Not happy ...

[ozbob]

Feedback received, thanks.  This member of the public is clearly not happy, and has given permission for this to be posted.

Yesterday I made my bi-weekly trip to Slacks Creek. As I have at times missed the 555 at the cultural centre stop due to drivers being more interested in overtaking other buses than worrying about passengers, I headed for the Mater stop.

Along the way there was a continuous stream of buses crawling bumper to bumper from Southbank stop all the way to Melbourne St, and beyond.

After waiting almost 30 minutes for a 555 on a 15 minute headway, I gave up and went to my destinations, via other routes.

A bus driver told me that when the Captain Cook bridge is congested the buses which normally come to the city via it are directed to stay on the busway.

WHO BUT A TOTALLY INCOMPETENT IDIOT WOULD MAKE SUCH A TOTALLY INANE DECISION????? Not only was little if anything done for the CC bridge buses, but this clown effectively totally stuffed up all the other busway services. Obviously this clown has no idea that any schoolkid knows the busway near the city is already at capacity.

And before you get complacent that there is no other incompetence and foolishness in your department, here are a few other matter to mull over (or more likely treat with the Delete button to protect some senior morons from the truth.)

In 1975 London had a geographic map of all its bus routes. Sydney has had them and I will send one on if I can get a copy.

So besides being an inferior village, what excuse does Brisbane have for not having one? If one wants to get to a place not visited before, it is a long and slow process of asking bus drivers do they know what route goes there.
Don't tell me to look at your stupid website. You show me where the maps are for routes 14 and 15 go on the Gold Coast. The only way to find out is to find one somewhere and catch it. At least map on the back of the timetable is good. All you have to do is find one of the bloody things.

Don't you people ever get out of your air-conditioned offices and discover how USER-HOSTILE public transport is in Brisbane???

I wrote to you previously about the lack of running time on the 545 operated by Park Ridge Transit (your ref. COR11/579). I have since spoken to drivers on that service, and they told me they have been complaining for a couple of years about the situation. One told me of the minutes wasted by going 1 1/2 times around the block at Woodridge station so that passengers going south don't have to cross the road! (Another foolish decision). Also I was told there are many more traffic lights along Browns Plains Rd than when the service was started. Just how bad does it have to get before this situation is rectified? After all, I must admit that most other services I have used are not too far off time. So why not fix this with an economy elsewhere. Plenty of services are duplicated.
There must be another sadist in there who places bus stops on some routes as far apart as railway stations, and as far as possible from important cross streets where  somebody could well want to walk. And what is their game at placing bus stops for two different services 100 metres apart in the one street, when neither service operates better than half-hourly? Just go to Kessels Rd near Clive Peeters to see just one example of this. Not to mention off-peak services carrying 2 or 3 passengers which only stop here and there. I hate this system!

The bus stop at the cultural centre has (like other stops) a pathetic electronic timetable display. What idiot has programmed it to show sometimes 3 buses out of four terminating at the next stop, when umpteen other services actually going somewhere go un-announced? What's more, Melbourne has had 'real time' displays which show what services are actually coming towards such a stop, not what services are supposed to be arriving. And its about time the clock at this and a few other stops was set. It has been about 3 minutes early for weeks now. On top of a lack of route map at such important bus stops, the written description or where each service goes is so vague as to be totally useless.

And the trains leave a lot to be desired. You only have to go to Perth to see how to do things properly.
As for incompetence, who is the sadistic fool who arranged the timetable so that trains coming from Nambour miss the connection south from Caboolture by just 2 or 3 minutes? This applies to both the hopeless shuttles that terminate at Caboolture, and the through services onto which people wanting intermediate stations south of that suburb have to change.

It is probably the same sadist who has almost guaranteed that a train passenger going from Ipswich has about 28 minutes to wait for a Gold Coast train, and to be thorough, the Coast train coming north has to be only a minute late for the Ipswich connection to be missed.

I can only assume that it took a lot of searching to get together such an incompetent bunch of fools to work in Translink.

I am not the only one to be totally unimpressed by this amateurish operation of a transport network. Attached is a letter in a recent edition of the Sunday Mail.

