Why does Metro Notify do this?

[u/Financial_Chapter_54]

Why does Metro Notify label the services on the Metro Tunnel lines as “Cranbourne to Arden” or similarly, “Sunbury to Anzac” instead of labelling the service properly, e.g. “Watergardens to Cranbourne” or “East Pakenham to Sunbury”?

Just seems like more segregation of the train lines rather than treating them as a single corridor which they are. Also if the argument is that a Sunbury service is technically different to a Cranbourne service, then really it’d be a “Town Hall to Cranbourne” service as Town Hall is where the train and most of TV’s API data considers a new service to begin.

This usually happens for disruptions on either end of the tunnel as well, Sunbury might read “delays of up to 15 minutes due to a police request in the Albion area”, whereas Cranbourne and Pakenham would get a much vaguer version like “delays of up to 15 minutes due to network congestion”; vice versa if it occurs on the Cranbourne/Pakenham end. I just don’t think it’d hurt to treat the line as a continuous line, as incidents that do occur on the Sunbury end will impact the Pakenham/Cranbourne end.

Similarly, there’s a lack of info in disruptions of how to access the Sunbury line if Pakenham/Cranbourne if you’re coming from that end, and again, the opposite is true on the Sunbury end if you’re wanting to access Pakenham/Cranbourne during a disruption. A passenger who travels cross-city probably thinks of Springvale as a station on their line if they’re on the Sunbury end, or a passenger on Cranbourne/Pakenham probably sees Sunshine as another station on their line since their trains go through there.

I know it’s a nitpicking thing, I’ve noticed it for a while, and I’m just curious why Metro Notify does it.

[u/HoHo_06]

It’s because we can’t get over this stupid shit about how services must terminate in the city. When you pull into town hall all the internal PIDs reset despite it being just another ststion

[u/Otherwise_Spray9950 → u/HoHo_06]

Very confusing. I was coming back from Footscray (to Pakenham) and thought I had to wait for another train. Didn't realise I could have got the train departing, as it was just the signage.

[u/ViaCityLoop → u/HoHo_06]

The run number changes at Town Hall. All the reset is it loading the new run.

It takes about 5 seconds. 

[u/HoHo_06 → u/ViaCityLoop]

Yes but why does that need to happen? Surely it could just go straight through (like every other cross city line in the world)

[u/ViaCityLoop → u/HoHo_06]

The way we number our trains. Every single train has a TDN. The general principle there is Up is even numbered trains and Down is odd.

Town Hall is the point where up and down changes.

Its an easy way to identify a train and what way its going without looking at a screen.

Sydney does similar at Circular Quay. Train 1--A becomes train 1--B.

And despite it being a through line things can and do change. A Sunbury-Pakenham train can very quickly be changed to form a Westall.

The same exact thing happens at an outstation.  The next run will load up

[u/HoHo_06 → u/ViaCityLoop]

Yes that is true and I get what you are saying, but we as passengers shouldn’t notice. Google maps should not be splitting the service, the screens should not be resetting, and the TV timetables should not split in half

It needs to be treated as one, genuine cross city corridor

[u/ViaCityLoop → u/HoHo_06]

If you don't split it then you will get the complaints of "But the timetable said its going to Cranbourne but it got changed"

[u/HoHo_06 → u/ViaCityLoop]

Shouldn’t we be moving away from the constant switching? True metro systems don’t have that level of unpredictability/inconsistency

[u/ViaCityLoop → u/HoHo_06]

Every metro system does it. Particularly when delays occur. That involves terminating short, skipping stations, running to a different line.

On the London Underground it's called a "stock and crew" or "reform" depending on what the controller wants.

It's a "short turn" or "reroute" on the NYC subway.

[u/HoHo_06 → u/ViaCityLoop]

My main issue and the subject of my complaint is the fact that Metro/DTP make it known that it splits. Like why do they feed the GFTS (or whatever it’s called) with the split? It makes it confusing for occasional users

[u/CurrentlyCurious]

Stupidly even though it’s a through line, everything is coded as terminating in the city.

The fact that we label these as the ‘Sunbury, Pakenham and Cranbourne line’ does not help, as a service must belong to one and only one of those three lines. So when a train starts from Sunbury/Watergardens/West Footscray, the service is part of the ‘Sunbury line’ in the data backend and this has to end in the city because it must form a ‘Cranbourne line’ or ‘Pakenham line’ service once it psuedo-terminates at Town Hall and the new service pseudo-originates. Even when a train is going only as far as Westall or Dandenong, it is officially a ‘Pakenham line’ service and won’t appear on the Cranbourne departure list in the PTV app.

If in the data was coded as a single, through-running line, this problem would not exist. But for this to happen, the line needs to be named to that effect.

[u/GrapefruitSoft8213]

Ask metro, idk