Something for your Pod
I don’t have a post for you this morning, so here’s something I prepared earlier.
This morning I had a chat to the people at 3CR about PT issues, and it reminded me of this recording from Joy FM back in April. I think they’d been intending to post the podcast themselves, but haven’t… so I’ll do it myself.
- Public transport — Joy FM “Heating Up” 6/4/2009 (MP3 — 8 mins 39 secs, 8Mb)
There’s a couple of spots where it seems to skip very slightly (though nothing that really causes an issue listening) — sorry about that, it was recorded off a slightly dodgy stream. When recording it I rabbited on and on… they’ve chopped it down to just over 8 minutes.
By the way, to clarify on the anecdote of Frank Casey, he wasn’t a disruptive passenger — he got cranky because the train he was on was said to be out of service and terminated, then once all the passengers had alighted, it left and continued on its journey, empty.
Hope it’s not too boring — happy listening!
Connex and Yarra Trams dumped
So, both Connex and TransdevTSL (operating as Yarra Trams) are being shown into the departure lounge, with MTM (MTR) and Keolis to replace them.
I don’t think the former is a surprise, though the latter is.
Some are celebrating. I know this for a fact, as yesterday morning at the station I heard one man say to his wife that he’d be opening a bottle of champagne if Connex got dumped.
(Note the newspaper advert!)
But how much will really change? If it’s the same old dodgy infrastructure (tracks that buckle in summer, signalling that fails, trains with unreliable air-conditioning, a lack of tram on-road priority), the new companies will face much the same issues. Just because MTR runs a great system in Hong Kong doesn’t mean they can magically do it here.
And who’s taking responsibility for planning the greater PT network? You know the sort of thing, actually ensuring that buses, trams and trains are timetabled to meet properly at interchange points, rather than the un-coordinated mess we have now? Like the infrastructure, that should be a role that sits with government, not the individual operating companies.
That said, there are things the operators can do to improve things: better cleanliness and maintenance, more staff, better handling of disruptions.
It’ll be interesting to see how they go.
- PTUA greets new operators, but warns real reform needed
- HS: Connex and Yarra Trams dumped in favour of MTR and Keolis
- The Age: New train, tram operators for Melbourne — check the video, featuring my timetable collection!
PS. Lunchtime: Audio of Mr Brumby fluffing the announcement, accidentally saying Keolis would run the trains. (MP3, 27 seconds, 218Kb)
If I had that 2.5 minutes again
Morning radio can be very fast-paced. In the case of yesterday morning’s two-and-a-half minutes on Jon Faine’s programme, about railway security, I’d been dashing around, and only had a couple of minutes between hearing their voicemail and being on-air.
Maybe that’s why they call it the “hectic half-hour“. Not sure it excuses me being unable to pronounce the word “represented” though.
Inevitably, seconds after it finished the things I should have said came flooding into my head. Principally:
Yes, putting staff back on stations would cost a lot of money up-front (in the region of tens of millions per year), plus some infrastructure works to get stations (particularly booking offices and toilets) up to scratch… BUT
Against that would be reduced cost in vandalism on stations, which more broadly across the system costs $11 million per year.
…and it would cut the costs of fare evasion, particularly “accidental” fare evasion where people have difficulty buying a ticket because of problems with the machines, and give up.
…and most significantly, it would result in more people using trains (and thus more fare revenue), particularly after dark, when many have safety concerns. Which is the whole point of the discussion, of course.
Far from costing a fortune, overall the exercise would probably come close to revenue neutral. Anyway, the state government has a $38 billion transport plan — in all that somewhere can they not afford to employ a couple of hundred station staff?
- Listen to Jon Faine’s hectic half-hour for Wednesday 10th June — the discussion on trains starts at 17:00.
Those Brits look like Aussies!
Dear London Daily News, that photo you’ve used was taken by me for use by the PTUA. I don’t recall providing permission for you to use it, and I don’t see any attribution on it.
I wonder if anybody clicked through to look at the detail in the picture and wondered whereabouts Caulfield station is in England or Wales?
(Found while searching Google Images for crowded trains.)
Why yes, I have done that
Ever tried to do a press conference at Southern Cross station and compete with a locomotive for the microphone? Don’t try. Locos 1. Me 0.
