Mon.29.5.17 Metro 'meltdown'

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Roderick Smith
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Mon.29.5.17 Metro 'meltdown'

Post by Roderick Smith »

Normally I don't post this daily fare, but usually only one or two lines are affected.
This is partly the result of privatisation (skimped maintenance), and partly the nanny-state rule changes which prevent coping with the aftermath. I don't know how long it takes to get technicians into the field to commence a fix. Failures on the Frankston and Dandenong lines are almost daily. Other lines are perhaps weekly. Most train failures are before the first departure (again, skimped maintenance). Failure of train along the way is less common. Ill passengers have become a 'first-world problem', and also affected the route 58 tram today.

Today has more 'track-equipment / signal' faults than usual.
It does seem that maintenance is lacking (ie prevent the faults).
However, the repercussions are now more severe because of changed rules.
For years, being stopped at an intermediate red signal took only 60 s: first with trackside resetting of the trip, later with in-cab resetting.
After instances of trains not then continuing at a speed at which the train could be stopped short of any obstruction, the rules were changed.
AFAIK the arbitrary time has been upped, and there is now a requirement to phone Metrol, which rarely answers promptly. Hence, a typical delay is now 5 min, and that soon spreads back along the whole route.
Being stopped at a home signal required authority from the signaller responsible, and the filling out of paperwork. Now the responsible person could well be in Metrol, and not prompt. Has the paperwork rule been dropped, in favour of a verbal recording?
Also once upon a time, motor traffic could be directed around booms by railway staff and/or police: either with no trains moving at all, or in the gaps been slow trains. Now police simply block all road access to such a crossing.
At all times, in the name of 'safety', public transport gets tied into worse & worse knots, unable to cope.

I have the minute-by-minute blog accounts at yahoo and facebook.

Attached: 170529M Melbourne 'Age' - Metro at 10.26.

Roderick.

Melbourne trains delayed by signal faults.
Herald Sun, Mon.29.5.17.
COMMUTER chaos has descended on Melbourne as signal faults and broken boomgates have brought half a dozen train lines to a grinding halt.
Metro Trains is reporting major delays on the Cranbourne, Hurstbridge, Lilydale, Pakenham, Werribee and Williamstown lines.
Peak hour commuters on the Cranbourne and Pakenham lines are trudging through delays of up to 25 minutes [soon blew out to 90 min, with 60 min delays for cars and buses at level crossings which had booms stay down] after signal faults in the Huntingdale areas.
A number of previous services on the same line were cancelled earlier.
Hurstbridge line passengers are experiencing delays of up to 30 minutes after a track equipment fault near Clifton Hill.
Cancelled services across the network have caused chaos on other lines.
A caller told 3AW his commute from Berwick, which normally takes a little over an hour, had taken two-and-a-half hours.
Other commuters took to Twitter to demand refunds for their delayed trains.
<www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/melb ... 6e05dc8724>
- 9.36 2.5 hours later I arrive at my destination. Where do we get a refund for your shambles of a service?
- 9.40 I think everyone deserves a refund for the shambles they have had to put up with this morning.
- and all change at Richmond. Quality morning.
- Some Third World countries have better and more reliable public transport systems' than Victoria.
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notch
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Joined: Wed Feb 24, 2010 1:15 pm

Re: Mon.29.5.17 Metro 'meltdown'

Post by notch »

Some corrections.

1) Rule 1 Section 3 does not now require a driver to actually speak to a person. The driver leaves their details & train's details on a message bank after a prerecorded message.

2) Not all Home signals need a caution order (the paperwork you reference) and caution orders can be dictated to a driver over a recorded phone. A good number of signalboxes have recorded lines now.
Signalman/driver still completes a caution order & retains it. This speeds up issuing caution orders as a signalman or competent employee does not have to hand-deliver the caution order. Especially so now many locations such as Watergardens-Sunbury, Laverton, or Cranbourne are quite far away from the signalbox controlling them.
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Craig
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Location: Edithvale, VIC

Re: Mon.29.5.17 Metro 'meltdown'

Post by Craig »

My father reports a defective train at Mordialloc just after 7:30 also added to the network-wide chaos and a crushloaded ride into town.

