If you try and browse the PTV web site over the long weekend for a timetable, you might see this: “Something went wrong, please try refreshing the page”. There are two problems here. Firstly, the error is wildly misleading. You can try to keep refreshing the page right through the long weekend. It won’t work ... [More]
State government annual reports season ended up hitting late this year due to the election. It’s usually in September, but this year everything got tabled in Parliament late on Wednesday. I usually like to browse through the V/Line and PTV reports for interesting factoids… Here are some things I noticed during a quick skim. V/Line ... [More]
If you’re confused about tram and train compensation thresholds, you’re not the only one. PTV announced earlier this month that: PTV CEO Jeroen Weimar said both Metro and Yarra Trams narrowly missed their new targets for punctuality in February, but met their targets for reliability. PTV’s web site has figures for February 2018 that clearly ... [More]
All of Melbourne’s suburban railway stations have step-free access to the platforms. Except one: Heyington. To get to either platform involves steps. Heyington is set into the side of a hill. From the street you go down some steps to the citybound (“up”) platform. Or if you want the outbound (“down”) platform, that’s down some ... [More]
Public Transport Victoria (PTV) has some new board members from July 1st, announced by the minister last week, and among them is a new appointment to the role of Community Representative. What is the Community Representative’s role? Unfortunately the legislation is pretty vague about this, simply saying: the Minister must appoint a person who is ... [More]
I noticed there’s a 2015 version of PTV’s network revenue protection plan on their web site. It’s a lot less detailed than the one The Age FOI’d in 2010… perhaps because it was intended to be made public. Some points of interest, with my notes in italics: Pages 5-6 talk about the background — total ... [More]
At any station with multiple platforms, especially when they’re not adjacent (eg an island platform), you’re going to need to know which one your train leaves from. At many it’s easy — one platform is going towards the City, one is away. Some stations have three platforms. The third track is often used for peak ... [More]
It hasn’t been announced yet, but I understand Myki fares are going up about 5% in January. (Zone 1+2 fares will drop to zone 1 level of course, in line with the pledge made by the Coalition and matched by Labor.) This is rise the Coalition government announced in December 2013, which I assume the ... [More]