Metro cancels three Werribee line services in one hour

UPDATE 8am: MELBOURNE'S morning commute has been plunged into chaos after cancellations struck four train lines a day after major timetable changes to the network.

City-bound trains have been cancelled after outbound trains did not run on the Craigieburn, Frankston and Upfield lines.

The latest services to be cancelled are:

- the 8.13am Craigieburn to city;
- the 8.27am Upfield to city;
- the 8.08am city to Frankston; and
- the 9.15am Frankston to city

It comes after the 6.34am, 6.43am and 7.28am trains were cancelled on the Werribee line this morning.

Heraldsun.com.au is seeking an explanation from Metro.

Metro has made bold predictions of dramatic improvements for commuters with its new timetable.

Disruptions saw commuters delayed during yesterday morning's crucial first test for the new schedule.

But the late trains were caused by track and train failures and two ill passengers.

Metro chief executive Andrew Lezala, who was at Richmond station during the morning peak, said the new timetable would bring improvements.

"When it's all bedded down and working properly, we could expect two to three percentage points improvement in performance," Mr Lezala said.

A Metro briefing for the State Government shows the operator expects improvement to be as high as 20 per cent, during the afternoon peak on the Frankston line.

Metro has managed to run only 75.8 per cent of trains on time in the past four weeks.

Greens MP Colleen Hartland led a protest from Altona, the station from where commuters will be most inconvenienced.

From yesterday, passengers from Altona, Seaholme and Westona stations need to change trains at Newport during the day between the peak periods.

Newport trains run direct to Flinders St, which means commuters must change again at North Melbourne for the City Loop.

It took Ms Hartland 80 minutes to get into the city.

Public Transport Users Association president Daniel Bowen said things should improve as commuters get used to the changes.

"It wasn't complete chaos, but it was not perfect either," Mr Bowen said.

"There are problems which unfairly disadvantage some stations with the new timetables, which hopefully will be fixed in the next change."

heraldsun.com.au 10 May 2011

Another lie by the perpetuated by the operators of Melbourne's privatised train system.

Since the privatisation of the public transport system, the services have gone downhill.

Many commuters are left stranded and frustrated from the lack of train services and cancellations.

Previously the train system was privatised into a couple of operators, of which connex was one of them.

Now the government has allowed for a monopoly to operated with Metlink.

In the illustration Metlink claims that their services delivered are at 98.9%, whilst punctuality is at 83.3%.

when the public transport train services were controlled by the government, the reliability was much greater than that of a new computer controlled Metlink service.

Once again the government has failed the general public in ensuring that a service is up to a standard that was previously set.