The gocard has its moments also. Sometimes it charges me for the return trip to Slacks Creek, sometimes it counts the whole journey as a continuation. Win some, lose some.

But the biggest lie is the 'free travel for seniors after the first 2 journeys.'  You don't tell anybody that they have to wait an hour between each of the first 3 journeys for the 3rd and subsequent to be free. One day I travelled to the Gold Coast making 2 train trips and at least 6 bus rides, and I was charged (where appropriate) for every single ride. Do you take the blame for that, or is it our lying politicians?

If you think that this is a list of everything wrong with Translink services, let me assure you it is no more than the tip of the iceberg.

You can be sure of one thing: it is only expensive petrol, congested roads or a lack of motor car keeping you people in a job. No sane person would ride Translink by choice.

Yours faithfully,

[longboi]

Yes I'm sure this vitriolic diatribe will do wonders with TL.

[#Metro]

I have been through bus jam processes too. I'm not sure if the frequency of these incidents have gone up in recent years, but whoever sent in this feedback was not happy.
Look beyond the words- there is a deeper issue here.

THE BUSWAY IS REACHING CAPACITY

TL just cannot ignore this problem. Do nothing and it will suffer busjams like overseas. See here http://www.flickr.com/photos/ottawabusgallery/3930509680/lightbox/

It won't happen overnight, but it will happen. The Captain Cook Bridge is Class C right of way. That is, the lowest capacity, least reliable, most easily congested ROW you can hope to run a PT service in. If somebody sneezes on the Captain Cook Bridge, the entire busway will be affected with congestion, completely nullifying the purpose of Class A ROW grade separation.
The Cultural Centre is near or at capacity, I am thoroughly convinced of this by the non-running of 44X services in peak times through there.

TransLink can't say they didn't know the busway would do this. It was written, black and white in the Mass Transit Report 2007 that the busway will be approaching capacity. When any system approaches capacity, it begins to die a slow death- it starts to become prone to delays, congestion and incidents.

None of this is to say that busways can't work. They can, but with the huge volumes of people it is trying to handle, I doubt there will be much time left for it to continue to operate
as a zero-transfer facility. It is time to get an upgrade.

[#Metro]

TL and BT appear quite content with a spaghetti of bus routes. I presume their term for this is "choice" and "flexibility" (euphemisms for complexity and confusion).
Even Jonno was complaining about it in other threads. Even I have been caught accidentally on 13X services which I had no idea skipped certain busway stops.

They don't have a map because there are so many bus routes, it would look like Sphagetti bolognaise thrown at someone's window. That's why they have these trunk busway routes such as 555 and 111 because the rest are peak-hour and too complex to remember all of them.

[#Metro]

UrbanRail.net Robert Schwandl, a non-RAILBOT independent transit enthusiast:

The biggest advantage is without doubt the one-seat ride from the CBD to your home, at a speed which is probably higher than any other possible transport, at least as soon as the bus is on the dedicated busway. But to achieve this exclusive, almost taxi-like service, you need to provide an extremely large amount of different bus routes to reach every corner of the urban and suburban sprawl, which results in a network layout which is impossible to illustrate (at the Transit Information Centre they admitted that they cannot print a bus map because there are so many lines – anyway, they don't even print a map for the central area or for individual suburbs either....). As the enormous flux from the suburbs into the CBD and back home again occurs only during peak hours, I observed MANY buses leaving the central area almost empty during daytime hours. Of course, you cannot have 500 bus routes running every 10 minutes during the day, but if the frequency is not good enough, no occasional rider bothers to wait for that bus. So while regular CBD commuters will know which bus they take and from where, the "system" is useless for occasional riders (not to talk about visitors not familiar with many place names). Even on the busways it is actually not really clear where all these buses go to, as there are so many different lines passing through that even the experienced traveller loses control, inbound it is always easier as most go to the CBD. I don't know about costs, but I cannot really believe that paying the salary of all the necessary bus drivers is not a strong argument against this sort of transportation. In general, the bus fleet appeared more modern than for example in Auckland, and some buses were even powered by natural gas. Still exhaust fumes extraction from the tunnels must also be an important cost factor.