Kind Regards


Craig :-)
Roderick Smith
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Re: Mon.29.5.17 Metro 'meltdown'

Post by Roderick Smith »

I enjoyed the informative response from 'notch', then why does Metro go into disaster mode for any problem, with no ability to cope: just spin lies, put up hours later than the main problem?
notch
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Joined: Wed Feb 24, 2010 1:15 pm

Re: Mon.29.5.17 Metro 'meltdown'

Post by notch »

Not sure why my username's in quotations either. Anyway...

Surprised that the fire alarm at Flagstaff didn't rate a mention.
Roderick Smith
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Re: Mon.29.5.17 Metro 'meltdown'

Post by Roderick Smith »

Flagstaff did rate a mention, but only as an 'incident', and only the Burnley group.
This is daily fare in Melbourne, but usually not this volume. Metro always understates the amount of delay, and notifies well after the incidence, so that the cure can look to be miraculously fast.
It loves to use the phrase 'buses have been called': usually only one, or insufficient, and certainly not meaning 'buses have arrived and are collecting passengers now'.
Victoria's privatisation has been a disaster: not necessarily because of privatisation as such, but because of the UK model used, and the completely-useless DoI/DoT/PTV supervising it.
PTV doesn't blame Metro, Metro blames VLine, and nobody takes responsibility for anything. We are in the classic Dickens situation 'My partner, Mr Jorkins'. Throwing money at it isn't working: it goes on the wrong projects.
Neither Lib nor Lab has a good track record: Lib does nothing, and Lab does wrong things.
Neither IV nor IA has the competence to make statements about the benefits: they lack transport engineers, and are all bean-counting financial people. IV does have Marcel as ceo, but not as a board member. IA doesn't even get to that level

Roderick.




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The big squeeze on a Tokyo subway train during morning peak hour. Photo: Bloomberg.
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/melbo ... wbt4c.html

May 29 2017 Smooth journey home: Evening commuters spared repeat of chaos as Metro offers apology .
Metro has taken the rare step of issuing a public apology to all commuters after a shambolic performance Monday morning - but that has done little to quell passengers' fury.
Travellers endured delays of up to 90 minutes on their ride into work as Metro dealt with a range of faults across the network.
A crowded train carriage on Monday morning. Photo: Twitter/ danielbowen.
On the way home, Metro's control centre used train PA systems to issue an apology for the morning's performance.
But commuters continue to barrage social media with calls for compensation.
"The driver on my train has apologised for this mornings delays with a scripted message," Wayne Schembri wrote on Fairfax's Facebook page.
"Appropriate compensation for all passengers would be more beneficial - the myki system eradicated the old compensation scheme."
One Age reader said his journey from Cranbourne to Melbourne Central Monday morning took two hours and 40 minutes. Many others complained of being trapped on stationary trains for up to an hour.
The Frankston line was the first to fall, about 6am, after a track equipment fault at Carrum sparked delays of 30 minutes.
An update from the Metro website on Monday morning. Photo: Metro .
Shortly after, passengers on the Werribee line found themselves stranded due to a faulty train.
By 7am, the Cranbourne and Pakenham lines had delays of up to 20 minutes due to a signal fault in the Huntingdale area.
That signal fault caused trains to bank up between Hallam and Clayton stations, which meant boom gates were stuck down for extended periods of time.
Passengers vented their frustration on Twitter, telling Metro they would take an Uber home to avoid further chaos.
Others called for compensation.
The lengthy delays came as Fairfax Media revealed Metro's plans to build a fleet of 65 new high-capacity trains that will carry up to 2000 passengers.
The trains are to be built as part of a $2.3 billion public-private partnership with the Victorian government.
According to technical documents seen by Fairfax Media, the trains will initially run on the busy Cranbourne-Pakenham corridor and in the City Loop, then through the Metro rail tunnel once it opens in 2026 and on the Sunbury line.
They will be built with seven carriages and could extend to 10 carriages with "gross passenger capacity of at least 1970" people in future years.
The bumper loads will be accommodated by enabling "standing passengers to safely travel at a density of up to six passengers per square metre".
Related Content
The big squeeze on a Tokyo subway train during morning peak hour.
2000 per train: Metro's standing room future.
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/metro ... wfkq5.html
* 2 hours so far to get to work. Still at least 30min to go. Usually an hour. Does Metro offer compensation for lost productivity?
* A responsible company would offer compensation for all passengers affected this morning. Metro doesn't offer compensation for anything.
* Who is going to compensate me 1 hour and 40 mins lost time for your signalling faults on the Pakenham line this morning?
* Two hour trains trips are great. My charge out rate is $141/h.
* I am about to send these useless morons a bill - Over three weeks, 6 hours late and my charge out rate is $175 ph
* about time for VIC gov to look at Metro's performance and train network infrastructure, it is causing real loss to VIC businesses
notch
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Re: Mon.29.5.17 Metro 'meltdown'

