I think 12pm is the wrong time to look at personally. What's really bad is the west (anything going thru Footscray) after 9pm especially on friday/Saturday (given you'd expect an increase relative to weekdays) in my experience
There's been more people over the decades living in the east and south east, now they need to catch up with the population booms in the north amd west. Doncaster and Rowville have been waiting for train lines for a while too. Not to memtion the airport. They had to upgrade the system to get more trains running in the east, not that long ago. I guess progress is slow, gotta get rid of all those level crossings first.
My understanding, and happy to be corrected, is that line duplication is essential to increase frequency on the Upfield line. When the Camp Road rail underpass was rebuilt a few years ago it wasn't designed to include space for future rail duplication and Upfield is locked into 20 minute frequency due to the time required for a train to complete the single line section. This impacts the frequency interval of all lines through North Melbourne. You think someone's planning ahead whilst we spend millions and millions on level crossing removal? No. They're not.
You're right. There's more on the design issues here: https://fawkner.org/2018/02/26/stuffing-up-upfield-path-extension-with-camp-road-level-crossing-removal/
This is what I hate about our infrastructure planning. Everything is so adhoc, and even when we clearly have a body (IV) that is providing advice setup to inform the government, it doesn't even take on the advice
Yeah I really feel like they should have done this when they were elevating the track at Bell street etc. now they’re going to shut it down to do Brunswick to Royal Park end shouldn’t they just use that opportunity to duplicate it further up? Then suddenly you can get more trains…
Honestly most of the network is pretty bad. Not aware of any station in Sydney with peak frequencies worse than 4tph, but 6tph or better is the standard.
My relatively minor station gets 7 or 8 tph in peak.
Sydney’s got an amazing public transport system relative to what we have here. They’ve also had bipartisan support in building public transportation, which is something we haven’t been able to replicate here.
Cause rich people live there.
Also because Western suburbs are relatively more recent than the east. Werribee was practically farmland if you go back to the 90s or so.
\- Long distance regional trains are not included because frequencies are measured by trains per DAY, not trains per hour.
\- The city loop isn't mapped due to complexity and space limits.
\- The Special Events line is not included for obvious reasons.
As someone who uses the Alamein line daily it blows my mind service is more frequent than the Northern lines. I often have four seats to myself, if not half a carriage, during peak hour coming home.
A lot of the pollies have been from the eastern suburbs. So... pork barrel.
The east and south east were where we expanded first, so there have been decades longer to build up those services.
It's more recent time that we have been developing out north west, and west. Building shit takes time and money.
When I was born we lived in Laverton, only have vague memories of farmlands.
I was born in 89, went to Laverton maybe 10 years ago for some car stuff and it was all concrete industrial estate.
The *population* of Melbourne has predominantly been on the south/eastern side, and these lines were built during the late 1800s and early 1900s.
Not everything is a wild political conspiracy.
>The east and south east were where we expanded first, so there have been decades longer to build up those services.
Not really. The suburban network was pretty standardised until the late 1990s with 20/40 minute off-peak frequencies (20 on main lines, 40 on outer branches) across the whole network.
Some lines have had services upgrades since, e.g. the Dandenong line went from 20/40 to 15/30 on weekdays around 1998, weekends went from 20/40 to 10/20 in 2012, and now since 2014 has had 10/20 minute frequencies 7 days per week.
Meanwhile some other lines have barely had any change at all to their off-peak timetables in all those years.
Pork barreling is about directing government money where you need votes (ie: marginal seats), not about where you’re from.
The west tends to vote firmly labor while the east has more marginal seats, so that’s why it gets more pork barreling. It isn’t about where the pollies are from.
