RAIL - Back On Track Forum

No disagreements from me about the need to just get on with the job and run more off-peak service on existing QR lines!

In ideating an east-west subway route it's important to also think about CRR2, which is potentially going to be in the same general area. At least, it's going to have one end on the inner westside.

The state government projections have Greater Ipswich basically doubling in population by 2046 relative to 2021. (Even if you don't agree with 2046, you probably have a year in mind that that population doubles by.)

Now, we can't naively say that's going to double peak train demand too, but it has an effect and there's already limited capacity on the Mains from the west. (Also, we just might want to be able to run trains out to Toowoomba...)

Ultimately, the western lines are going to need more than one sector through the city, just as foretold by the ICRCS. They can borrow capacity from Merivale for a while - the Cleveland line isn't seeing any population growth - but the Southside will want that back eventually.

The Northside is also scheduled for a lot of growth but it'll have 3 sectors to the Southside's 2 [or 1.6, if we're lending capacity west], so the new western sector should probably add a third sector to the south and the easiest way to do that is to take on the Cleveland line outbound of Cannon Hill.

I would want to create as much of a network effect as possible if we are going to have CRR2 / Clevewich line and a subway.

My preferred Clevewich option would not involve the Ipswich line itself (assuming by this point Ipswich has all day express services).  Junction reconfiguration at Darra so the Springfield line uses the 2 inner tracks (up-up-down-down) and the island platform at Oxley (existing side platform and new side platform only for use in case of diversions etc), dives between Oxley and Corinda, serving UQ, then the tunnel would pop up probably around the stretch between Cannon Hill and Murrarie.  Murrarie would be the terminus for the inner Cleveland line via South Bank.  All Springfield/Ripley services would go via the tunnel.  Ipswich would be split between a permanent express running all from Ipswich to Redbank, then Darra, Indooroopilly, Milton and onwards, and a permanent all stations service from Redbank to the City.

I would be leaning towards the subway servicing the Montague Rd area and crossing the river from Bulimba to head up to Skygate via the Doomben area, but I haven't got a scheme I am really happy with yet.  I would think the western terminus is better off being Toowong, and for Indooroopilly to be part of a separate line in the direction of Buranda and the Old Cleveland Road corridor.

What needs to be true for a Brisbane Subway to work? 🤔

So, I was curious to see how many estimated daily trips would be needed to support a standalone subway. You can imagine that subway mode would only be chosen if peak hour passenger demand exceeded what BRT or LRT could reasonably handle, say above 10,000 pphd.

Estimation

If a subway did 10,000 pphd to 20,000 pphd in the peak hour, and we imagine that peak hour moves only 10% of the daily trips, then the total daily trips required to support the subway is somewhere in the range of 100,000 to 200,000 daily trips. This sort of figure suggests a minimum of 26 million trips to 52 million trips per year.

For comparison, ~ 50 million is what the entire QR network carries in a year. ~ 40 million is what the SEB is currently pulling on buses, but most busway passengers are not walk up passengers to busway stations but rather flow into this system when buses drive into the busway.

A Brisbane subway would primarily generate patronage from walk-up.

The Sydney Metro Northwest is doing about 15 million per year from a line with 13 stations and 37 km long. Like the Brisbane Subway proposal, the Sydney Metro Northwest has connections to trains both at Chatswood and Epping. Macquarie University is on the line, as are multiple major shopping centres at Macquarie Park and Castle Hill, and like Toowong there is an office park cluster also at Macquarie Park. Let's say patronage doubles when extended to the Sydney CBD to 30 million per year to be generous.

What does this suggest for a 9-station East-West Metro in Brisbane from Indooroopilly to Hamilton via West End and Bulimba? (past Green Team election policy)

Using the projected-up Sydney Metro values:

30 million pax / 19 stations to Sydney Central = 1.5 million pax/station/year 

1.57 million pax/station/year x 9 Brisbane subway stations = 14.2 million pax per year

This is ~ 2x below the 26 million pax/year 'floor value' necessary make Subway the clear mode choice over alternative modes such as LRT or BRT. For interest, the T3 Bankstown line in Sydney that is being converted to metro did ~ 30 million trips/year pre-COVID19 (2018 figures).

Conclusions

- A Brisbane Subway would likely generate below ~ 15 million trips per year if built as per the Green Team's past proposals, and this conclusion would reasonably extend to the one proposed by the Queensland Government in Connecting SEQ 2031.

- TMR states in Connecting SEQ 2031 that "By 2031 there will be 2.4 million trips per day in inner Brisbane (within about five kilometres from the CBD), up from about one million in 2006" however a break down into each mode does not appear next to this statement. Without this break down it is not possible to accept this statement as a sound justification for a subway.

- Estimated one way peak-hour volumes are likely to be below 10,000 pphd, suggesting that LRT or BRT would be viable competing alternative proposals. Due to the ~5x lower construction cost of these modes*, an alternative proposal could potentially feature multiple LRT or BRT lines across the inner city rather than just one line. New bridges across the Brisbane River may also fit within the funding envelope.

