Trains: Who’s Right and Who’s Wrong?

I’ve made a bit of noise of late over the state of some of the infrastructure in Melbourne’s train network – namely with respect to the consistent problems at Newport Station. I wrote about it here, and have been discussing it here.

Much of the usual buckpassing as to who owns the problem has been continuing.

Today I read these with amazement:

“Results of the Department of Transport’s latest October 2011 survey of Metro’s peak hour trains show a drop in the percentage of weekday peak period trains carrying more than 798 passengers a trip to 11.5 per cent of measured trains from October 2010’s 11.7 per cent, Minister for Public Transport Terry Mulder said today.”

“The state government’s peak passenger load survey, taken in October, recorded 60 peak-hour services that exceeded the overcrowding benchmark of 798 passengers, a small jump from 58 trains in October 2010.”

The government says the number of overcrowded trains is down. The media says the number is up.

What the hell is going on? Who’s right?

Probably nobody – but please start doing something, okay?

Public “transport” is currently something of a joke in this state.