How long to Flinders Street Station?
Average Train Trip Duration

Many of us use public transport to get to the city. Arguably, the most common and convenient mode of transport is the Metro Train Network.

The timetables can be confusing; there are express trains, direct trains (still unsure what, exactly, that means), city loop trains, and trains stopping all stations.

“It usually takes about 20 minutes to get to the city,” we find ourselves saying when asked where we take the train from. But how long does it actually take?

That was the itch – this map is the scratch.

We gathered GTFS (General Transit Feed Specification) data for Metropolitan Melbourne. Then, with some scripting, worked out the average inbound trip duration from each station to Flinders Street station (stop_id: 19854 for those who love details).

It takes about 18 minutes on average to get from Malvern to Finders Street, versus about 25 minutes if you leave from Coburg.

Here is a sample list of average times:

Next, we calculated walking isolines in 5 minute intervals from each station in Metro Melbourne (assuming a walk time of ~5km per hour).

Adding these walk times with our average train time to reach Flinders Street, we can get a composite map for travel time to Flinders Street for most of Metro Melbourne.

The Data:

Limitations:

… let’s keep it simple, shall we?

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