- The proposed subway line appears to be too short and has too few stations to generate supporting patronage at a level that would justify the subway mode.

- Given the estimated cost of a subway at $8-$16 billion and likely low patronage of ~ 15 million pax p.a., a business case should be prepared into the subway proposal to validate or refute the preliminary findings made here before deciding to support it.



Sources:

Transport and Main Roads, Connecting SEQ 2031 – An Integrated Regional Transport Plan for South East Queensland, 2010,
https://cabinet.qld.gov.au/documents/2010/jul/connecting%20seq%202031/Attachments/4%20-%20connectingseqweb04partc.pdf

NSW Train Line Patronage
https://nswtrains.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_railway_lines_by_patronage

Estimated Daily Total Trips <---> One-Way Peak Hour Load conversion factor
Derived from SE Busway figures: (15,000 pphd peak hour busway passengers / 150,000 daily passengers) x 100 = 10%

* When built in Priority B ROW

And yet again, you've chosen to compare with the current Sydney Metro, which runs from Chatswood to outer suburbia, passing through what is mostly low density suburbia, vs an inner city Metro concept in Brisbane that would service almost exclusively middle to high density inner city suburbs.

For me, I'm more interested to see what happens with patronage when City in South West Metro opens. It should cause a patronage bump when people no longer have to change trains at chatswood to reach the city.

The length of the Brisbane Metro definitely isn't too short. There are plenty of European metros that are only 10 to 15 km long. They work.

I think the advantage of the greens metro is that it cuts straight under the river and avoid street congestion in a fairly direct route.

Can be demonstrated with the 340, a brt type route that takes 17 mins to get from rbwh to gabba.

Meanwhile crr will take 8 to 10 minutes.

So if someone is travelling around and these dense areas you can imagine the time savings add up pretty quickly over the day.

I'm not sure if bridges are possible at Hamilton North shore.

But idk Im guessing metro is planning on changing his username to _BRT soon given all the sudden posts promoting it

    

Quote from: Gazza on August 18, 2023, 07:23:36 AMFor me, I'm more interested to see what happens with patronage when City in South West Metro opens. It should cause a patronage bump when people no longer have to change trains at chatswood to reach the city.

The length of the Brisbane Metro definitely isn't too short. There are plenty of European metros that are only 10 to 15 km long. They work.

I think the advantage of the greens metro is that it cuts straight under the river and avoid street congestion in a fairly direct route.

Can be demonstrated with the 340, a brt type route that takes 17 mins to get from rbwh to gabba.

Meanwhile crr will take 8 to 10 minutes.

So if someone is travelling around and these dense areas you can imagine the time savings add up pretty quickly over the day.

I'm not sure if bridges are possible at Hamilton North shore.

But idk Im guessing metro is planning on changing his username to _BRT soon given all the sudden posts promoting it

    

Isn't one of London's busiest Lines 2.6km long IIRC.  PS     _BRT made my day.   

^ Waterloo & City isn't the best example (if that's the line in question) - it is the closest equivalent in London to the "rockets" we have, and I believe only runs on weekdays, basically to get people to the "City".  Historically I think it only ran weekdays and Saturdays with only very limited / ad hoc service at other times.  Every chance it will have declining relevant from now on due to the changing nature of office work, as opposed to the other lines on the network which aren't optimised more or less only for CBD office workers as we would understand them.

Quote from: JimmyPAnd yet again, you've chosen to compare with the current Sydney Metro, which runs from Chatswood to outer suburbia, passing through what is mostly low density suburbia, vs an inner city Metro concept in Brisbane that would service almost exclusively middle to high density inner city suburbs.

Hi JimmyP,

Thanks for your comment.

You are correct that NSW is mainly using Sydney Metro as a line-haul service taking commuters from the suburbs to the CBD. It's not really being used as an inner-city distribution system like, say, Paris.

So what are Sydney and Melbourne using to do the inner-city distribution function? They are using Light Rail and Trams.

Sydney Light Rail L1 & L2

Below is a recent article from SMH which details the performance of the new Randwick and Kingsford Smith L1 and L2 Light Rail services.

Quote from: SMHAfter an inauspicious start in late 2019, new figures show that average daily patronage for the trams running on the line between Circular Quay and both Randwick and Kingsford totalled 86,444 tap-ons in February, up from 41,400 a day in the same month a year earlier.

What advantages would LRT/BRT have for the inner city over a Subway?

- Sydney L1 and L2 LRT lines are together pulling 22.4 million passengers per year
- You get more stations and more coverage. With 19 stations, there are double the access points than this proposed Brisbane Subway
- You can get a network effect much faster because you can build multiple lines that mesh together with the same $8-16 billion budget than one line of expensive subway
- The cost do this LRT was $3 billion

In 1944-1945 the former Brisbane tram network pulled 160 million passengers. For hilly areas we also had electric trolleybuses. BRT and LRT scale really well, and are also suitable for the denser areas.

What we should know before supporting a Subway proposal:

The Queensland Government and TMR should provide basic details about:

- the expected daily patronage on opening and over time  (ideally, broken down by station and showing that this is about 100,000 trips per day or above for the system)
- the expected peak hour load on opening and over time (and showing that this is > 10,000 pphd)
- the cost for construction
- comparison with alternative mode proposals that use a similar budget (and showing that there is no better alternative approach)

Sydney L1 & L2 Network


(image from SMH article)

Sydney finally embraces CBD light rail as patronage surges
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/sydney-finally-embraces-cbd-light-rail-as-patronage-surges-20230404-p5cxx3.html

Trams in Brisbane
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trams_in_Brisbane

Im uncertain if you could build an efficient LRT equivalent on the EW route given the geography and road layouts.

Would be a pain in the backside to run LRT from Indro to UQ on the streets given the hills and turns.
So then you tunnel?
And if you are tunnelling, you can run higher capacity metro trains rather than trams.

Likewise the rest of the route seems like it would have to have a lot of turns to get through those suburbs

I can see from the map that L1&L2 in Sydney is fairly straight and direct, has no river crossings.

The advantage of a subway on the EW route is the ability to just tunnel straight under brisbanes steep hills and rivers and narrow streets, and there is no high level 'formula' that can quantify that advantage.

For further context, I estimate the 60 CityGlider would've done somewhere between 2.5 and 3 million boardings in 2019. Can probably add another half-million from displaced bus trips to UQ (not a great BCR on that though).

Quote from: AldoniusFor further context, I estimate the 60 CityGlider would've done somewhere between 2.5 and 3 million boardings in 2019. Can probably add another half-million from displaced bus trips to UQ (not a great BCR on that though).

Yes, usage level makes all the difference.

A $8bn subway that replaces the SEB and carries 40 million trips/year would be a very different prospect to a $8bn subway that is built along a different alignment that might only carry ~15 million trips/year. One is probably worth doing, the other one perhaps not.

It would also be much better if needs were defined first, then modes. So rather than doing a subway study, do a general transport needs study for the inner 5 km ring, and only then see which modes where are best suited to doing what jobs. 5 km is not a huge distance, and who knows, they might decide mass cycling infrastructure is where the money needs to go, for example.

Everyone has an interest in TMR producing the subway business case because it will establish the basics and initial viability/unviability. It has been ~12 years since the Connecting 2031 plan release.


Connecting SEQ2031
https://documents.parliament.qld.gov.au/tp/2022/5722T451-4124.pdf

You keep throwing up this ~15m pax figure, but you got to that from comparing it to a metro in Sydney that runs mostly through the boonies with few stations! Would be great if you would actually use reasonable comparisions for once.

QuoteYou keep throwing up this ~15m pax figure, but you got to that from comparing it to a metro in Sydney that runs mostly through the boonies with few stations! Would be great if you would actually use reasonable comparisions for once.

Yes, and I've also set out my working. So if someone wishes to build on it with their own figures, they could do that following the working already set out. The patronage value of the Sydney Metro was also doubled before using it as an input, as the Chatswood-CBD section is not yet open.

As a back-of-the envelope calculation it is not perfect, but even using ballpark figures, it is not looking great.

You would expect a subway in this context to meet a minimum ~ 26 million p.a. patronage. This 26 million p.a. floor value does not depend on the Sydney Metro patronage, but is derived from a subway being an appropriate tool to carry >10,000 pphd during peak hour.

10,000 pphd in peak ---> 100,000 passengers/weekday ---> 26 million passengers/year.

Some things that need to be established about this subway concept:

- Will it attract >100,000 daily trips?
- Will it carry >10,000 pphd in peak? (as in actual passenger demand numbers, not supply capacity)
- And provide a cost

So far the discussion has focused on the desirability of the technology, location of stations, comparison to European cities, and potential routes, which is fine. But IMHO we need to consider things like reasonable expected patronage and peak loads.

So now you're saying expected patronage would be 26m?? If so, why keep talking about this 15m figure?

Yes, you showed your working... using numbers from a long metro with few stations which mostly runs through low density urban sprawl, vs a subway which would be relatively short and travel through almost exclusively mid to high density inner city. Completely different beasts, so please stop trying to shoehorn one in to the other. (Even when Chatswood to Sydney is opened, its still going to be quite a long distance with few stations for a Metro service).

Quote from: JimmyPSo now you're saying expected patronage would be 26m?? If so, why keep talking about this 15m figure?

Thanks JimmyP. I'll explain the approach differently:

Let's say someone wanted to go on a theme park ride, and they needed to be minimum height of 1.5 meters to gain admission to the ride. You measure their height as 1.3 meters. You conclude they are not tall enough to gain admission.

Same process here.

You would expect a subway to carry a minimum of ~ 26 million pax/year. How come? Because you expect to only use a subway when alternative modes cannot handle the load in peak (> 10,000 pphd). Using the above approach gives an estimate of about ~15 million pax/year. We conclude that maybe the potential patronage is not enough.

You have made comments about the approach, which is fine. So let's try a different approach and see if we get similar or very different figures. I'm going to build up an estimate using pre-COVID19 data from QR train station entries in the inner city where trains are already frequent all day.

Ground Up Method - Using Brisbane Data

So, a station like South Brisbane has about 1.5 million station entries per year. A station immediately outside the periphery but with frequent train service like Milton has about 0.6 million station entries per year. Toowong has about 1 million station entries per year, and that is because it is a good connection point with UQ.

We can estimate by notionally assigning stations a nominal patronage from four categories:
- Low (0.6 million p.a.)
- Medium (1 million p.a.)
- High (1.5 million p.a.)
- Very High - Central station gets about 11 million entries per year, so we will use that as the Albert Street Value

After assigning, you just add it up.

Reconstruction

Indooroopilly (Medium) - 1 million p.a.
UQ (Medium) - 1 million p.a. <--- could be higher, could be lower depending on busway competition
West End (Low)- 0.6 million p.a.
South Brisbane (High) - 1.5 million p.a.
Albert St CBD (Very High)  - 11 million p.a.
Kangaroo Pt (Low) - 0.6 million p.a. (doubt it as the catchment is highly restrictive)
New Farm/Tenneriffe (Low) - 0.6 million p.a.
Bulimba (Low) - 0.6 million p.a.
Hamilton (Low) - 0.6 million p.a.
----
Total = 17.5 million pax/year <--- Similar value to that obtained from the Sydney approach
----

Comments

- 17.5 million pax/year implies a weekday patronage of ~ 67,307 trips/weekday. If peak load is about 10% of the daily trips, this in turn implies an estimated peak load of around ~ 6,730 pphd.

- If 1000-pax trains are used, this implies service every 7.5 - 8 minutes in peak. So, perhaps at least initially the subway service would need to run using shorter 500-pax trains every 5 min or so in peak.

- Expected shortfall of ~ 8.5 million passengers/year, which means either more stations need to be added or the line needs to be much longer

- Consider a potentially different alignment (e.g. via Valley)

- Consider less reliance on walk-up. For example, consider a large bus interchange at Indooroopilly and feed most Coronation Drive buses into that.

- Having a subway station at Brisbane Airport would compete directly with AirTrain patronage and stations. It might be a better idea to convert the Airport Line in this case, removing it from the QR network.

- Queensland Government and Green Team should produce annual patronage estimates and estimated peak hour loadings for their subway concepts.

Source Data

Inner western line patronage FY 12/13 to 21/22 (Darra to Milton)
https://railbotforum.org/mbs/index.php?topic=14868.0



Southern line patronage FY 12/13 to 21/22 (South Brisbane to Beenleigh)
https://railbotforum.org/mbs/index.php?topic=14867.0


Inner core line patronage FY 12/13 to 21/22 (Roma St to Bowen Hills)

For Metro style station spacing you'd probably be better off looking at the Patronage of the 66, City Gliders, and 199.

Quote from: Row_BroFor Metro style station spacing you'd probably be better off looking at the Patronage of the 66, City Gliders, and 199.

It's a good idea; the research on this one has been a lot to do, so perhaps another member can take up the data challenge.

The Green Team proposal isn't optimal IMHO. Perhaps other members could come up with a better alignment that builds on the Green Team and Queensland Government ones, and also satisfies the expected minimum patronage.

You know Metro, instead of being patronising, you could have said 'The 26m figure is, IMO, the minimum patronage figure the Metro would need to get to make it viable', as I misunderstood the way you were speaking about 26m in the post I was replying to.

Thankyou for using more comparative data, however you're still plucking figures from nowhere IMO.
Working on a 'situation normal' regarding BCC avoiding any sort of bus connections with a new subway also isn't likely and very much shouldn't happen (shouldn't be currently happening either, but the authorities are spineless). Patronage figures should be taking proper bus connections in to account.
I don't think running it to the airport is worthwhile, I would say running it across to Chermside would be much more beneficial while also providing better cross suburb connections (via Skygate/Nundah type areas).

While an immediate 'shortfall' of 8.5m going by your figures, surely we should be looking to the future capacity requirements when building something like this? Absolutely no point building something with less capacity if said capacity will be overrun within a shorter period of time. Certainly not beyond a reasonable possibility that your shortfall (even if thise numbers were accurate and exact) would be made up and exceeded within a couple decades, given the population increases and density increases in the closer in suburbs. Sure, it might only cost $3b instead of $8b to put on (for example) BRT, but if that is no longer able to handle the patronage in 20 years and a subway is needed, it'll probably cost $12+b by then with inflation etc., so you've actually wasted significant amounts of money. Not to mention the drawcard of rail for patronage vs BRT (not that BRT doesn't have its place, of course).

I think the Greens proposal is almost ideal fundamentally.
Good studies and planning could result in some changes to the exact location and number of stations but that proposal hits all of the highest density areas in Brisbane and the areas for proposed future high density.

It also would enable people to move across the city in a way that other modes simply couldn't compete with.

You select certain modes because of capacity of course, but there are other factors such as speed and directness that actively grow patronage in the long run, that can make the initial investment worthwhile.

Like we have a real World example of a brt project in Brisbane running out of capacity within 20 years of opening.
Why do that again lol?

especially trying to shoehorn it on an EW route that is not as easy as running beside a freeway.

Like you take something like the cityglider on a similar corridor that is getting 3m passengers per year.

Its not hard to imagine getting 4 to 5 times the patronage (15m per year) just fron upgrading to a train, such as the experience elsewhere in Australia where rail lines have gone to areas previously dependant on buses.

And of course that's not to mention other markets that are not adequately served, for example if you want to get from Indro to UQ, it's a 15 min bus trip being slashed to 3 mins, there's going to be plenty of extra trips induced by that.

Likewise Bulimba, North Shore etc being within 10 mins of the city.

Quote from: JimmyPThankyou for using more comparative data, however you're still plucking figures from nowhere IMO.

Working on a 'situation normal' regarding BCC avoiding any sort of bus connections with a new subway also isn't likely and very much shouldn't happen (shouldn't be currently happening either, but the authorities are spineless).

Patronage figures should be taking proper bus connections in to account.
I don't think running it to the airport is worthwhile, I would say running it across to Chermside would be much more beneficial while also providing better cross suburb connections (via Skygate/Nundah type areas).

Thanks for the suggestion about running it under Gympie Road to Chermside. That would change the numbers quite a bit, I would expect. And you'd have a much wider catchment than walk-up as you could feed northside buses into it.

Ground Up Method - The data from the second approach isn't from nowhere, it's station entry data from inner city Brisbane train stations with all-day frequent train service archived on RBOT. If members have a better estimation method, data, or both, there would be a lot of interest in seeing that.

Turning to comparisons with London and Paris:

Paris Metro
Journey data for the Paris Metro show all of the metro lines in Paris do > 26 million trips/year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_M%C3%A9tro. The lowest has patronage at 45 million trips/year.
Paris Metro 1.520 b trips / 308 stations gives 4.8 million trips/station on average. For comparison, Roma Street does about 3 million trips/year.

London Underground
Similar case with London. There is one exception being the Waterloo & City line which only has two stations, and does 15.4 million trips/year. The next lowest patronised line (Hammersmith & City line) does 61 million trips/year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Underground. London Underground 1.026 b trips / 272 in service stations gives 3.7 million trips/station on average. Again, the average Underground station is busier than Roma Street.

As per SurfRail's comment, the London's Waterloo and City Line is not a good comparison.

Vancouver SkyTrain
For a smaller city, Vancouver SkyTrain does 116 m trips / 53 stations gives 2.1 million station boardings p.a. on average. For comparison, South Bank sees just under this level of boarding. Large parts of the Skytrain network are elevated, however, which brings down the cost.

I understand that the results of this initial analysis may be difficult, but it highlights the need for a business case with official cost and patronage estimates to come out.

Uh, I never actually said anything about running under Gympie Rd.. quite the opposite, in fact. I said it might be a good idea to run to Chermside via Skygate/Nundah type areas, to give better cross town connections.

The station boarding numbers are fine for evaluating current lines, what it really doesn't have anything to do with a new subway proposal serving different areas. Yes, South Brisbane may well get those numbers, but most of those people are coming from areas completely different from the subway proposal. As was said a few times by other members, looking at bus route numbers in the general areas of the proposed route would give a better indication.

Quote from: JimmyP on August 20, 2023, 10:07:46 AMUh, I never actually said anything about running under Gympie Rd.. quite the opposite, in fact. I said it might be a good idea to run to Chermside via Skygate/Nundah type areas, to give better cross town connections.

The station boarding numbers are fine for evaluating current lines, what it really doesn't have anything to do with a new subway proposal serving different areas. Yes, South Brisbane may well get those numbers, but most of those people are coming from areas completely different from the subway proposal. As was said a few times by other members, looking at bus route numbers in the general areas of the proposed route would give a better indication.

It would be nice to have a Subway through Nundah, Wavell Heights, and the surrounding suburbs. The 322 is a poor excuse for a bus route !!

Quote from: JimmyPThe station boarding numbers are fine for evaluating current lines, what it really doesn't have anything to do with a new subway proposal serving different areas. Yes, South Brisbane may well get those numbers, but most of those people are coming from areas completely different from the subway proposal. As was said a few times by other members, looking at bus route numbers in the general areas of the proposed route would give a better indication.

