The storms and winds of the past fortnight or so have been affecting most of southeastern Australia. From fallen trees to power outages there has been widespread disruption. This includes public transport.

So far it has escaped relatively unscathed compared to some previous times. In this post I want to show another example of some of the ways that PTV continues to show confusing, incorrect and inconsistent public transport information related to disruptions.

There were a couple of these affecting public transport on 2 September 2024. The first and perhaps most disruptive was the complete suspension of the Sandringham Line and replacement of all train services with buses.

Put the most important information first

To start with, as you can see in the screenshot above, we have the usual problem where relatively minor information is given visual and written priority over far more significant things.

The closure of some pedestrian access at Flinders Street Station for Metro Tunnel works is listed first. The far more significant and arguably important information – that buses are replacing trains – comes second. A relatively minor gripe perhaps but these all add up.

Use a consistent written and visual language

Next is something important that I’ve written about before – the way that disruptions are displayed in various ‘disruptions’ pages and apps.

Compare the two screenshots below – the first from the train disruptions page and the second from trams.

You’ll notice that the Sandringham Line is shown in the first image with a black icon and “Part Suspended” displayed as text. In the second image a disruption is shown for Route 6 which is shown with a yellow icon and “Service Information”.

Both the yellow colour of the icon and the “Service Information” text indicate that this is a lesser disruption than the bustitution for the Sandringham Line. But these are in fact showing the same type of disruption as you can see below, because buses are replacing trams on the Route 6 as well.

These are exactly the same type of disruption and yet they are displayed in completely different ways. This inconsistency is confusing and difficult to understand for passengers.

Another point is that there is an incorrect day. The website refers to Tuesday 2 September instead of Monday 2 September. I would say that at least some people are liable to think that it is in fact for tomorrow rather than for today (as did I at first).

The Sandringham Line disruption page also spells “September” incorrectly but this is a minor issue.

Explain why there is a disruption

Finally I would like to highlight the very vague reasons given for disruptions. This has been pointed out by others before (I can’t find the tweet because the search function is completely broken over there) and there has been some academic research too.

In Australia and particularly Victoria, there is often very little information publicly provided about the cause of a public transport disruption. Usually it is just “due to an incident” or something similar. In this particular case it is simply listed as “due to extreme weather” which doesn’t actually provide the reason why services aren’t running.

Compare this to Network Rail in the UK. A randomly selected disruption from today on their page is here.

For a start the headline is very clear: “Delays between Peterborough and London Kings Cross expected until the end of the day“. This gives most of the information that most people need in a single sentence and prominently at the top of the page.

Then the page tells you clearly which lines are affected and the type of disruption.

Most importantly it goes into a lot of detail on the cause and nature what is happening. It begins with “A broken rail at Hatfield means that some lines towards London are blocked. As a result, trains between Peterborough and London Kings Cross may be delayed by up to 30 minutes.” Note that it even includes a link to the term ‘broken rail’ with even more information what this entails.

It continues with more information and further explains what Network Rail are doing to fix the problem.

Compare this to PTV’s disruption page, where the information provided consists entirely of these two sentences that also contains contradictory information: “Passengers are advised that due to extreme weather, buses are ordered to/currently replacing Sandringham train services between Sandringham and South Yarra Stations. It is not known at this stage when normal services will resume.” (emphasis is mine).

All of this ties back to my previous posts about public transport disruption and general information in Victoria. There’s a lot we can learn from other places and a lot of improvements that we can make.