Surely TL must know about legibility, interchange, making efficient use of vehicles, etc etc. If you choose not to force interchange, you are choosing something ten times worse- FORCED LOW FREQUENCY EVERYWHERE.


http://schwandl.blogspot.com/2011/02/down-under-tour-2011-brisbane.html

[longboi]

Bus jam was a point I started raising around 2004 when the INB opened and CC terminators were introduced.

It should have been heavy rail from the get-go.

[#Metro]

I think busway was the right choice when the decision was made.
I still think that it is the right choice- they need to fix the operations perhaps like was suggested in the mass transit report.

At the time the recommendations of that report were brushed off by saying that new ticketing would solve that (Go Card), all door boarding (still waiting to see that happen), and superbuses (um, yeah, there are 2 on the entire system).

So they know about the problem, and they have known for years.
Expect to see 10 times more of these complaints as more and more services are added to the busway. 199 is also having a capacity crisis. Coronation Drive is just a basket case. Northern Busway is struggling to fit people on as BrizCommuter keeps telling us. And then when Eastern Busway comes online... See the big picture? You can't run the city on just bus. And all the while, this gigantic rail network sits under-utilised.

They just can't fit all those buses on. Cultural Centre busway is near or at capacity. So if something happens on Captain Cook Bridge--- ah chooo--- then it all breaks down.

[O_128]

I think busway was the right choice when the decision was made.
I still think that it is the right choice- they need to fix the operations perhaps like was suggested in the mass transit report.

At the time the recommendations of that report were brushed off by saying that new ticketing would solve that (Go Card), all door boarding (still waiting to see that happen), and superbuses (um, yeah, there are 2 on the entire system).

So they know about the problem, and they have known for years.
Expect to see 10 times more of these complaints as more and more services are added to the busway. 199 is also having a capacity crisis. Coronation Drive is just a basket case. Northern Busway is struggling to fit people on as BrizCommuter keeps telling us. And then when Eastern Busway comes online... See the big picture? You can't run the city on just bus. And all the while, this gigantic rail network sits under-utilised.

Take a step back tramtrain, people not change unless they are on the brink of collapse, coro drive needs to grind to even more of a halt, busway needs to jam itself back to buranda and fuel needs to hit $2, then watch the change, busway will turn to light rail, feeder buses will spring from the ground, and all the rail constraints will disappear over night, Its going to get alot worse before it gets better 

They just can't fit all those buses on. Cultural Centre busway is near or at capacity. So if something happens on Captain Cook Bridge--- ah chooo--- then it all breaks down.

[BrizCommuter]

Northern Busway is struggling to fit people on as BrizCommuter keeps telling us.

The Northern Busway's issues are caused by lack of buses, rather than busway congestion (too many buses).

[#Metro]

Yesterday I made my bi-weekly trip to Slacks Creek. As I have at times missed the 555 at the cultural centre stop due to drivers being more interested in overtaking other buses than worrying about passengers, I headed for the Mater stop.

It can be a problem. With rail, the train stops and you don't have to run through crowds to get your service. As I am getting older, my vision isn't so good now so I have trouble also seeing which bus is my one and the PID isn't always accurate.

Along the way there was a continuous stream of buses crawling bumper to bumper from Southbank stop all the way to Melbourne St, and beyond.

After waiting almost 30 minutes for a 555 on a 15 minute headway, I gave up and went to my destinations, via other routes.

A bus driver told me that when the Captain Cook bridge is congested the buses which normally come to the city via it are directed to stay on the busway.

WHO BUT A TOTALLY INCOMPETENT IDIOT WOULD MAKE SUCH A TOTALLY INANE DECISION?? Not only was little if anything done for the CC bridge buses, but this clown effectively totally stuffed up all the other busway services. Obviously this clown has no idea that any schoolkid knows the busway near the city is already at capacity.

Bus lanes would help here. But you know, if they sent buses via Captain Cook, they would all get caught in congestion (not that there is any escape from this either way).

Don't tell me to look at your stupid website. You show me where the maps are for routes 14 and 15 go on the Gold Coast. The only way to find out is to find one somewhere and catch it. At least map on the back of the timetable is good. All you have to do is find one of the bloody things.