Well, the average station spacing for the Green Team's proposal is 1.78 km apart. A general bus stop would not be more than 800m, and for inner city bus services such as 199 etc, even closer than this. An approach like that sounds more appropriate for estimating potential LRT patronage. I'm going to leave this challenge for other members to put together.

Note, boardings drop off very quickly as one moves away from Central. Central gets 11 million boardings p.a., the next stations a few minutes up or down the line on either side - Roma Street and Fortitude Valley - get 3 million boardings p.a.

Even if one criticises these estimation approaches, or suggest that they are not relevant, one still has the task of positively establishing that the peak load on the subway service is > 10,000 pphd and that the service will do > 26 million trips p.a. A subway would have capacities of 30 - 40 vehicles per hour or 30,000 to 40,000 pphd.

Quote from: RowBrowould be nice to have a Subway through Nundah, Wavell Heights, and the surrounding suburbs. The 322 is a poor excuse for a bus route !!

This is a good comment. See, if the subway concept was about line-haul transport rather than just inner-city distribution, it would be a very different proposal. You would have the benefit of a feeder bus effect all across the Northside to Chermside or Aspley.

I don't have estimates for Northside bus patronage, but given the total bus patronage in Brisbane is about 70 million trips, and the SEB brings in about 40 million, it would suggest 20-20 million trips p.a. are up for grabs on the Northside.

How can we maximise patronage to get the proposal to work? Probably a station near Riverside and Fortitude Valley is required. A variant concept which has stops at RBWH and then continues to Chermside under Gympie Road could be looked at as part of the options.

Quote from: #Metro on August 20, 2023, 10:30:35 AMHow can we maximise patronage to get the proposal to work? Probably a station near Riverside and Fortitude Valley is required. A variant concept which has stops at RBWH and then continues to Chermside under Gympie Road could be looked at as part of the options.

Gympie Road already has a lot of connectivity with countless busses and transit lanes in the near future. I'm sure you'd be better off patronage wise going further east OR further west. Since the NWTC provides the opportunity to build (mostly) above ground, it would probably be more useful building a subway to the east of Gympie Road.

Its also about getting more people using public transport, not just shifting the current people from bus to rail.

Nobody here is saying it should be built without a proper study/business case being done, just trying to do away with the random numbers that don't really mean much of anything that you keep beinging up to shoot down what could be a reasonable proposal.

Also need to think more about cross town connections along with city connections instead of the current 'everything goes to the city' mindset where a 10min cross town trip take 1hr due to going via the city.

Quote from: JimmyPNobody here is saying it should be built without a proper study/business case being done, just trying to do away with the random numbers that don't really mean much of anything that you keep beinging up to shoot down what could be a reasonable proposal.

Well, what do you think the patronage is for peak load and annual trips for the proposal? And why?

I do not know, as I do not have information regarding trips taken across the general route by all modes. That's what business cases and patronage studies are for.
What I do know is that it would have very little to do with the amount of people catching the train from the Gold Coast/Beenleigh/Cleveland lines to South Brisbane, nor the amount of people catching a metro that mostly runs through the boondocks in another city.
I also have a pretty good assumption that a high quality transport corridor with well located access points along the general corridor being discussed should draw quite a good amount of patronage if done right.

Anyone have easy access to the boardings on the Eastern Suburbs line in Sydney?

Quote from: JimmyPWhat I do know is that it would have very little to do with the amount of people catching the train from the Gold Coast/Beenleigh/Cleveland lines to South Brisbane, nor the amount of people catching a metro that mostly runs through the boondocks in another city.
I also have a pretty good assumption that a high quality transport corridor with well located access points along the general corridor being discussed should draw quite a good amount of patronage if done right.

Well, I think you might agree with me that if we cannot say anything about the peak load or annual patronage, then we cannot conclude anything about the merit of the proposal. Because the merit of the proposal will turn on the patronage carried, and the appropriateness of using the subway mode will turn on the peak load demand.

Having some indication of this is mission-critical information IMHO.

Perhaps the other way to estimate is to look at inner-city busway stations within 5 km of the CBD and annual tap-ons at those stations. The service frequencies there exceed metro standards, it is Class A ROW, trips are not regional, and the station spacing is broadly comparable. It would be necessary to decide on whether to include or exclude counting trips coming from outside this zone though based on whether you believe the subway will be well connected to feeder buses or not.

Here's a very rough estimate. I collated March 2019 data (so it's pre-covid, make of that what you will) and multiplied by 11 because March is usually the strongest month. This is boardings at those stations (from all bus platforms across all times of day) in millions.

Cultural Centre 4.8
Queen St 3.4
King George Sq 2.9
UQ Lakes 2.5
South Bank 2.1
Roma St 1.9
Mater Hill 1.8
UQ Chancellors Pl 1.6
Buranda 1.2
RBWH 1.1
Woolloongabba 1.0
Kelvin Grove 1.0
Boggo Rd 0.6
PA Hospital 0.3
Normanby 0.2
Langlands Pk 0.2
Herston 0.2
Greenslopes 0.2
Stones Cnr 0.1

QuoteWhat I do know is that it would have very little to do with the amount of people catching the train from the Gold Coast/Beenleigh/Cleveland lines to South Brisbane

Well, let's step back and reconsider.