Post by notch »

V/Line trains will be held for Metro trains. Rare to see MTM blaming V/Line, normally it's the other way around.

Biggest problem is MTM are rent-seekers and this shows in the poor state of the infrastructure, as everything is geared to maxmise profit out of franchise payments with minimum spend.
Roderick Smith
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Re: Mon.29.5.17 Metro 'meltdown'

Post by Roderick Smith »

170529M Melbourne Age crowding (Daniel Bowen).
Metro Twitter often has photos from disgruntled passengers, showing 'overcrowding' after delays/cancellations. Most don't show that at all: they show normal peak crowding, experienced in much of the world, and probably no worse than 4 passengers per m^2. The Geelong people keep calling it 'dangerous'. Uncomfortable, maybe; dangerous, no.
This one from PTUA official Daniel Bowen was published on meltdown Monday morning. Does it show 6 passengers per m^2?
Roderick.
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Roderick Smith
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Re: Mon.29.5.17 Metro 'meltdown'

Post by Roderick Smith »

This is almost daily on some lines: Cranbourne, Frankston line beyond Moorabbin and Newport more than most, but nowhere is immune.
Were failures as common before privatisation, but, without internet, we didn't know?
Were they as common, but were fixed faster?
There is a common thread of failure: track circuits, points, signals, followed by an inability to cope. Repairs are slow, and delays compound.
Damage-control spin takes over. It seems that Metro never alerts about delays until they have been in place for a while; then the fix seems to be prompt.
It is never clear if trains are moving at all, but slowly, or if they are stationary.
'Buses will replace' is not the same as 'buses are replacing', and always too few and too late.
Why should the bus industry have standby equipment to bail Metro out of trouble?
At least the alternative transport was listed today. Usually one gets the management copout 'seek alternative transport'.
Why did it take an hour for a stranded train to back up to Mooroolbark? This was during a time with 30 min headways.
VicRoads and police are just as bad. Greens Rd booms were down, no train could move; cars could have been directed around booms, but nobody can cope. Just 'seek alternative route'.
In the common frustrated tweets back to Metro, passenger suspect that a lot of the disaster is from level-crossing authority: road engineers who can't cope with a rail environment, and damage the track, the signalling circuits, and even a platform coping.


http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/melbo ... x384c.html
notch
Posts: 244
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Re: Mon.29.5.17 Metro 'meltdown'

Post by notch »

Addressing the whinges of 'Roderick Smith'

Yes, failures did occur frequently.
Fault-finding takes time, fitters can't be everywhere at once. My actual experience is that Metrol get the word out as soon as it happens, so don't know where you're pulling that from.
Takes a while to organise safely returning a train wrong line: less than in the past.
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krustyklo
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Re: Mon.29.5.17 Metro 'meltdown'

Post by krustyklo »

Were they as common, but were fixed faster?
Not sure about commonality but I do wonder if there was a crew on site faster in the past. When I first went to uni to do an engineering degree at Swinburne in the early 90s one of my fellow students worked for The Met in incident response to electrical problems such as fallen / tangled overhead. At that time there was a crew permanently on standby in case of any problems. Apparently most of the time it was quite boring, playing cards and the like, except when a problem occurred then it was all hands on deck and potentially lots of overtime.