. Yes they need maps. Even at train stations and for trains and frequent buses. We can't print a map for inner Brisbane, it would just be impossible. Too many overlapping routes.

Also I was told there are many more traffic lights along Browns Plains Rd than when the service was started. Just how bad does it have to get before this situation is rectified? After all, I must admit that most other services I have used are not too far off time. So why not fix this with an economy elsewhere. Plenty of services are duplicated.

Traffic Light priority. It would be a low-concrete way to speed things up. Oh well...

There must be another sadist in there who places bus stops on some routes as far apart as railway stations, and as far as possible from important cross streets where  somebody could well want to walk. And what is their game at placing bus stops for two different services 100 metres apart in the one street, when neither service operates better than half-hourly? Just go to Kessels Rd near Clive Peeters to see just one example of this. Not to mention off-peak services carrying 2 or 3 passengers which only stop here and there. I hate this system!

Without interchange a lot of air is carried around. Stops near cross streets are good because they allow access in all directions, provided there are crossings. But pedestrian crossings (especially the stripey ones) are frowned upon because it slows car down. Also, bus stops near intersections get in the way of turning traffic, and slows car down. So you can guess which vehicle gets priority here- (and it is not the bus!)

The bus stop at the cultural centre has (like other stops) a pathetic electronic timetable display. What idiot has programmed it to show sometimes 3 buses out of four terminating at the next stop, when umpteen other services actually going somewhere go un-announced? What's more, Melbourne has had 'real time' displays which show what services are actually coming towards such a stop, not what services are supposed to be arriving. And its about time the clock at this and a few other stops was set. It has been about 3 minutes early for weeks now. On top of a lack of route map at such important bus stops, the written description or where each service goes is so vague as to be totally useless.

My bus actually came 10 minutes late today. Each bus stop has a code number that could be used for a system like Melbourne Tram tracker. But no, instead expensive PIDs are proposed to go everywhere. Why not just get people to use ipad, iphone and their mobile phone. I would have used it today to see if my bus was coming or if I just should give up. A random person asked me at the bus stop if we should go by taxi and split the fare because it was so late. Luckily the bus showed up before we reach for our phones.

And the trains leave a lot to be desired. You only have to go to Perth to see how to do things properly.
As for incompetence, who is the sadistic fool who arranged the timetable so that trains coming from Nambour miss the connection south from Caboolture by just 2 or 3 minutes? This applies to both the hopeless shuttles that terminate at Caboolture, and the through services onto which people wanting intermediate stations south of that suburb have to change.

Oh Perth? This is Brisbane. No-one wants to know about Perth, or indeed anywhere that there is a BASIC train frequency. In fact, we pretend that we don't even have a train system when
talking about transport in South East Queensland. RAIL has become a dirty word it seems...

It is probably the same sadist who has almost guaranteed that a train passenger going from Ipswich has about 28 minutes to wait for a Gold Coast train, and to be thorough, the Coast train coming north has to be only a minute late for the Ipswich connection to be missed.

Yes, it is frequency and feeder buses connecting trains. But "everybody hates interchange" apparently, so feeder bus leaves a lot to be desired.

I can only assume that it took a lot of searching to get together such an incompetent bunch of fools to work in Translink.

I am not the only one to be totally unimpressed by this amateurish operation of a transport network. Attached is a letter in a recent edition of the Sunday Mail.

To be entirely fair, I don't think it is all TransLink's fault. The train system has difficulty in even supporting 15 minute basic frequency in parts due to lack of crossovers, platforms or sections of single track. Then there is all the funding issues.

[#Metro]

Take a step back tramtrain, people not change unless they are on the brink of collapse, coro drive needs to grind to even more of a halt, busway needs to jam itself back to buranda and fuel needs to hit $2, then watch the change, busway will turn to light rail, feeder buses will spring from the ground, and all the rail constraints will disappear over night, Its going to get alot worse before it gets better  

I agree totally. Can you imagine something like a serious chronic bus jam happening in the middle of an election. 150 000 people use that busway each day. I've been in busjams that have been all the way back to Buranda. It's horrible.

