Categories
transport

Train punctuality around Australia

A remark on social media inspired this: a quick comparison of suburban train punctuality in Australia. We have suburban rail networks in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide, and all of them publish monthly punctuality data. So here’s a quick graph comparing them since January last year: Some caveats: Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide consider “on-time”  ... [More]

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transport

PT patronage in our biggest cities

Obviously, travel demand in cities is in turmoil just at the moment, but leaving the 2020-2022 blip aside for a minute, and looking again at pre-COVID travel in cities… As a follow-up to comparing Melbourne’s public transport patronage to Sydney’s, I thought I’d look at all the big capital cities. The five biggest are also  ... [More]

Categories
transport

My smartcard collection – I’ll report on Opal soon!

Here is my collection of Australian public transport smartcards. The ones I’m missing are Adelaide, Canberra and Tasmania — all of which have been introduced since my last visits there. Notably Perth’s SmartRider is the only card that is blank on the back, which is why the card number (which I’ve blacked-out) is on the  ... [More]

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transport

Should parking at Melbourne railway stations be free?

Here’s something I didn’t know: Perth’s Transperth transport system has some paid parking, and you can pay for it with a Smartrider card. Pay ‘n’ Display car parks are also fenced, but are patrolled by car park attendants between 7.00am and 9.00pm Monday to Friday excluding public holidays. A flat fee of $2.00 per day,  ... [More]

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Perth 2012 transport

Railway lines down freeways: good idea? Only if there’s no viable alternative

Some people will tell you that rail lines down freeways are a great idea, because “the train overtaking cars is a great advertisement for public transport.” Perth has done this, primarily because it’s been the easiest way of extending the train network. So the Clarkson/Joondalup and Mandurah lines both run down the middle of freeways.  ... [More]

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Perth 2012

Perth day 7: Heading home

All good things come to an end, and so it was with our Perth trip. We had a sleep-in, then packed up our stuff into the car and headed out. The flight wasn’t until lunchtime, but we had one more place to go before heading home: the boys have a strong interest in retro video  ... [More]

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Perth 2012

Perth/WA trip day 6: caves, wineries, and back to the big smoke

Tuesday 10th July We’d be heading from Margaret River back to Perth today, so we packed up the serviced apartment and loaded everything into the car, then headed to cave number two of our tour: Lake Cave. Lake Cave has guided tours, and while we waited for it to begin, we pondered the displays and  ... [More]

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Perth 2012 transport

Perth’s CAT buses: lessons for Melbourne?

Another in a series of posts about Perth PT and how it relates back to Melbourne. Perth’s city centre (and town centres of Fremantle and Joondalup) have CAT buses — Central Area Transit — free services running (reasonably) frequently in loops that people can hop on, hop off to get around. They are very popular;  ... [More]