose, and I can’t figure out what else it could ... [More]
It’s perhaps a minor thing, but… Back in November 2017 the metro tunnel station names were announced, including a new station called North Melbourne, with the current station to be renamed to West Melbourne. (See update at bottom of article. This plan was cancelled in early 2020.) I don’t have a problem with that. It’s ... [More]
At a conceptual level, I navigate this city by rail more than by road. For instance, if I’m trying to focus on rain around home, the proximity to railways is far more useful to me than the proximity to major roads. So to make the Bureau of Meteorology’s rain radar map more useful to me, ... [More]
Since our last exciting episode, PTV have made a number of revisions to the draft rail map. Here’s the latest version: (Click to see it larger, and uncropped) As I said back in April, I really like this new design, which better represents how the rail network operates. Changes since that earlier draft that I ... [More]
Update October 2014: There’s a later draft PTV are trialling a new train network map. They’re seeking feedback on it, and you’ll see it at some stations now (Bentleigh, Malvern and Moorabbin, I think). Note, just to remove all doubt: unlike the PTV network plan, it’s not a concept for new rail lines; it’s a ... [More]
You might recall I did a recent poll on three public transport questions. I posted about the first two here. The third was about frequent network maps. Here’s the thinking: Frequent public transport services are an order of magnitude more useful to people than infrequent ones. Nobody likes to live their life by a timetable, ... [More]
In the Apple Store at Southland the other day, I noticed they had all the iDevices maps set to satellite. It wasn’t hard to see why — it took all of a minute or two to find some glaring errors in the street maps. It’s not just that tram lines are completely missing; they’ve put ... [More]
While I applaud Yarra Trams’ efforts to put more information on-board trams, this map threw me for a moment. I’m used to seeing east (Box Hill) on the right, and west (Port Melbourne) on the left. This had it the other way around. And before you say it: it wasn’t designed to match the actual ... [More]
Having moved offices to Latrobe Street, I wanted to know where the nearest ATM is — that is, those of my preferred (no fee) banks, St George or Westpac. The St George ATM/Branch locator will only show five results — including Westpac ATMs. Searching postcode 3000, it shows me those closest to the the corner ... [More]
The Myki people finally posted some useful information on their web site, just days after the PTUA posted a Myki Q+A. They’ve also posted this gem on the Myki web site: Under Maps / Metro trains, it purports to be a “Metro train zones” map. What an utterly pointless creation. No reference point other than ... [More]
I was playing around with the Wii Weather Channel. If you zoom out, then hold down the button as you flick the controller just so, you can send the Earth spinning around wildly. Anyway, if one looks around southern Australia, various prominent cities and towns are highlighted. One caught my eye: Keith. Keith? I’d never ... [More]