Where to stand on the platform

People who catch the same train every day know where to wait on the platform. Years of mornings have taught them which carriage stops by the stairs at their station, so they’re up the escalator while everyone else is still shuffling along the platform.

Shoo. tries to give you that on your first trip. Before a train or metro, it tells you which part of the train to board, and on Sydney Trains it can also show how full each carriage is.

Board where the doors meet the way out

For many stations, Transport for NSW’s Trip Planner draws the walk from the platform to the street, or to your next platform: where it leaves the platform, and whether that’s by stairs, an escalator or a lift. Shoo. takes that point and lines it up with the direction your train arrives from.

It then assumes a full-length train stopped near the middle of the platform: eight carriages of about 20 metres on Sydney Trains, six of about 22 metres on the metro. Split into thirds, that gives one of three answers: Board at the front, Board in the middle or Board at the back.

The reason sits beside it. Nearest exit means the doors will open close to the way out of the station. For your change means they’ll open close to the way to your next service. You’ll see it under the platform in your trip, and in the banner while you wait.

How full each carriage is

Transport for NSW’s live feed for Sydney Trains reports how full each carriage is, front first. Shoo. shows it as a strip of carriages in two places.

• Where to board, on a service’s page: how full each carriage is expected to be when the train reaches your stop.
• How full it is now, on a train’s card when you tap it on the map: each carriage as it is right now, with the type of train beside the title, such as a Waratah or a Tangara.

Each carriage is shaded by how full it is, with a legend underneath: Seats, Few seats, Standing. Quiet carriages carry a small speaker symbol. A carriage with a toilet shows one, and a wheelchair symbol marks the accessible toilet. When the feed has nothing for a train, the strip simply doesn’t appear on its page.

Read aloud, too

With VoiceOver on, the strip starts with a summary before the details: where there’s most room, at the front, in the middle or at the back. Then it reads each carriage by number and how full it is, naming the quiet ones. The boarding hint is read as one line: where to board, and why.

The boarding hint arrived on 1 October. If it ever sends you to the wrong end of a platform, tell us the station, and we’ll look at what the Trip Planner drew for it.