Melbourne Transport Alexa Skill provides Melbourne transport information for any Alexa enabled device.
You can retrieve departures for:
Bus
Train
Tram
Checkout the Ask Alexa section for more details of what you can ask.
The application accesses the Public Transport Victoria (PTV) APIs, but we are not affiliated.
What's New
Add the following Alexa Skill from the Catalog: "Melbourne Transport":
You can now retrieve Melbourne Transport Departures using Slack. Click on the button "Add to Slack". Once the bot is added to your Slack account, you can simply chat with the user @melbourne_transport. A good start is saying Hi :)
Ask Alexa
Click on the images below to learn how to interact with the Melbourne Transport Alexa Skill.
Train Departures
Next train and scheduled departures.
Tram Departures
Next tram departures.
Bus Departures
Next bus departures.
Train Station Facilities
Get to know the facilities.
Favourites
Last journey, manage favourites.
Location
Your location and nearby stops.
Feedback and Suggestions
Please provide your feedback. Any issues or feature requests using this form. The information provided in this form will not be published nor shared; the intention is to provide a direct communication between yourself and myself.
I usually respond within 24 hours, and will do my best to provide a good user experience for the Melbourne Transport Alexa Skill.
You can get Train departure details using different criteria. Melbourne Transport Alexa Skill is quite flexible in accommodating different ways of utterances provided by the user.
You must activate the Melbourne Transport skill, by saying: "Alexa, ask Melbourne Transport..."
The following conversation patterns are expressed: Alexa in blue. You in red.
Next train
From which station?
Which direction?
Next train
Balaclava
Flinders Street
Next train
from Balaclava to Flinders Street
Next train from Balaclava
Flinders Street
Next train
from Pakenham
Next train from Balaclava to Flinders Street
By default, the information given by Melbourne Transport Alexa Skill is summarised. If you want to hear detailed information, you can ask for "Next train details...". e.g: "Alexa, ask Melbourne Transport next train details from Balaclava..."
Next train future departures
In order to make sure that you get accurate information, please double check that your device is configured with the correct timezone. You can do that by accessing the Alexa application or website, and accessing: Settings -> Select Your device, and set the Device Timezone.
Otherwise, if you say "tomorrow" for example, Alexa Service might provide the incorrect date to Melbourne Transport Skill.
what time?
From which station?
Which direction?
Train
after 8
from Balaclava
to Flinders Street
Train
after 6 in the afternoon
Balaclava
Flinders Street
Train
tomorrow
after 8
Balaclava
Flinders Street
Train
tomorrow after 8 in the evening
Balaclava
Flinders Street
Train
tomorrow after 8 in the evening
from Balaclava to Flinders Street
Train
on Sunday after 8 in the evening
from Balaclava to Flinders Street
Next departure - all trains
Provides departure information from all trains departing from a specific train station.
From which station?
All trains
Balaclava
All trains from Balaclava
Tram Departures
You can get Trams departure information using different criteria. Melbourne Transport Alexa Skill support is simplified at this stage, does not allowing a conversational model as you can have with the train departures.
You must activate the Melbourne Transport skill, by saying: "Alexa, ask Melbourne Transport..."
The following conversation patterns are expressed: Alexa in blue. You in red.
Next tram
Next tram 67 from stop 30
Next tram number 5 from stop 1
Next tram details number 5 from stop 1
By default, the information given by Melbourne Transport Alexa Skill is summarised. If you want to hear detailed information, you can ask for "Next tram details...". e.g: "Alexa, ask Melbourne Transport next tram details 67 from stop 30."
Bus departures
As you may know, buses routes and stops in Melbourne are not well defined as tram and trains.
Trains have well defined short station names and directions. Trams have well defined tram numbers and stop numbers, which make easy to interact via a voice interface.
On the other hand, some bus lines have a route number, but the majority does not have a number. The bus stops do not have a short identifier; they are identified usually by street name intersections.
For the above reasons, at this stage, the journey configuration can be done via a simple web interface, either via your mobile browser or computer. Once you have configured and saved as a bookmark, you can ask Melbourne Transport Alexa Skill for departure information at any time.
I will continue to investigate the feasibility of having full support over voice. Would be great if you could provide feedback/suggestions.
The following conversation patterns are expressed: Alexa in blue. You in red.
Configuring your bus journey
Update bus favourite
You will then receive an URL in your Alexa application (or you can access it from http://alexa.amazon.com). You can then copy and paste the entire URL, which will look like:
Once you access the received URL from you Web browser, you can then select as follows:
Favourite name
Route
Direction
Stop name (from)
Asking for next departure
Now that you have your journey saved as favourite, you can ask at any time the next departure for the saved bus journey. Please see the Favourites section for more details.
Favourite 1
Favourite Home to Work
Train Station Facilities
You can get to know a train station facilities.
The following conversation patterns are expressed: Alexa in blue. You in red.
Train facilities
What are the facilities for Flinders Street Station?
What are the facilities for Balaclava Station?
Favourites
You can manage favourite journeys as follows.
The following conversation patterns are expressed: Alexa in blue. You in red.
Next departures for a favourite (Train, Tram, bus)
You can ask for the next departure for a favourite, as follows:
Favourite 1
Favourite home to work
Adding or updating a favourite for tram or train journeys
The first step is to ask Melbourne Transport Alexa Skill for either a Tram/Train departure, as defined in the tram/train sections. After you hear the departure details, you can then ask Melbourne Transport to save the last journey as favourite, as follows:
Save last trip as favourite one
To save as favourite Home to work
Valid favourite names
You can use any of the following favourite names:
Favourite Name
1-10 (any value from 1 to 10)
Home to work
Work to home
Home to school
School to home
Retrieving the list of saved favourites
Following how to retrieve your saved favourites. You will be able to listen to the favourite name and the route, but not the departures.
Get favourites
Location
You can ask for train, tram nearby stops at any time
To let Melbourne Transport know your location, it's a two step process, and you need to use your mobile phone to provide the location details to the Skill.
The following conversation patterns are expressed: Alexa in blue. You in red.
Retrieving nearby train, tram nearby stops
My location
My location details
Updating your location
Update my location
You will then receive an URL in your Alexa application (or you can access it from http://alexa.amazon.com). You can then copy and paste the entire URL, which will look like:
Once you access the received URL from you Web browser, you can then just click on the Update location button. You can now ask for your location using your Alexa device:
