-----Original Message-----
From: Roderick Smith [mailto:rodsmith@werple.net.au]
Sent: Tuesday, 28 March 2017 11:16 AM
To: 'transportdownunder@yahoogroups.com'
Subject: snippets, Fri.24.3.17
170323Th Metro Twitter - Grand Prix.
170323Th Melbourne 'Age':
- North Melbourne tramline. (Justin McM).
- Grand Pri, -YT plans.
170324F Melbourne 'HeraldSun':
- energy. with tdu.
- population growth.
Roderick
22.17 Current wait times leading into Richmond station are 1-2 minutes.
- or around 7-10 minutes....the station needs a serious upgrade to deal with crowds.
22.27 Current wait times leading into the station are 4-5 minutes.
- 17 minutes until the next Lilydale. God knows when until the next Belgrave. And at least 20k waiting just to get on the station.
- more services added each year.
- more extra services each year for football? I HIGHLY doubt that. I don't ever remember Richmond station that backed up.
- yes there’s more services added year on year, where some games used to get only 1 service now get 2 extra services.
- why don't you put more trains on? A 70k crowd surely not a surprise to you?
- PTV is the responsible authority that schedules/funds extra services. Please provide feedback to them Ph. 1800 800 007.
- a Thursday with tha footy on is treated the same as a Thursday with no footy on... keep those targets up!
- congratulations on your 90%+ on time and delivery btw. Don't worry, no one knows that those numbers are complete bullshit.
- every year it gets worse. Every year you still find an excuse to up the fares and encourage us to use this shit.
22.38 Current wait times leading in to the station are 1-2 minutes.
- You're wrong.
22.42 Crowds are clear and waiting times are minimal via Brunton Avenue subway entrance.
- think the game finished at 10pm... congrats on the 40 min turnaround.
- several years back you’d find Sunbury extra services unheard of, but now almost every game gets a Sunbury special, and some games.
Fri.24.2
6.51 Because of a traffic incident near Bourke St,there are no trams along Swanston St between Melbourne Central & Flinders St. Route 86 & 96 in both directions are diverting via La Trobe St. 7.12 There are no trams operating along Swanston St between Stop 8 Melbourne Central & Stop 14 Arts Precinct. [the prang was at the corner of Bourke St & Swanston St]. 7.23 Shuttle trams are operating along Bourke St between Melbourne SC & Queen St, and Russell St & Melbourne Museum. 7.38 normal operation has resumed.
9.56 PTV We are currently investigating an issue with our myki website. Need to top up? Head to one of our 800+ retailers.
Melbourne Express: Friday, March 24, 2017.
Early morning in Victoria Street North Melbourne. Photo: Justin McManus.
9.20 Police are questioning a man following the accident today on the corner of Bourke and Swanston Streets. We are unsure yet whether it is the man who was driving the car.
9.03 Route 96 trams towards East Brunswick are delayed near St Kilda (a tram fault).
8.54 Police say they believe a driver was headed north on Swanston Street about 6.40am when he crashed into a pole. The car then flipped and slid up Swanston Street where it came to rest on the tram tracks on the intersection with Bourke Street.
The car has since been cleared and Yarra Trams says all of its services have resumed following the disruption. You can expect delays on Routes 86 and 96, though, as the timetable is restored.
8.15 Someone has sent in some more pictures of the accident between a car and a traffic light at the corner of Bourke and Swanston Streets.
7.42 Swanston St & Bourke St trams have resumed following the earlier disruption. Delays may occur as we restore the timetable.
7.40 Driver has fled on foot after hitting a tree, pole, traffic light and bins on Swanston St in the city.
7.30 Shuttle trams are partially operating along Bourke St between Southern Cross Station & Queen St or Russell St & Melbourne Museum.
7.29 A car has rolled on a main intersection in the Melbourne CBD, taking out a set of traffic lights and blocking a tram route through the city.
The incident took place early this morning, when, according to a Metropolitan Fire Brigade spokesman, a driver headed north on Swanston Street, veered off the road and, upon attempting to return to course, flipped his car onto its side at the corner of Bourke Street.
The driver then left his vehicle and disappeared from the scene of the accident.
