When you look up the word ‘hub’ in the dictionary, you get this:
A place or thing that forms the effective center of an activity, region, or network.
Over at Public Transport Victoria they took that definition and ran with it, rebranding Melbourne’s public transport information centres under a new name to emphasise how they are a one stop shop for everything train, tram and bus related.
PTV Hubs provides face-to-face contact with helpful staff who can assist you with all your public transport needs and help you get to where you need to go.
However down at Southern Cross Station they kinda missed the memo about covering “everything”, and just slapped some PTV stickers onto the existing mishmash of help points.
The most visible place to seek assistance is the former Myki Discover Centre on the main concourse. Now rebranded with the long-winded name of ‘PTV Hub myki Centre’ – it’s only open for Myki related issues.
The second PTV Hub at Southern Cross is hiding beneath the main staircase at the Collins Street end of the V/Line concourse, at what used to be the Southern Cross Station information booth.
In case you are confused about which PTV Hub is the correct one, this sign will help you out!
Unfortunately said sign forgets to tell you one thing – if you want a suburban train timetable booklet, the downstairs PTV Hub doesn’t have any! You need to head upstairs to the Metro Trains booking office at the Collins Street end to get those.
No wonder all of Melbourne is calls PTV a new sticker, instead of a revolution in public transport.
Footnote
In November 2012 Public Transport Victoria finally got their act together at Southern Cross, and merged their two ‘hubs’ into one.
Despite the change, if you want to buy a V/Line ticket, you still need to go to the V/Line ticket office at the other end of the station.
[…] to assist passengers in the transition to the new ticketing system, in November 2012 it was expanded to cover all public transport inquiries (minus V/Line ticket sales, but that is a story in […]