If station boardings are Total = local + regional, then

Local = Total - regional

This would suggest an even lower station usage on the subway because now the regional passengers have been filtered out.

On the other hand, if the subway is well integrated, we would expect to find both regional and local passengers on it. For example, someone from Cleveland/Gold Coast/Beenleigh might connect at South Brisbane to get to UQ or Indooroopilly for example. And so on.

Likewise, someone from Springfield or Ipswich might connect at Indooroopilly to access UQ.

The second argument seems more reasonable, as it's not a closed system. And if that is the case then using QR station entries while not perfect might be reasonable to use.

Quote from: AldoniusCultural Centre 4.8
Queen St 3.4
UQ Lakes 2.5
Mater Hill 1.8
Buranda 1.2
RBWH 1.1
Woolloongabba 1.0
Kelvin Grove 1.0
Boggo Rd 0.6
PA Hospital 0.3
Normanby 0.2
Langlands Pk 0.2
Herston 0.2
Greenslopes 0.2
Stones Cnr 0.1

Thanks for the data Aldonius. If you add up all these numbers across 15 stations you get 18.5 million trips. This is still lower than 26 million p.a. So what you would get from 9 stations might be lower.

We haven't been able to adjust for speed differences between subway and busway yet (if there will be) which is a shortcoming of this approach.

The centre of the network tends to be an high value outlier due to network effects. We see this with central station which has 11 million entries p.a. versus say the valley or roma street which do ~ 3 million p.a.

An average inner city busway stop boarding per station is about 1 million p.a., which over 8 stations is 8 million, then let's add the main station outlier, let's say that's 5 million p.a.

You get ~ 13 million p.a. Members can play around with different reconstruction approaches.

The general thing is the different approaches taken so far all seem to cluster around ~ 15 million p.a. I'm yet to figure out how to adjust the patronage up for potential speed differences.

What can be done to improve this? More stations seem needed.

Quote from: #Metro on August 21, 2023, 11:34:10 AMWhat can be done to improve this? More stations seem needed.

BTW, I've edited in Roma St busway and South Bank busway which do about 2 million each.

It seems to me that if the target is something above 25 million p.a. then the numbers just aren't there yet for a subway. You probably assume some induced patronage due to a more prestigious mode.

Here's another approach. Assume PT mode share of say 20% in the area near a station. We know people make about 3 trips a day on average. Then that's 219 PT trips per person per year. Divide your 25 million p.a. by that, you need about 115,000 residents in the areas around the stations on the line.

QuoteAssume PT mode share of say 20% in the area near a station.

I think Jonno just became very upset.

That said, I think you could plan for the mode share you want. Eg 30 to 40% or more is entirely reasonable for dense inner suburbs in a decade or two, if the infrastructure is in place.

33% mode share.

So basically 365 trips per person on average.

25 million per annum on a metro.

Now you only need 68,500 people living in the catchment of the stations.

9 stations.
~7600 per station.

Meanwhile, Hamilton north shore is forecast to have 12,000 people by 2036.

 

Quote from: #Metro on August 21, 2023, 09:01:16 AM

Quote from: JimmyPWhat I do know is that it would have very little to do with the amount of people catching the train from the Gold Coast/Beenleigh/Cleveland lines to South Brisbane, nor the amount of people catching a metro that mostly runs through the boondocks in another city.
I also have a pretty good assumption that a high quality transport corridor with well located access points along the general corridor being discussed should draw quite a good amount of patronage if done right.

Well, I think you might agree with me that if we cannot say anything about the peak load or annual patronage, then we cannot conclude anything about the merit of the proposal. Because the merit of the proposal will turn on the patronage carried, and the appropriateness of using the subway mode will turn on the peak load demand.

Having some indication of this is mission-critical information IMHO.

Perhaps the other way to estimate is to look at inner-city busway stations within 5 km of the CBD and annual tap-ons at those stations. The service frequencies there exceed metro standards, it is Class A ROW, trips are not regional, and the station spacing is broadly comparable. It would be necessary to decide on whether to include or exclude counting trips coming from outside this zone though based on whether you believe the subway will be well connected to feeder buses or not.

I'm not sure if you realise, but ROBT is a discussion forum, not a consultancy business who has all the data available to the and the ear of Government to advise whether projects are viable or not.
Being a discussion forum, we can absolutely discuss the merits and drawbacks of proposed ideas, along with relevebt data to back our positions where possible, but making absolute decisions on said projects using numbers that have bugger all to do with the actual proposal, such as how many people from Cleveland/Beenleigh/Gold Coast get off at South Brisbane, nor how many people catch a Metro running through low density suburbia when we're discussing a subway proposal almost exclusively located in medium to high density inner city areas.
We can also definitely push or promote official studies being conducted in to proposals the members believe are worthy, but we've simply not got the correct data to make hard and fast decisions like you're doing. And a lot of the data you have presented has little to do with the proposal being discussed.

