But if I recollect, the worst station is Town Hall, because of so many people changing trains, so there is always a large number alighting and equally large number boarding. ISTR that someone, forget who, did some timing at TH and reckoned that most trains dwelt for about 55 secs, and only a few over 60.

Regards

Dudley

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

From: 'Richard Youl' via TramsDownUnder
Sent: 06 July 2020 20:45
To:tramsdownunder@...
Subject: [TramsDownUnder] Sydney and Melbourne trains.

Daniel’s interesting paper has prompted me to edit a video taken last February in Parliament station for comparing with Wynyard Dwell and Headways during PM peak hours.

In the past there has been lots of postulations, theories, and all sorts of other comments about how double-decker trains are so uselessly slow with their boarding but this pair of videos shows that there is practically nothing in it. 

Note also that nearly all the Melbourne trains have three doors per carriage per side which doesn’t seem to help much speed the loading. Apart from the problems caused by the late Wynyard train, there’s not much difference in the headways either. 

So the bigger trains with more seats must be clearing a greater number of people from the stations, generally without adding much to the dwell times or headways at all and providing a seated ride for a much higher percentage of the riders. 

I left Parliament about 5:30 pm and it seemed by this time the peak hour had just about fizzled out while in Sydney at that hour things were still reasonably busy.

I chose this platform at Parliament as the final underground stop before heading to Richmond, not unlike Wynyard heading for the North Shore. 

The Parliament Dwell and Headway times are below, starting about 5:05pm.

                       43 secs.           -
                       50 secs.          3:00
                       44 secs.          3:00
                       38 secs.          3:05
                       30 secs.          2:30
                       48 secs.          3:48
                       36 secs.          3:00
                       31 secs.           2:33

Averages.     40 secs.           3:00

Wynyard.        Dwell.            Headway   Starting from 8 minutes into the video.

                      37 secs
                      45 secs
                      45 secs
                      39 secs.          3:13

                      65 secs
After a gap in the service of about 8 minutes, right at the busiest time of the peak,
                    1’ 45 secs.        3:55
                        63 secs         2:48
                        46 secs.        2:20
                        46 secs.        2:32

So you can see that many of the Wynyard trains dwell for 45 seconds, which is quite comparable with the 40 seconds average in Melbourne. It’s a pity that the late train disrupted the dwell times for the next few trains behind it.

Parliament Station
https://youtu.be/mg6CDzbPQYE

     Wynyard Signals & Headways
https://youtu.be/-9p_izlNrTs  ;                 

Regards,