[#Metro]

The Northern Busway's issues are caused by lack of buses, rather than busway congestion (too many buses).

Yes and no. The thing about the Northern Busway is that there is no Captain Cook Bridge you can spill out on to. So I think it will hit capacity much faster than the SE busway did, once it is completed all the way to Chermside.

There is a lack of buses, but I suspect that's because they are all being used on the SE busway plus to add a new service you have to buy a new bus ($500 000 - $750 000 or so I am guessing) as almost all buses are in use during peak hour. To be fair, some counter peak runs might be possible as Somebody suggested.

[ozbob]

Rants like the OP are becoming a lot more common.  Clearly there is a basis to the frustration many public transport commuters are feeling.  To continue to deny/ignore such feedback will be costly in terms of the electoral process.  Just look at Victoria, and now NSW ....

[dwb]

Unfortunately the refusal by the Lord Mayor to allow bus lanes on the Story Bridge at the cost of River City Motorways Corporation and preventing an alternative access to the CBD from the south, has meant that the busway is at congestion for a long time when it needn't be.

Unfortunately, this forum, and many in the community think TTA is the only organisation responsible for this mess. I guarantee you that Translink have enough brains to implement many of the much needed improvements but they are lacking the authority or the funding or have problems with their partners delivering.

I do acknowledge that if some simple things they do have in their control were done better then perhaps they could spend money on other more important things, however the maps issue (at least at a google level) and the realtime-information issue both involve external partners. Unfortunately when one partner fails to deliver, then Translink cops the blame.

Obviously these things are needed, half the time its just politics that they don't happen and sometimes there are other barriers. Offending individuals who work their arses off within the bureaucracy to improve the system won't achieve anything. There is no reason in life to be offensive. Any and all suggestions can be made in a polite and constructive fashion.

[#Metro]

Going via Story Bridge is probably not optimal. You will now have three possible places the bus will be going from the busway, which is just going to add more confusion.
The northern part of Adelaide street and fortitude valley is also notorious for congestion.

[somebody]

Oh boy, where to start?

The Northern Busway's issues are caused by lack of buses, rather than busway congestion (too many buses).

Yes and no. The thing about the Northern Busway is that there is no Captain Cook Bridge you can spill out on to. So I think it will hit capacity much faster than the SE busway did, once it is completed all the way to Chermside.

Incorrect, TT.  331/332/341 use a via Spring Hill routing.  A via Valley routing is also possible.

BrizCommuter is right 100%.

Unfortunately the refusal by the Lord Mayor to allow bus lanes on the Story Bridge at the cost of River City Motorways Corporation and preventing an alternative access to the CBD from the south, has meant that the busway is at congestion for a long time when it needn't be.

Unfortunately, this forum, and many in the community think TTA is the only organisation responsible for this mess. I guarantee you that Translink have enough brains to implement many of the much needed improvements but they are lacking the authority or the funding or have problems with their partners delivering.

I do acknowledge that if some simple things they do have in their control were done better then perhaps they could spend money on other more important things, however the maps issue (at least at a google level) and the realtime-information issue both involve external partners. Unfortunately when one partner fails to deliver, then Translink cops the blame.

Obviously these things are needed, half the time its just politics that they don't happen and sometimes there are other barriers. Offending individuals who work their arses off within the bureaucracy to improve the system won't achieve anything. There is no reason in life to be offensive. Any and all suggestions can be made in a polite and constructive fashion.

In defence of incompetence.

While there are political issues with bus lanes, and I am sure contractors do stuff up, it is really TTA's responsibility.  TTA copping the blame for their delivery partners failures is completely fair.  Part of TTA's job is to supervise it's partners, at least to some degree.

Going via Story Bridge is probably not optimal. You will now have three possible places the bus will be going from the busway, which is just going to add more confusion.
The northern part of Adelaide street and fortitude valley is also notorious for congestion.

Fine off peak.  In peak, it certainly needs a bus lane.  If there is no tidal flow, then why not a 24 hour bus lane?

[#Metro]

Incorrect, TT.  331/332/341 use a via Spring Hill routing.  A via Valley routing is also possible.