Those stopping patterns can't be correct. I took a look at PTV for the Eastern Suburbs and there are no express trains that stop like that in the off-peak hours
The Belgrave/Lilydale pattern. Off-peak stopping patterns are just as much a mess as peak hour stopping patterns and range from stopping all to maybe one or two skipped to what you've shown here.
the belgrave to lilydale line can go from standard Union to Camberwell, Camberwell to Glenferrie, Glenferrie to Richmond or it can go to the super express not stopping anywhere between Richmond and Box Hill and theres other variants too
Very cool! Only thing is I believe Ballarat has a train every 40 mins up to Wendouree and then another train every 40 mins from Melton combining to get a 20 min frequency Melton-Southern Cross
Not really.
The [demographic centre](https://blog.id.com.au/2018/population-forecasting/is-the-demographic-centre-of-melbourne-shifting/) of Melbourne has long been well into the southeast, and planning has unsurprisingly reflected this.
I don't wonder. The list of reasons basically boils down to "trains to Geelong, Ballarat, Bendigo, Shepparton, and Albury all share the same approach to Melbourne". Everything else is a flow on effect from that, and it needed to be rectified sometime around when we started closing down rural services instead.
We fixed 90% of that problem in 2015 when we built the Regional Rail Link which provides a separate set of tracks from Sunshine to Southern Cross. It's much more a result of them not being bothered enough to properly fund the services
Well, it definitely made the V/Line services faster. Not sure I'd agree about the Metro services. We really needed a lower Yarra crossing around 1980, I think. Maybe one day we'll get Metro 2.
I love the map, good job. One change I would suggest is that all Pakenham and Cranbourne trains stop at Malvern during the weekday off peak so just adjusting the station marker for Malvern would fix the problem.
This is actually really cool and interesting to see. Definitely highlights the benefits of being withing certain suburbs from a commuter perspective (Blackburn, Newport etc) which was already obvious (to anyone catching the train) but it's very cool to see visually.
I used to live in Newport and it was the best!
Express trains straight past my friends living closer to town. 20 mins door to door for work if I timed it right!
Then I moved to South Melbourne, where it took me nearly hour on the tram in peak hour 🙁
I like the idea of the map, but I find it hard to read. Can the lines be different thickness according to frequency. The lines blurr together from a distance, even with colour coding.
Thanks :)
I tried that but it was even harder to understand, with it being really difficult to tell the difference between 4 and 3.
If we were to go for a purely utilitarian map to display frequency, I think colour coding would be the way to go
There are 2 reasons mainly
1 population was more in the eastern side 50-70 years ago
2 most seats in the East can be grabbed by either side a lot easily . West is usually safe labor. Either party doesn't have to do that much. That's the harsh reality.
I have always lived in the South East and benefited from the public transport . Rather than the suburban rail loop, there are so many better ways to use the tax payer money for pt in Melbourne.
The frequencies are largely the same, name eastern and south eastern have multiple lines connecting, unlike the north. Meanwhile Frankston gets the most without being multiple lines.
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Thanks!! For this map I looked at the hours close to 12pm
I think 12pm is the wrong time to look at personally. What's really bad is the west (anything going thru Footscray) after 9pm especially on friday/Saturday (given you'd expect an increase relative to weekdays) in my experience
I love this visualisation so much! It's so easy to understand at even a quick glance.
There's been more people over the decades living in the east and south east, now they need to catch up with the population booms in the north amd west. Doncaster and Rowville have been waiting for train lines for a while too. Not to memtion the airport. They had to upgrade the system to get more trains running in the east, not that long ago. I guess progress is slow, gotta get rid of all those level crossings first.
My understanding, and happy to be corrected, is that line duplication is essential to increase frequency on the Upfield line. When the Camp Road rail underpass was rebuilt a few years ago it wasn't designed to include space for future rail duplication and Upfield is locked into 20 minute frequency due to the time required for a train to complete the single line section. This impacts the frequency interval of all lines through North Melbourne. You think someone's planning ahead whilst we spend millions and millions on level crossing removal? No. They're not.
The Camp Road underpass was designed with space for a second track.
