On Saturday I participated in an Infrastructure Victoria session on transport network planning. It was described as a kind of speed-dating session - seven speakers doing quick 12 minute conversations with groups of 4-5 people. They suggested kicking off with an introduction to your view on the topic, then seeing where the conversation takes you. After a couple of goes you pretty quickly get in
As expected, public transport fares in Victoria go up from 1st January. This time it's a CPI rise of 2.2% - thankfully not as high as the last four which were CPI+2.5% (budgeted by the Coalition in 2014, delivered by Labor). This takes the standard zone 1 or 1+2 daily fare to $8.80, and the 2-hour fare to $4.40. It's worth noting that for short trips in zone 1, this is now precisely double t
From time to time the topic of free public transport comes up, most recently because of changes in Estonia. I think it's a distraction from far more important issues. I just wanted to address a few points about it. Apologies for the rambling. Would it be a good idea in Melbourne and/or Victoria? I don't think so. The first point is the cost: the PTV Annual Report indicates around $800 million i
As expected, fare rises have been announced to take place on January 1st. It's a rise of 4.7% -- which is CPI+2.5%. (At least, 4.7% is the claim. Some fares, such as a Zone 1 two-hour fare, are rising by more: $4.10 to $4.30 is almost 4.9%, thanks to the price being rounded to the nearest 10 cents... which makes no sense, because you can't directly buy these fares with cash.) Just as this
Generally every January, public transport fares in Victoria go up. This year it's expected to be a 4.3% rise -- this is CPI of 1.8% 2.8% (for the year to September), plus a 2.5% 1.5% rise that was first announced by the Coalition in December 2013, to be implemented in January 2015-2018, and dutifully followed by Labor each year. (Did the Coalition plan that rise to cover the Free Tram Zone a
My blog posts from our Britain and Belgium trip continue, but it wouldn't be one of my holidays if I didn't geek out on transport-related stuff. So here's a post on the vagaries of rail fares in Britain... or at least, what you need to know as a tourist. Buying rail tickets at home in Victoria is easy. For most trips you don't even buy a separate ticket, you just use a Myki card for any trip
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 loss of $51.6 million in revenue in 2014. "Metro Trains and Yarra Trams hold revenue
On many public transport systems, they go out of their way to encourage what we in Melbourne call Passes -- sometimes called Season Passes, Periodicals, Monthly or Yearly tickets: a fixed price for unlimited travel for a period. For the system, the benefits include reduced transaction costs, getting a bunch of money up front, and the promise of customer loyalty, at least for the Pass duration,
I've already written previously about the fare changes happening (some announced in December, others announced in March), but it's probably worth considering them all together. Exact 2-hour fares -- from 10/8/2014 From yesterday, 2-hour fares are exactly two hours. Although it was originally flagged in December, this has crept up, quietly announced on Friday by PTV, with only two days
While some are hailing the government's plan (backed by Labor) to apply zone 1 fares (as a maximum) right across Melbourne, I thought it might be worth looking at the per kilometre cost for various trips -- including some V/Line trips. The table below shows a sample of trips, both with the current fares, and the proposed ones (assuming no overall rise on 1/1/2015). table.tableizer-table {
by 