To my knowledge these are not fast arterial roads. If you route buses into congestion, you are going to need more buses to keep the same headway. So not ideal IMHO.
There's nothing down there that comes even close to the function of the Captain Cook bridge - unless maybe the INB??

Fine off peak.  In peak, it certainly needs a bus lane.  If there is no tidal flow, then why not a 24 hour bus lane?

I have a feeling that even if you did this, there would still be space constraints- i.e. lack of kerb space to accommodate this.

[ozbob]

Unfortunately, this forum, and many in the community think TTA ...

Not so Dwb, individuals might but as a group we understand the various roles and in fact regularly stand up for TransLink and others when it is appropriate. A recent example, UQ Lakes bus station ...

The general public sees TransLink as the authority.  Simple as that.

[somebody]

Incorrect, TT.  331/332/341 use a via Spring Hill routing.  A via Valley routing is also possible.

To my knowledge these are not fast arterial roads. If you route buses into congestion, you are going to need more buses to keep the same headway. So not ideal IMHO.
There's nothing down there that comes even close to the function of the Captain Cook bridge - unless maybe the INB??

Heading inbound, the via Spring Hill route is faster to Central (stop 141) than the via INB route to KGSBS and serves more of the CBD. The outbound via Spring Hill route needs work.

Not sure if the Captain Cook Bridge is much faster, as it is highly congested in peak also.

[#Metro]

Not so Dwb, individuals might but as a group we understand the various roles and in fact regularly stand up for TransLink and others when it is appropriate. A recent example, UQ Lakes bus station ...

The general public sees TransLink as the authority.  Simple as that.

TTA was created to be the one stop shop.
Unfortunately that also means one stop shop for complaints- even when really other parties can be the cause (BCC and Coronation Drive).

[colinw]

Yes I'm sure this vitriolic diatribe will do wonders with TL.

Yeah, it is a bit over the top.

Although having had experience with some of the services that travel beyond the end of the busway down this way I do see where he is coming from.

Unfortunately, while they may contain many valid points, rants like that seldom produce the desired outcome.  Surest way to get someone to switch off is to start yelling at them.

[mufreight]

Yes I'm sure this vitriolic diatribe will do wonders with TL.

Yeah, it is a bit over the top.

Although having had experience with some of the services that travel beyond the end of the busway down this way I do see where he is coming from.

Unfortunately, while they may contain many valid points, rants like that seldom produce the desired outcome.  Surest way to get someone to switch off is to start yelling at them.

Would argue about the unhappy camper being over the top with his as you put it "RANT"
Public Transport is a service industry and if the service provider does not provide that service this then creates frustration that if the levels of service remain below a reasonable expectation boils over, Translink wants full control, with that comes full responsibility and it is not unreasonable that people such as the unhappy camper who have made some allowance for delays in their journey to get more than slightly aggrivated when the cumulative failures of the service providers create the situation where it is impractical to use public transport in the manner espoused by the Translink call centre and this failure is made worse by lack of frequency on route resulting inlong waiting times..
Public Transport is a service that Government is obliged to provide and with the current over inflated fares they are at least entitled to reliable transpory, obviously beyond the ability of Translink to provide this.   

[colinw]

Is it too much to expect people to be polite instead of abusive?

Trust me, the message gets across a lot better if you stay calm!

As to the content - yes, I agree with much of it.  It certainly matches my experience with bus services down here in the south past the end of the busway.  I definitely concur with your opinion that TransLink does not seem to be up to the task of providing even a basic level of service (or alternatively is hamstrung from doing so - from the "outside" there is no way to tell what is going on in there).

[mufreight]

Ok fellows here we go again, this thread started off with an Email that had been sent to Translink about failings in the service provided and relating to trips between the City and Slacks Creek and touch on ouher points relating to the failure of Translink to address these problems, yet once again the thread has gone considerably off topic and devolved into a discussion about bus services and routes to Chermside and services to PCH.
Without doubt a valid topic for a thread but far more credible in a thread that is relevant to those routes and services.
      

[somebody]

Thread split off to bus/ferry forum here: http://railbotforum.org/mbs/index.php?topic=5719.0

You have a point here, mufreight.