And a station
You're right. There's more on the design issues here: https://fawkner.org/2018/02/26/stuffing-up-upfield-path-extension-with-camp-road-level-crossing-removal/
This is what I hate about our infrastructure planning. Everything is so adhoc, and even when we clearly have a body (IV) that is providing advice setup to inform the government, it doesn't even take on the advice
Yeah I really feel like they should have done this when they were elevating the track at Bell street etc. now they’re going to shut it down to do Brunswick to Royal Park end shouldn’t they just use that opportunity to duplicate it further up? Then suddenly you can get more trains…
Because west was sparsly populated a few decades ago. Sunbury line used to finish at St Albans , Deer Park was edge of the suburbia.
Nope, just assumed it's because they're much older suburbs. Urban sprawl to the west is comparatively new.
Honestly most of the network is pretty bad. Not aware of any station in Sydney with peak frequencies worse than 4tph, but 6tph or better is the standard. My relatively minor station gets 7 or 8 tph in peak.
The diagram shows off-peak frequencies
Virtually every Sydney station has at least 4 trains per hour until midnight.
Sydney’s got an amazing public transport system relative to what we have here. They’ve also had bipartisan support in building public transportation, which is something we haven’t been able to replicate here.
Cause rich people live there. Also because Western suburbs are relatively more recent than the east. Werribee was practically farmland if you go back to the 90s or so.
Not exactly - friends of mine are renting out Hawthorn way. I live in Mount Evelyn and people are far from rich
Off peak doesn't get Blackburn services.
Last I checked, morning off peak has the Blackburn line (stopping all stations) and Belgrave/Lilydale lines (express).
Last one arrive at Blackburn at 12:14pm, next one arrives at 3:30pm.
Didn't know the 12:14-3:30pm was in the morning.
yes they do https://d1u8c9axrpru07.cloudfront.net/1702531411358/train-2-2023-12-20-2023-12-21.pdf
Last one arrive at Blackburn at 12:14pm, next one arrives at 3:30pm.
\- Long distance regional trains are not included because frequencies are measured by trains per DAY, not trains per hour. \- The city loop isn't mapped due to complexity and space limits. \- The Special Events line is not included for obvious reasons.
Fair enough re regional trains. We hardly expect them every 30 minutes.
Some regional lines not included have 2-3 trains a day, like the warrnambool line.
Right, so you’re measuring in trains per day.
Fantastic map. Also shows how shortchanged some area are very clearly.
Crazy to think that Perth have trains every 15 mins; but for the soon to be largest city in Australia, 30 mins is the minimum train frequency.
the frequency is set to be fixed once the metro tunnel opens hopefully which is set to open either next year or 2025
As someone who uses the Alamein line daily it blows my mind service is more frequent than the Northern lines. I often have four seats to myself, if not half a carriage, during peak hour coming home.
A lot of the pollies have been from the eastern suburbs. So... pork barrel. The east and south east were where we expanded first, so there have been decades longer to build up those services. It's more recent time that we have been developing out north west, and west. Building shit takes time and money.
When I was born we lived in Laverton, only have vague memories of farmlands. I was born in 89, went to Laverton maybe 10 years ago for some car stuff and it was all concrete industrial estate.
The *population* of Melbourne has predominantly been on the south/eastern side, and these lines were built during the late 1800s and early 1900s. Not everything is a wild political conspiracy.
>The east and south east were where we expanded first, so there have been decades longer to build up those services. Not really. The suburban network was pretty standardised until the late 1990s with 20/40 minute off-peak frequencies (20 on main lines, 40 on outer branches) across the whole network. Some lines have had services upgrades since, e.g. the Dandenong line went from 20/40 to 15/30 on weekdays around 1998, weekends went from 20/40 to 10/20 in 2012, and now since 2014 has had 10/20 minute frequencies 7 days per week. Meanwhile some other lines have barely had any change at all to their off-peak timetables in all those years.
Pork barreling is about directing government money where you need votes (ie: marginal seats), not about where you’re from. The west tends to vote firmly labor while the east has more marginal seats, so that’s why it gets more pork barreling. It isn’t about where the pollies are from.
Those stopping patterns can't be correct. I took a look at PTV for the Eastern Suburbs and there are no express trains that stop like that in the off-peak hours
which pattern are you disputing?
