QLD PT Patronage data from FY 12/13 through to 16/17: Gold Coast Bus & Tram

[SurfRail]

The Gold Coast figures appear to prove what we knew all along, which is that there were 2 million fewer bus trips on the Gold Coast in 14/15 compared with 13/14.  Directly related to the introduction of light rail.  It was not a reduction of 4 million trips, or 6 million trips, as some people (including academics) have incorrectly stated.  I'll crunch the numbers over the weekend but it looks like by the end of 16/17 there was only around half a million lost vs 8 million tram trips gained.

Helensvale is in the top 10 stations for entries, and that was before GCLR2 opened.

[SurfRail]

I've attached a cleaned up version which only shows the Gold Coast figures, and accounts for the distinction between the mainline bus routes, school services and a bit of random fluff that isn't neatly categorised and mainly looks like special event or ad hoc trips.

Interestingly the light rail replacement figures are shown with what I assume is separate numbers for each direction - Surfside run these and it is all go card enabled.

There are going to be issues with the data being by route number for various reasons - on the Gold Coast alone for instance:

- 700 previously ran all the way to Southport full time and the route number has been retained for the Broadbeach South terminating version post-tram
- 704 was previously numbered 715 and the current 715 is a local route
- 760 was previously Pacific Fair to Tweed, then it got renumbered to 701, and now the patronage is all on the 700.  Current 760 was formerly 761.
- Some routes have been split up into numerous replacement versions (eg old Route 20, 20A and 21 are now 735, 736, 739, 743, 744, 746 and 749, and they have wildly different operating hours and even days of operation for the last 2)

It's more useful to look at the trends by each region / operator than get too fine grain.

I will send this off to the guy behind the Charting Transport blog to see if he has any interest in doing something with it - Gold Coast in particular because not being a capital city it is hard to get useful data comparable to what the ABS publishes for smaller cities like Hobart.

[SurfRail]

Back to the Gold Coast, there is a real mixed bag as to patronage levels vs growth.

The 4 I next expect to be upgraded to HF assuming no other major structural changes to the network would be these.  All half-hourly during weekdays.  (Percentages are growth or decline from 14/15 to 16/17.)

- 760 - 351,887 (9.01%)
- 745 - 246,413 (-4.47%)
- 735 - 243,385 (-8.17%)
- 747 - 185,794 (hourly only on weekends) (-11.64%)

The following I want to see running half-hourly or better and with a span of hours closer to 6am-9pm than at present (these are currently mostly hourly and mostly don't run after 7pm).

- 741 - 187,011 (-1.76%)
- 710 - 150,816 (half-hourly on weekdays only) (-4.08%)
- 738 - 147,039 (half-hourly on weekdays only) (2.68%)
- 711 - 145,603 (-7.53%)
- 755 - 136,845 (-1.79%)
- 725 - 121,506 (16.45%)
- 753 - 116,539 (0.24%)
- 715 - 108,020 (-4.46%)
- 714 - 105,593 (-2.52%)
- 754 - 105,035 (-0.64%)
- 731 - 86,279 (-11.03%)

Bit over half of all routes have negative growth in the 2 years from 14/15 to 16/17.  The 2 fastest growing routes are unsurprisingly in Coomera (722 with 44.47% and 726 with 36.73%)

[brian feeney]

How can I connect the route number in the Excel table with the operational bus route number for Surfside buses?
Brian

[SurfRail]

Brian,

Not sure what the query is there.  The route number shown in the left column is the number displayed on the bus.  For standard urban routes it is on the destination board, for school routes it is a 4-digit number in the front window.  The light rail replacement services appear to just be differently numbered for north and south but I have not queried that because they are ad hoc.  The other figures are either special event services or data entry errors, and represent only a tiny portion of the totals (which I have separated out for clarity).

There is only limited utility in delving too far into these figures on a route by route basis the route numbers have changed dramatically over time, some more significantly than others.

The figures are useful because they prove that on the whole the light rail system has catalysed an enormous uptake in public transport which cannot be explained away by people simply having to break their journeys in places where they may have formerly have had a single seat trip.  The numbers simply don't correlate to that outcome.  There is real, new growth happening.

[brian feeney]

Brian,

Not sure what the query is there.  The route number shown in the left column is the number displayed on the bus.  For standard urban routes it is on the destination board, for school routes it is a 4-digit number in the front window.  The light rail replacement services appear to just be differently numbered for north and south but I have not queried that because they are ad hoc.  The other figures are either special event services or data entry errors, and represent only a tiny portion of the totals (which I have separated out for clarity).

There is only limited utility in delving too far into these figures on a route by route basis the route numbers have changed dramatically over time, some more significantly than others.

The figures are useful because they prove that on the whole the light rail system has catalysed an enormous uptake in public transport which cannot be explained away by people simply having to break their journeys in places where they may have formerly have had a single seat trip.  The numbers simply don't correlate to that outcome.  There is real, new growth happening.

I'm confused. Can't see my local Sunbus 753 route in column B in the table

[brian feeney]

Sorry that should have been Surfside 753 route

[ozbob]

Hi Brian

I see these figures from https://railbotforum.org/mbs/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=13269.0;attach=1567 this is the spreadsheet SurfRail did for Gold Coast

753    164,928     135,789     116,258     115,110     116,539    

From FY 12/13 to FY 16/17

[SurfRail]

I attribute most of the fall in the 753's patronage to the fact that previously it and the 748 were the only services to the Market Square area, before the 750 got rerouted there and upgraded to run at high frequency during the day (and the 748 leg from Robina Town Centre to Bond Uni was canned in January 2014).  It's still doing well for an hourly route.