The car was left on the main intersection, blocking tram lines and prompting Yarra Trams to divert Routes 86 and 96 in both directions via La Trobe Street.
Two MFB trucks were sent to the scene, as were the police.
7.25 Swanston St/Bourke St disruption: Passengers may wish to consider trains on the City Loop to connect.
7.23 There are no trams operating along Swanston St between Stop 8 Melbourne Central Station & Stop 14 Arts Precinct.
7.21 Car on its side at Bourke/Swanston. Police and fire brigade here, apparently the driver fled from the scene. Debris everywhere.
7.08 There has been a pretty bad accident at the intersection of Bourke and Swanston Streets: a car hit a traffic light, blocking trams.
“Due to a traffic incident at the intersection of Bourke St/Swanston St: Route 86/96 in both directions are diverting via La Trobe St.” — Yarra Trams (@yarratrams) March 23, 2017
5.57 At this stage it looks like all trains and trams are running very smoothly, but it is very early.
<www.theage.com.au/victoria/melbourne-express-friday-march-24-2017-20170322-gv4fg0.html>
7.10 Cnr Bourke and Swanston three photos pic.twitter.com/50o4hcrZwF.
pic.twitter.com/oSYC6ZEvti.
pic.twitter.com/UO76568lRS.
March 23 2017 Grand Prix: Yarra Trams calls in entire workforce to deal with biggest day of the year .
Yarra Trams has called in almost its entire 1500-plus workforce as it gears up for the tram network's biggest stress test of the year: the grand prix.
The grand prix is expected to draw well over 270,000 patrons across four days, 75 per cent of whom will come by tram.
Yarra Trams will run 7500 shuttle services between the city and Albert Park..
On top of that will be the huge crowd headed to Friday night's Collingwood-Western Bulldogs match at the MCG, most arriving by public transport. All combined that makes Friday the tram network's biggest day of the year.
Add in closures caused by roadworks on the Calder and West Gate freeways on Saturday night and it's a recipe for potential transport chaos.
More than 270,000 patrons are expected to attend the grand prix over four days. Photo: AP .
Yarra Trams' extra staff will be used to run 7500 shuttle services between the CBD and the Albert Park racecourse, with trams leaving the city every two minutes in peak times. An operational reserve of up to 31 trams has been set up at the operator's depot and will be deployed to trouble-spots as needed.
Representatives from Yarra Trams, VicRoads, the grand prix and Victoria Police will spend the weekend working out of the city's traffic management centre to tweak the transport network in real time, trying to make sure that potential chaos never eventuates A network of temporary cameras has also been set up for the event to monitor congestion along the city's main thoroughfares.
Albert Park and all roads within it, including Lakeside Drive, will be shut until Tuesday March 28.
Major thoroughfares including Queens Road, Canterbury Road and Fitzroy Street will remain open, but VicRoads is expecting crowds departing trams on St Kilda Road to bring traffic heading to and from St Kilda to a halt at times.
"I suspect in places the pedestrians will take over the roads," said VicRoads manager of real-time operations Keith Weegberg.
"It will be very crowded on Queens Road and on Albert Road where the other shuttles are going down."
Parking restrictions are in place on roads all around the track.
People hoping to head to St Kilda on the weekend to take advantage of forecast sunny weather will also find that large areas of the suburb including around Fitzroy and Acland streets have been slapped with parking restrictions in a bid to stop people trying to drive to the grand prix.
"There is no parking anywhere within cooee of the track," Mr Weegberg said.
"Parking is banned in all the streets because that's not where we want people to go. Within two to five kilometres you won't get a parking spot."
Unfortunately for patrons who do the right thing and park in the city before catching a tram to the track, getting home on Saturday night may be a slog.
Both the Calder and West Gate freeways will be closed for several hours on Saturday night for roadworks. The Calder will be closed in both directions between Kings Road and Keilor Park Drive for power cable relocation between 9pm on Saturday and 8.30am on Sunday.
The West Gate will be closed eastbound between Graham Street and Moray Street between 10pm, Saturday and 7am, Sunday.
Although the football is expected to draw big crowds, two events which gave the grand prix organisers trouble last year have been moved. A large fun run and the Melbourne International Flower & Garden Show have both been moved to different dates to cut down on the number of commuters trying to get around the city.
