Researching locations
Commute and transport
Scheduled versus actual travel time, stop points versus stations, and why peak-hour testing beats a straight-line distance on a map.
- Published transport data describes scheduled services, not what you'll actually experience.
- Transport feeds commonly count stop points (platforms/directions), not distinct physical stations.
- Transfers, weekend/evening frequency, walking routes and parking all affect a real commute.
- Test the actual trip at the time you'd travel, rather than relying on straight-line distance.
Scheduled versus actual travel time
Public Transport Victoria's data describes scheduled services — timetabled departures and journey times (Public Transport Victoria, verified 29 Jul 2026) — not what you'll actually experience on a specific day. Delays, missed connections, and how different peak-hour crowding affects your specific trip aren't captured in a scheduled timetable. Testing a real commute at the time of day you'd actually travel is the only way to know what it's genuinely like.
Stop points are not stations
Transport data feeds commonly count individual stop points — separate records for each platform and direction — rather than distinct physical stations. A suburb showing "24 train stop points" might contain a single station with multiple platforms and directional records, not 24 separate stations. Delora's suburb pages state distance to the nearest station rather than a raw stop-point count for exactly this reason.
What to actually test
Beyond the scheduled trip time: transfer count (each transfer is a point of delay risk), weekend and evening service frequency (often much lower than weekday peak), walking time to the stop or station including any hills or unlit paths, and parking availability if you'd drive to a station.
Practical checklist
Testing a real commute
- Test the actual journey at the time of day you'd travel, not just look up a distance
- Check weekend and evening service frequency, not just weekday peak
- Walk the actual route to the stop or station, including any hills or unlit sections
- Count transfers required for your specific trip
Relevant Delora tool
Questions for a professional
Official resources
Sources and methodology
- PTV Timetable API — Public Transport Victoria (retrieved 29 Jul 2026)
Figures on this page are drawn from Delora's local knowledge graph, refreshed from these primary sources and checked for changes on a regular schedule. If a figure here looks out of date, the official source above is always the authority — please let us know.