Nowadays I assume that a contractor would be called to fix the problem, who would then be responsible for pulling together a crew (likely on call), all of which would take extra time than in the past. Is this an accurate assumption, or do Metro still have people directly employed on hot-standby?

What do other states do and how fast is their response to these sorts of problems?
notch
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Re: Mon.29.5.17 Metro 'meltdown'

Post by notch »

It isn't accurate. There are standby crews employed by Metro.
Roderick Smith
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Re: Thurs.13.7..17 Metro 'meltdown'

Post by Roderick Smith »

Metro Trains slugged with $1.2m fine for computer glitch which shut down Melbourne’s rail network.
Herald Sun August 31, 2017.
METRO Trains has been hit with a $1.2 million fine after a catastrophic computer glitch paralysed the network.
The unprecedented outage shut the entire network at peak time on July 13, leaving tens of thousands of passengers stran­ded for up to three hours.
The outage led to 224 services being cancelled and 378 services running late that day.
The fine is in addition to the $627,000 Metro paid out in compensation for 175,000 commuters who touched on.
PTV CEO Jeroen Weimar said the fine was the maximum monthly penalty it could ­impose for failing to meet performance targets.
“On top of refunding 175,000 passengers affected by the unacceptable disruption to services on July 13, Metro has been penalised $1.2 million by PTV for failing to meet its operational targets for the month,” Mr Weimar said.
“PTV will ensure any future agreement delivers improved services for all passengers.”
Crowds on the platforms at Southern Cross station during the Metro rail shutdown on July 13.
Despite the hour-long shutdown, Metro delivered 98.2 per cent of its 65,000 services in July, above the minimum requirement of its performance threshold for compensation at 98 per cent.
The percentage of services “on time” was 89.8 per cent, again above the minimum punctuality requirement for compensation at 88 per cent.
Without the outage, punctuality would have been greater than 90 per cent.
Public Transport Users Association spokesman Daniel Bowen said flaws in the compensation regime meant the entire train system could shut down in peak hour — and still not automatically trigger ­compensation.
A spokeswoman for the Minister for Public Transport says the fault is completely unacceptable.
“The refund of two-hour fares was only instituted after public outcry, not because of the compensation rules,” Mr Bowen said.
“And the delay in paying this token amount is in itself a bad joke, and many people who had slow trips home but didn’t try to use trains aren’t even eligible.
“On many other rail systems, compensation is not based on a system-wide average that rarely gets breached. Instead, passengers can claim back fares if they are delayed on their individual journeys.”
Public Transport Victoria chief executive Jeroen Weimar.
A spokeswoman for the Minister for Public Transport said the fault was completely unacceptable.
“The government has made it very clear that we are requiring a much higher performance standard in future agreements and we have written those requirements into the tender documents,” she said.
Metro spokesman Marcus Williams said: “The incident was unprecedented and meant our monthly figures were below what we have consistently delivered for the last several years,” he said.
METRO TRAINS SAYS DELAY DUE TO INFRASTRUCTURE FAULT TRAIN DELAY COMPENSATION: METRO SAYS ‘FILL IN A FORM’
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victor ... 61ecaca5f1
* And we are still waiting for the refund. Called PTV this morning. Answer no time frame, but it will happen.
* Something to think about ... if Metro is such a poor performer and the state are demanding better. Why are Dan and Jacinta signing a brand new contract with Metro?
* How much compo should we be getting from Dan for shutting down the state?
* Just wondering when these fines are issued, surely the consumer / traveller eventually, even if indirectly, pays?
* Can we assume that Labor will invest this penalty into public transport infrastructure? HAH! Yeah right... dream on...
* This is why we have privatisation. So the government can blame somebody else for their failure to invest in much needed infrastructure.
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