On 6 August 2026, three separate teams from two different depots all attend Burnley station to perform enclosure inspections (SP209). All five work orders are for the same standard job, the same equipment class, and have identical tolerance windows. One team could have done all the work.
This pattern repeats at Burnley 9 times across the year, making it one of the most frequent multi-team overlap locations on the network.
| Work Order | Work Group | Depot | Job | Window |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 02158294 | East Malvern 3101 | East Malvern | SP209 — Enclosure Inspect | 30 Jun — 12 Sep |
| 02158295 | East Malvern 3101 | East Malvern | SP209 — Enclosure Inspect | 30 Jun — 12 Sep |
| 02158293 | East Malvern 3102 | East Malvern | SP209 — Enclosure Inspect | 30 Jun — 12 Sep |
| 02117689 | Flinders Street 1204 | Flinders Street | SP209 — Enclosure Inspect | 30 Jun — 12 Sep |
| 02117690 | Flinders Street 1204 | Flinders Street | SP209 — Enclosure Inspect | 30 Jun — 12 Sep |
All five work orders: - Are for SP209 — Enclosure Inspection & Clean - Have identical tolerance windows (30 June to 12 September — 74 days) - Are at the same station (Burnley) - Could be performed by any one of these teams (SP209 is done by 35 of 44 work groups)
Burnley sits on the boundary between two depot territories. The Burnley–Richmond corridor is where the East Malvern depot area (Glen Waverley/Alamein lines) meets the Flinders Street depot area (CBD approaches). Both depots have signal assets at Burnley, and the scheduling system assigns work to each depot's sections independently.
On this day: - East Malvern 3101 is at Burnley for 2 enclosure inspections, as part of a 10-WO enclosure inspection day along the corridor (Darling, East Malvern, Holmesglen, Kooyong, Burnley) - East Malvern 3102 is at Burnley for 1 enclosure inspection, plus 5 at Fairfield - Flinders Street 1204 is at Burnley for 2 enclosure inspections, plus 2 at East Richmond
Each team is travelling through or to Burnley as part of their day's route. But none of them know the other teams are also going there.
Multi-team overlaps at Burnley occur 9 times across the year:
| Date | Groups | WOs | Jobs |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5 May | East Malvern 3101 + 3102 | 5 | SP366, SP368, SP3673 |
| 17 May | East Malvern 3101 + 3102 | 4 | SP327B, SP208 |
| 27 Jun | Flinders Street 1204 + East Malvern 3101 | 4 | SP375, SP376, SP327B |
| 13 Jul | East Malvern 3101 + 3102 | 6 | SP368, SP209 |
| 6 Aug | East Malvern 3101 + 3102 + Flinders Street 1204 | 5 | SP209 |
| 20 Aug | East Malvern 3101 + Flinders Street 1204 | 5 | SP379, SP327, SP329, SP001, SP209 |
| 27 Aug | East Malvern 3101 + Flinders Street 1204 | 4 | SP375, SP209 |
| 30 Aug | East Malvern 3101 + Flinders Street 1204 | 2 | SP311 |
| 3 Sep | East Malvern 3101 + Flinders Street 1204 | 3 | SP368, SP3673, SP366 |
In 6 of the 9 cases, the overlap involves teams from different depots (East Malvern and Flinders Street), highlighting the lack of cross-depot coordination.
For the 6 August example, one team (e.g. East Malvern 3101, which is already visiting Burnley as part of a corridor route) could absorb all 5 enclosure inspections. This would: - Free East Malvern 3102 to spend more time at Fairfield (their other location that day) - Free Flinders Street 1204 to focus on East Richmond without the Burnley detour - Eliminate 2 unnecessary team-visits to the same station
This case study demonstrates the multi-team overlap problem — a fundamentally different inefficiency from the tolerance window batching issue:
Cross-depot boundary stations are uncoordinated — assets at locations like Burnley, South Yarra, Footscray, and Clifton Hill are serviced by teams from neighbouring depots with no awareness of each other's schedules
Same-depot sections also overlap — even within East Malvern, sections 3101 and 3102 are both at Burnley on the same day without consolidation
The work is fully interchangeable — SP209 (enclosure inspection) is performed by 35 of 44 work groups. There is no competency barrier to one team doing all the work
This is a network-wide pattern — across the year, there are 252 location-day overlaps between regular signals sections. Burnley is one of the most frequent, but the same pattern occurs at Southern Cross (35 days), Flinders Street (33 days), Newport (28 days), Dandenong (28 days), and Caulfield (14 days)