"The GP crowd and the flower crowd are probably not the same crowd," Mr Weegberg said. "It's probably not a choice for them going to one or the other."
<www.theage.com.au/victoria/grand-prix-yarra-trams-calls-in-entire-workforce-to-deal-with-biggest-day-of-the-year-20170321-gv3k04.html>
Beat Lewis Hamilton? Easy. Just don't ask me to complete a hook turn.
Jochen Haab is confident his team's car could beat Lewis Hamilton at this weekend's Melbourne Formula One Grand Prix.
What is more there would be nobody behind the wheel.
Ride in Mercedes' F 015 Driverless Car
A sneak peek inside the Mercedes F 015 concept car, the company's vision of a driverless future.
"Yes, of course we can," says Haab, the head of Mercedes-Benz's autonomous driving program.
"Formula One is easy."
Just don't ask him to get one of his cars to negotiate one of Melbourne's infamous hook turns.
"I encountered one of those for the first time on this trip," he says.
"I am very proud of myself for getting around unharmed. The thing about the variables in a hook turn from a [computer] coding and sensor standpoint. You need the car to go left and stop at a line, wait for a light, give way to trams, to cars, to bicycles, to pedestrians, and then complete a right turn before oncoming traffic. For a programmer, this is very difficult. There are so many random variables."
Global test.
Haab will be attending his very first grand prix this year while in Melbourne, but it's not the race that brings the German technology and engineering guru to Australia.
Jochen Haab, global head of engineering and development Mercedes Benz. Photo: Simon Schluter .
This country has been selected to be part of Mercedes-Benz's global testing program for its latest autonomous driving systems. The data gathered in Australia in coming months will be used to develop the latest S-Class luxury sedan, which will be released later in the year.
"What we are doing in Australia now is gathering information to feed into driver assistance systems, to make the car safer, to make our cars able to avoid situations, whether it be missing a pedestrian who steps out in front of you, or negotiating a dangerous road," Haab says.
"It part of an evolutionary path for the vehicle."
Haab is also the man entrusted to think about the revolution of the motor vehicle, and data collected in Australia will be fed into a project to develop a car that can drive itself.
“We are working towards a car that, in the right conditions, in daily commute, you can hit a switch and it will drive for you.”
Jochen Haab .
"That is the revolutionary path," he says.
"We are working towards a car that, in the right conditions, in daily commute, you can hit a switch and it will drive for you. It will follow the flow of traffic, stop at lights, keep the speed limit, avoid situations. That's not the fun part of driving. You could do better things with your time. So we are working towards a car where you can push a button and it will just swim with the swarm, while you do your emails."
Sleep commuting.
Haab says a car that will come along and pick you up, and "let you sleep on the way to work" is still further away. "That path is some way down the track, more than a decade. There is just so much development, and so much legislative and cultural change for us to achieve first."
In the meantime, Haab says his team will focus on the small road bumps on the way, such as hook turns.
"It shows you some of the challenges we have with autonomous driving. That [hook turn] is something we could have done millions of kilometres of testing around the world and not encountered. To use a joke, it wasn't on our radar. It's just one of the variables we encounter. Mainly they relate to drivers. The moods of drivers, the abilities of drivers, these are variables that are hard to gather information for," he says.
In the meantime, Haab will attend the grand prix on Sunday, confident his car could beat Lewis Hamilton.
"Formula One is easy," he says.
"You could program the course, you could program the ideal speeds and cornering. You could factor in adjustments for temperature, friction of the tyres on the road, and make adjustments for any parameters. It's just code in the end. And it's code that doesn't to do a lot or, or encounter a lot in terms of variables. There are not many 'ifs' in a Formula One. There have been races of such cars to my knowledge in racetracks in Germany. That would be easy, but I don't know what the point would be. It would come down to who hits the button first when the light goes green, and the race is over."
Some would suggest that's a pretty apt description of Formula One.
<www.theage.com.au/business/innovation/beat-lewis-hamilton-easy-just-dont-ask-me-to-complete-a-hook-turn-20170324-gv5qhj.html>