Melbourne’s trains from the air

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This outstanding satellite-like view of Melbourne’s trains running over the course of a day was developed about twelve months ago by Flink Labs, a new Melbourne data visualisation firm. In their words:

“Inspired by the foraging of ants and their pheromone trails, this visualisation provides the viewer with a satellite-like view of the entire train network over an accelerated timeframe. The visualisation exposes the ebbs and flows of the system along with a surprising level of complexity, not obvious to the viewer at a single point in time or at the scale of an individual train.

The day starts and the train network awakens, slowly at first, then increases to peak hour levels around 9am. A steady active state continues through the day, then increases again as school students, then workers, commute home from the city. Finally, the system quietens as the last trains depart at the end of the day. Read the rest of this entry »