Yes, there may be some people who use the current South Brisbane station who may connect on to the subway, however those people are likely already catching a bus to where they need to go, or possibly active transport. Therefore, using bus patronage data for bus routes along the general route would be much more useful, plus adding a multiplier to those numbers to account for things such as increased speed, lure of rail transport, better feederisation etc.

Plus, the goal of spending the money on building infrastructure like this is certainly not to keep the pathetically low PT mode share we currently have, it would be to improve said mode share, reduce car dependancy in those areas and promote better overall transport, leaving a lasting piece of infrastructure in place for the next 100+ years with significant capacity that (hopefully) won't be filled up within the first decade. For example, if the numbers did in fact say the subway proposal would gain 18m people when it opens, therefore is not immediately enough for the subway, but we still wanted something done, why waste the money building a busway etc which will essentially be at capacity at those numbers the day it opens? Surely its not hard to see that 18m the day it opens would quickly become 26m and many more over the next decade or two, especially given population increases etc that are forecast for the city. Therefore, while the raw numbers right now may not point conclusively towards a subway proposal, by the time it is built (likely a decade away if a study was started today), that number could well be at the magical 26m figure (which itself is a number that could easily be higher or lower with proper investigation and data). Add in higher modal share targets and it could be well and truely above that number.

I get the feeling that if the leaders of the past used the same sort of deductive reasoning that has been used in this thread, we wouldn't have a significant amount of the current infrastructure we now take for granted. Some things require futhre proofing and looking a long way to the future.

Would it make sense to build a busway or light rail along the route instead (difficult without tunnelling a lot, and at that point, why not just go for the higher capacity system straight up?) for a few billion less, only for it to be at capacity in a decade and regret not going the whole hog to start with?

I personally have no skin in this game. I think the subway is a reasonable proposal on the face of it, but I also don't have the data to make a qualified judgement on whether the project would be worthwhile in the future or not (and no, I really don't have that data, nor current bus route data along the proposed route and I really don't have the time at the moment to go digging for it). All I am trying to get at here is stop using irrelevant data points to "prove" your point of view regarding the proposal. Some of you other calculations for other projects etc has been very good, as it has used appropriate comparison data available, but the numbers you've been using here for the most part have had very little to do with this particular proposal, so to definitively say it does or does not have merit is, to be frank, wrong.

And as far as your objection to using bus data due to bus stop spacing being different to the proposed subway station spacing, that didn't seem to stop you using the Sydney North West Metro which averages at 2.77km station spacing.

Thank you for saving me a lot of typing!! Our mode share is so pathetic that using existing figures to vision and validate is pointless!!

Our Governments who do have the resources should be modeling a very different city/future!!

https://web.archive.org/web/20120610054630/http://www.connectingseq.qld.gov.au/Libraries/Publications_split/Draft_Connecting_SEQ_2031_-_factsheet_rail.pdf

^

Brisbane Subway [Original concept as published in the Connecting SEQ 2031]

An extra 100 000 people are forecast to live in inner Brisbane (CBD, Spring Hill, Milton, South
Brisbane and Fortitude Valley) by 2031, bringing the total population to 288 000. Coupled with
doubling of employment in the area from 209 000 in 2006 to 403 000 in 2031, this will mean
about 2.4 million trips a day in the inner city (up from about one million in 2006).
The Brisbane Subway will be delivered as an entirely new network, with completely separate
operations to the existing rail network.
The London Underground and New York City subway are well known examples of this style of rail operation.

Features of a Brisbane subway would include:

• ultra-high frequencies, with only 90 seconds needed between services for safe operations
• closely spaced stations for higher accessibility
• ability to turn more sharply and tackle steeper grades than the present suburban rail.

Brisbane Subway

• priority corridor from Toowong to West End to Bowen Hills/Newstead

• longer term opportunities to expand:
− Bowen Hills/Newstead to Airport Village via Hamilton North Shore
− Newstead to Bulimba




====

Draft Connecting SEQ 2031 - factsheet rail.pdf

https://railbotforum.org/mbs/index.php?action=dlattach;attach=2343

Sydney Metro costs about $1b/km. Based on that, please just delete this idea from the SEQ plan.

Its inclusion appears to be 'something to talk about' to support a progress narrative rather than a genuine project with an established or likely need.

I also note the 2031 date comes up against the Olympics works - so even higher contractor costs for this mega project.

The headline trip figure includes walking trips in the CBD.

Spending a fraction of the money on separated bike lanes and possibly surface LRT for the inner city seems to be better value than this particular subway proposal.

Since they are planning all these new 60-90 storey high rises along Montague Rd and Kurilpa, they are going to need a high capacity solution like an underground metro or LRT.