2017-02-22
Ms PENNICUIK (Southern Metropolitan) — My adjournment matter this evening is for the Minister for Public Transport. It concerns the platform interchange at Richmond station. This morning on my way in on the Sandringham line I had to change at Richmond station, as always, because the Sandringham line does not go through the loop and almost three-quarters of the people on the train get off and look for a loop train.
As occasionally happens, you are directed by the electronic notices on the platform that tell you where the next loop trains are. They are usually at platform 8, platform 3 or platform 5. Everybody moved to platform 8 and, as often happens, after they arrived they were told that the next loop train had all of a sudden turned into a direct-to-Flinders Street train, which would be a similar service to the one that everybody had just gotten off. Some people would leave that platform and go back to platform 5 or platform 3 or whatever it is for the next loop train.
The issue I want to raise is that often the station announcers will say, 'We would like people to get on all sections of the train, particularly the front of the train. There are not enough people getting on the front of the train'. The reason for that is that at the interchange between the platforms — and the western interchange is closest to the city — there is no electronic information to tell passengers where the next loop train is or where the next direct-to-Flinders Street train is.
If they disembark from their direct-to-Flinders Street train looking for a loop train on platform 1 or platform 3, they have to look at the electronic information on that platform and memorise it if they are going to go through the western interchange, because there is nothing there to tell them. That is why people do not use that interchange: because there is no information there about where the next trains are departing from. The action I require of the minister is that she actually install electronic information on the western platform interchange at Richmond station so that people can use that and know where the next trains are coming from.
REPLY on 2 May 2017:
The Andrews Labor Government is carrying out improvements across Melbourne and Victoria's rail network to make it easier and safer for passengers to catch the train. Over the next 12 months, Public Transport Victoria (PTV) will improve the PTV website and app, providing relevant and timely information to passengers when they need it most.
A recent update of the PTV app introduced platform information across the metro train network.
PTV is delivering Passenger Information Display (PID) technology across the network and considering which priority locations to roll out PIDs. I have requested that Richmond station is considered as part of this review.
Other initiatives to help improve information to passengers at stations across the network include providing more announcements and more customer service staff to assist passengers.