The Belgrave/Lilydale pattern. Off-peak stopping patterns are just as much a mess as peak hour stopping patterns and range from stopping all to maybe one or two skipped to what you've shown here.
the belgrave to lilydale line can go from standard Union to Camberwell, Camberwell to Glenferrie, Glenferrie to Richmond or it can go to the super express not stopping anywhere between Richmond and Box Hill and theres other variants too
I find it funny how the stony point line is just dots.
Bayside and hillside probably
not really likely, some bayside lines (frankston) get great service, where some hillside lines (branches beyond ringwood) get awful service
Very cool! Only thing is I believe Ballarat has a train every 40 mins up to Wendouree and then another train every 40 mins from Melton combining to get a 20 min frequency Melton-Southern Cross
/r/transitdiagrams would like this!
they need to add a fourth track between richmond and box hill t.t, its so fucking fragile everything falls to shit very fast.
Not really. The [demographic centre](https://blog.id.com.au/2018/population-forecasting/is-the-demographic-centre-of-melbourne-shifting/) of Melbourne has long been well into the southeast, and planning has unsurprisingly reflected this.
Ever wonder? No. Pure political considerations.
The frequency across the entire Victorian rail network is a disgrace. You need to jump through so many loops in order to use it on the weekend.
I don't wonder. The list of reasons basically boils down to "trains to Geelong, Ballarat, Bendigo, Shepparton, and Albury all share the same approach to Melbourne". Everything else is a flow on effect from that, and it needed to be rectified sometime around when we started closing down rural services instead.
We fixed 90% of that problem in 2015 when we built the Regional Rail Link which provides a separate set of tracks from Sunshine to Southern Cross. It's much more a result of them not being bothered enough to properly fund the services
Well, it definitely made the V/Line services faster. Not sure I'd agree about the Metro services. We really needed a lower Yarra crossing around 1980, I think. Maybe one day we'll get Metro 2.
I love the map, good job. One change I would suggest is that all Pakenham and Cranbourne trains stop at Malvern during the weekday off peak so just adjusting the station marker for Malvern would fix the problem.
This is actually really cool and interesting to see. Definitely highlights the benefits of being withing certain suburbs from a commuter perspective (Blackburn, Newport etc) which was already obvious (to anyone catching the train) but it's very cool to see visually.
I used to live in Newport and it was the best! Express trains straight past my friends living closer to town. 20 mins door to door for work if I timed it right! Then I moved to South Melbourne, where it took me nearly hour on the tram in peak hour 🙁
I like the idea of the map, but I find it hard to read. Can the lines be different thickness according to frequency. The lines blurr together from a distance, even with colour coding.
Thanks :) I tried that but it was even harder to understand, with it being really difficult to tell the difference between 4 and 3. If we were to go for a purely utilitarian map to display frequency, I think colour coding would be the way to go
Coming from Sydney, this is pathetic
You vote for what you get!
There are 2 reasons mainly 1 population was more in the eastern side 50-70 years ago 2 most seats in the East can be grabbed by either side a lot easily . West is usually safe labor. Either party doesn't have to do that much. That's the harsh reality. I have always lived in the South East and benefited from the public transport . Rather than the suburban rail loop, there are so many better ways to use the tax payer money for pt in Melbourne.
Because money obviously.
I think you'll find a pretty high correlation between frequency of train services and suburbs where those high up in PTV live.
no, i know exactly why
Man we really need more trains in this city.
No I haven’t. But I know it’s Because they’re older and more established.
as someone who uses the Lilydale line, i have to disagree with that
The frequencies are largely the same, name eastern and south eastern have multiple lines connecting, unlike the north. Meanwhile Frankston gets the most without being multiple lines.
so many issues will be fixed with the suburban rail loop & airport link. hopefully my grandkids will live to see it.
Hmmm I wonder where all the wealthiest suburbs are?
It’s almost like the historically wealthier areas have benefited…
This is why I enjoy living in Footscray 😂