"The same team might be travelling long distances between job sites within the same day."
To investigate this, we calculated the estimated round-trip travel distance for every team-day in the schedule: depot → locations (nearest-neighbour route) → depot. The table below shows the 25 highest travel days.
| # | Date | Work Group | Depot | Round Trip | WOs | Route |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 25 Jul | Dandenong 4301 | Dandenong | 70.4 km | 10 | Westall (14km) → Pakenham (21km) |
| 2 | 15 Jun | Sunshine 2302 | Sunshine | 70.1 km | 9 | Calder Park (16km) → Sunbury (23km) |
| 3 | 14 Sep | Sunshine 2302 | Sunshine | 69.7 km | 4 | Sunbury (23km) |
| 4 | 8 Aug | Caulfield 4101 | Caulfield | 69.4 km | 3 | Windsor (6km) → Elsternwick* |
| 5 | 13 Sep | Carrum 4202 | Carrum | 65.6 km | 5 | Frankston (5km) → Stony Point (33km) |
| 6 | 16 May | Carrum 4202 | Carrum | 65.4 km | 2 | Stony Point (33km) |
| 7 | 15 Jun | Carrum 4202 | Carrum | 65.4 km | 2 | Stony Point (33km) |
| 8 | 15 Jul | Carrum 4202 | Carrum | 65.4 km | 2 | Stony Point (33km) |
| 9 | 14 Aug | Carrum 4202 | Carrum | 65.4 km | 2 | Stony Point (33km) |
| 10 | 6 Jul | Carrum 4202 | Carrum | 65.4 km | 3 | Somerville (16km) → Stony Point (33km) |
| 11 | 17 Jun | Carrum 4202 | Carrum | 65.3 km | 8 | Long Island Jcn (23km) → Hastings (27km) |
| 12 | 24 Jul | Carrum 4202 | Carrum | 65.1 km | 1 | Stony Point (33km) |
| 13 | 26 Sep | Carrum 4202 | Carrum | 63.5 km | 5 | Frankston (6km) → Somerville (16km) → Crib Point (31km) |
| 14 | 20 Jun | Carrum 4202 | Carrum | 63.2 km | 3 | Frankston (6km) → Crib Point (31km) |
| 15 | 20 Aug | Carrum 4202 | Carrum | 63.1 km | 2 | Frankston (6km) → Crib Point (31km) |
| 16 | 29 Jul | Carrum 4202 | Carrum | 63.1 km | 7 | Frankston (6km) → Crib Point (30km) |
| 17 | 19 Aug | Carrum 4202 | Carrum | 63.1 km | 8 | Frankston (6km) → Somerville (16km) → Crib Point (31km) |
| 18 | 27 Jul | Carrum 4202 | Carrum | 63.0 km | 2 | Somerville (16km) → Crib Point (31km) |
| 19 | 19 Jun | Carrum 4202 | Carrum | 63.0 km | 4 | Frankston (5km) → Somerville (16km) → Crib Point (31km) |
| 20 | 27 May | Carrum 4202 | Carrum | 63.0 km | 3 | Long Island Jcn (22km) → Crib Point (31km) |
| 21 | 14 Aug | Dandenong 4304 | Dandenong | 60.5 km | 10 | Dandenong (6km) → Pakenham (24km) |
| 22 | 18 Sep | Dandenong 4304 | Dandenong | 59.9 km | 39 | Dandenong (6km) → Berwick (8km) → Pakenham (24km) |
| 23 | 26 Jul | Carrum 4202 | Carrum | 59.9 km | 6 | Long Island Jcn (22km) → Hastings (25km) → Crib Point (30km) |
| 24 | 19 May | Dandenong 4304 | Dandenong | 59.8 km | 17 | Dandenong (6km) → Pakenham (24km) |
| 25 | 19 Jul | Dandenong 4304 | Dandenong | 59.8 km | 17 | Dandenong (6km) → Pakenham (24km) |
* Row 4 may be affected by a source data coordinate error for Elsternwick
The high-travel days are driven by line geography, not scheduling decisions. The top 25 are dominated by three corridors:
Stony Point line (Carrum 4202) — 15 of the top 25. This is a 33km branch line from Carrum depot to Stony Point, with stations at Frankston, Somerville, Hastings, and Crib Point along the way. The travel is inherent — someone has to service these remote stations.
Pakenham line (Dandenong 4301/4304) — 6 of the top 25. Pakenham is 21-24km from Dandenong depot, at the far end of the line.
Sunbury line (Sunshine 2302) — 2 of the top 25. Sunbury is 23km from Sunshine depot.
In all cases, the team is following a sequential route along their rail corridor. There are no examples of teams being sent to geographically unrelated locations or travelling between different lines.
While within-day routing is geographically logical, the scheduling creates unnecessary repeat trips to distant locations. For example, Carrum 4202 makes the 65km return trip to Stony Point on four separate occasions (rows 6-9) for just 1-2 work orders each time. Batching those visits within the tolerance windows would halve the trips to Stony Point.
This reinforces the core finding: the opportunity is not in re-routing individual days, but in reducing the number of days a team needs to make the trip at all.
All distances are straight-line (haversine) estimates. Actual road distances would be 20-40% higher. The distances shown are from the home depot to each location, with the round trip calculated as depot → locations (nearest-neighbour order) → depot.