Further to the above, the reason you only want wheelchairs getting on at one door on the front carriage is, you can’t get the driver to walk all the way down to assist you getting off at every possible station. Therefore if you did make the entire platform like this, then you’d have to do this at every station in Melbourne, and the loop stations are perfectly straight. Honestly, I would settle for some damn seats in Melbourne Central. Platforms 1 and 2 literally have no seats, and 3 and 4 only have a few under where there is no express escalators taking up the space. It’s terrible, they have these stupid side wall things, and two of my children almost ruined their legs attempting to climb into them, getting caught in weird positions. Bad idea. Trams with this design are terrible, no protection from stop and start acceleration. They really need rollercoaster seats in them. And one tram design has literally only 1 seat either side and no standing room, you’d think we could piss the seats off as there is only 8 seats in an entire carriage, and people could sit on the side wall.

Strathmore station sounds like a ‘legacy’ platform that has never been brought up to modern standards.

Heyington station used to have a similarly large gap, until Metro upgraded the platforms following a fatality in 2014:

http://www.thecitizen.org.au/news/commuter-alerted-metro-heyington-platform-danger-three-months-teenagers-death

I’m guessing cost is the main reason – instead of just a plain steel or concrete edge, rubber gap filling sections need to be accurately fitted to the platform.

In addition, the platform height needs to be accurately positioned in relation to the top of the rail, which given our poorly maintained track is also an extra expense.

I guess until all platforms were like that there would be such problems but the authority relys on signs and rules to deal with other problems (often unsuccessfully). Meanwhile some platforms eg Strathmore still have huge gaps to the train, is that related to the curvature of some platforms but never the carriage?

I don’t have exact numbers as to the number of Frankston line wheelchair passengers getting stuck – just third hand stories from train drivers.

In the case of low floor trams, they do have ramps, but I believe they are for emergency use only.

Have their been many cases of wheelchair users getting stuck like that?

I have seem low floor trams in Melbourne with fold up ramps stashed in near the seats.

The deployment of level boarding sections along the Frankston line have caused an unexpected problem – some platforms see trains in both directions, so the ramp also lines up with the *rear* door of trains.

This means wheelchair passengers can roll aboard the last carriage without assistance, but run into difficulties if there isn’t a ramp at their destination, as the train driver is still at the front of the train.

A similar situation applies to low floor trams and platform stops, but without the fallback of the driver having a manual ramp to deploy.

On Sydney’s rail network the air conditioning is even more wasteful – their train doors are not passenger operated, so they stay open the entire time that the train sits at the terminus, blowing cold / warm air out into the open.

the major issue with our trains is that only 50 – 75% of the seats are ever in use, then the only standing room is the door area, and then when seats are abandoned, nobody from door area bothers to sit in them. realisticly, should just run the seats down the wall with standing room in the middle. maybe make two out of six carriages like this. another issue is two doors instead of three per carriage. should have massive doors as well. also overuse of air conditioning, the trains are freezing and its a waste of electricity.

The disabled have equal rights to public spaces including trains. saying that only x number of wheelchair bound passengers can ride the train due to them being only allowed to ride at the front door area of a 6 carriage train is not equal access. i think it is ironic, we get rid of guards and manned stations, so fare evasion goes up, we then fix that by employing brutes on trains, rent a cops at stations, police state boxes at every station. what about if you just manned all the stations again? no more brutes, rent a cops, police internment boxes, can you see where i am going? someone who assists patrons, helps them, informs them. the fare evasion thing only exists because the stations arent manned. we got to this place because of that. slowly over time. cheaper not employing staff, but the end result being this thugery.