Waking up in Geelong

The other month I was in Riddells Creek, so I stopped into the local railway station to snap a photo of the next train to pass through.

I found a LED display beneath the veranda, that lookslike it should tell intending passengers how long it is until the next train.

Unfortunately it does nothing of the sort – it just scrolls between ‘Welcome to Riddells Creek’ and ‘Services do not stop at North Melbourne’.

LED screens at V/Line stations have actually been in place for at least a decade – normally they display the next timetabled departure from each station, with the screen automatically moving to the next service when the clock ticks past the scheduled departure time. That makes the screens useless for someone turning up 1 minute past the timetabled departure time – is the next train running late but on the way, or it has already departed with the next one being hours away?

As for Riddells Creek, their screen is even more useless – the message it projects is something a simple piece of paper could do.

Footnote

V/Line has had “install real time train information at stations” on their to-do list for some time – V/Line’s Accessibility Action Plan progress report dated September 2013 has the following to say:

Improve real time information for customers

Action:
Roll out Passenger Information Displays across the network.

Evaluation:
Installation of PIDs

Timeframe:
2013-2014

Progress as of September 2013:
PIDs, including visual displays and audio announcements, will be rolled out across 35 stations on the Regional Fast Rail network by September 2014

Another timetabled V/Line service running late!

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