– Kevin Rudd PM on Twitter
Amusing.
It occurred to me that there’s not very many people who would be qualified to reply in the affirmative to that, so even though I know the man himself probably won’t read it, and it was a rhetorical question, I thought I’d pipe up:
@KevinRuddPM Yes actually, I have done that. Speak loudly and clearly and hope the microphones pick you up!
– danielbowen on Twitter
I’m sure he’d already figured that out for himself.
On the public record
I think I might have out-done myself this time.
Last month I represented the PTUA at a senate hearing into Commonwealth investment in public transport.
During questions, the topic of public transport for special events came up, and as I had the night before been to such an event, I drew on that personal experience in one of my answers, all of which naturally has gone into the hearing record*.
CHAIR [Senator Glenn Sterle] — I find it absolutely amazing — in fact, I find it gobsmacking — that you can exit the MCG with 100,000 people and within an hour it is a ghost town.
…Mr Bowen — That is right. The money has been put into public transport to make it work extremely well for special events — big sporting events, concerts and all those sorts of things that Melbourne does really well. To give an example, I went to a concert after the grand prix last night at Albert Park. That was a huge crowd.
CHAIR — How were The Who?
Mr Bowen — I do like The Who. I am not so keen on the racing cars but I like the music, so I went for that. The crowd all, after the concert, swarmed out of Albert Park. They were cleared very quickly out from the tram stops surrounding Albert Park. A tram, again, can carry up to 200 people. That moves crowds not quite as well as heavy rail but certainly very quickly. You can just imagine the nightmare if they allowed parking there — the space it would take up and the time it would take to get those people out. Those special tram services moved people away from Albert Park very quickly, but they quickly broke down, so to speak, a few kilometres out. The special services provided were really good, but for people going a bit beyond where the special services go — out to the suburbs, and in my own case I was heading back out to Malvern to catch a train home — there were no special services at all. The big crowds were certainly taken away from Albert Park but they did not get all the way home, and they had long waits ahead of them, in some cases, to get all the way home. Melbourne public transport does clear crowds very well but, again, the lack of a complete cohesive network running at all times of day means that it does fail in some cases.
It’s like blogging… via Hansard.
- *The transcript, just released, is still in draft form, and contains some minor errors.
- Channel 7 story from the day of the hearing.
Flags over Footscray
Just thought I’d highlight this, over on the PTUA web site:
The Public Transport Users Association (PTUA) has called for the Australian flags on the Westgate bridge to be moved to Footscray station, in recognition that the station carries more people through it than the bridge at peak hour.
See also: story in The Age
More on Myki
Apparently I’m a militant.
[Myki] has been slagged by public transport militant Daniel Bowen by reference to the hideous early 1980’s hit ‘Hey Mickey’ recently revived in cheerleader films of dubious repute. — Vexnews — news for patriots (?!)
Hmmmmm.
Interesting that they linked to a blog post where I thought I was quite impartial about Myki. Well, except for the title.
Meanwhile, the results are in from Myki’s first week on Geelong’s buses. Noted flaws include:
- passengers being over-charged, with the system charging for multiple two-hour tickets within a single two-hour period
- no lower limit on the amount that can be added to a Myki ticket on buses, leading to some users paying small amounts of money to the bus driver each time they board — the very type of time-consuming transaction Myki is supposed to eliminate
- slow response times when scanning on and off
- resultant slow “dwell” times for buses, causing delays
- little or no information about fares available at bus stops or on-board buses
- single-use tickets showing no expiry time or cost information
- machines periodically not working, including not registering scans
- uncertainty and contradictory information about the penalty fare for failing to scan off at the end of a trip
- inadequate help from the Myki call centre, with operators giving excuses such as “I’m not in Geelong”, despite Geelong being the only city to be using Myki so far
Not a bad little list of problems for something that had already been trialled and tested internally, and then with real passengers on the Bellarine Peninsula!
No doubt some of these can be fixed, and to their credit, the Transport Ticketing Authority has been in touch with the PTUA Geelong branch to discuss them.
But others appear to be bigger design flaws and may be tougher to fix.
Time will tell.
Just remember folks: this is your tax-payer dollars (and quite a few of them) at work.
