Pacific Pines area - Routes 14, 16, 727, 728 and Yourbus

[SurfRail]

The Pacific Pines area has traditionally had very weak public transport in place, with largely the original network still there in the form of Routes 14 (Helensvale to Southport via Pacific Pines and Arundel) and 16 (Southport to Gaven Heights via Labrador and Helensvale).  Both are quite infrequent, circuitous and do not interface well with major destinations such as Griffith Uni.

The 727 and 728 are more recent additions to the system and did not have any pre-TransLink precursor routes - they are 'from scratch'.

Likewise, the very welcome Yourbus service - which is a model for what SHOULD have happened at Ipswich - appears to have proven a dramatic success.  With on-demand services operating every half-hour, integration with train times, no need to book the return journey, additional services for late-night shopping, no transfer penalty (ie gold coin donation to Cabcharge), distinctive branding and no replacement of existing fixed routes, it is one of the more successful paratransit services to be rolled out in recent years in SEQ.

(The caveat to this is the absolute lack of mention of this service on the TransLink website!  GCCC puts out a brochure which can be found from this explanatory page:  http://www.goldcoast.qld.gov.au/t_standard2.aspx?pid=9139)

While strides have been made to improve services, it is time to review how this array of services operates with each other.

I propose the following routing measures - I am assuming half-hourly frequency at a minimum, from 6am to 9pm, which would be a drastic improvement on current levels.

Route 14

- Renumber to a route no. in the 720 or 730 range for legibility.

- Current route retained between Helensvale and the start of Napper Road.  The diversion into Helensvale Plaza would be removed, as this older shopping centre opposite the Westfield is now/will be adequately serviced by Discovery Drive routes (3, 725, 726).

- Straight run along the length of Napper Road to Olsen Avenue, then into Griffith Uni

- Straight from Griffith Uni to Smith St, then via current route to terminate in Southport.

- Portions of the route no longer serviced would be covered by the replacement for the 15.

Route 16

- Separate into 2 separate routes.  The portion from Southport to Harbour Town would survive in more or less its current form, with some ironing out to provide better coverage when mated with the Southport-Harbour Town leg of Route 5.  Renumber to 716 for legibility. 

- Some thought should also be given to its northern terminus.  On balance I think Harbour Town will probably do, because there is nowhere else to interchange effectively to continue to Helensvale if the routing was to continue to say Runaway Bay.  (TransLink's previous prognostications were that this leg would be integrated with the 10 up to Sanctuary Cove which would no longer mirror the 706 along Frank Street.  I actually do not favour this given the increase in journey time and lack of a decent rail connection.)

- No service from Harbour Town to Helensvale.  This is wasteful duplication along a corridor already served by the 709 and 715 and (in part) the 3 and 5.

- Rationalise service from Helensvale to Pacific Pines by integrating with the 728 for a more direct and sensible route. No service to Helensvale Plaza, but keep the Universal St loop and current route as far as the Gaven primary school, then adopt the 728 route to the Pac Pines Town Centre.

Route 727

- Probably no change required to the route except I don't think sending it via the WRX experience and a sea of empty fields just before Ormeau is a good use of resources.  Perhaps reassess whether there can be common routing with the 567 leaving Ormeau, diverting south instead of north at the M1 eastern service road and then resuming the current route just north of the Yawalpah Rd M1 interchange at the Pimpama 'CBD'.

Route 728

- See above.

Yourbus

Current concept seems to have been well-executed and decently patronised.  It is a reasonable solution to the particular problem of Pacific Pines, being isolated on the "wrong" side of the M1.  Without it, you would otherwise need some sort of poorly designed loop service to improve service density and which would have to contend with the fairly steep terrain.  What is needed is simply longer operating hours, so that people returning from north of the Gold Coast can take advantage of it to get home in the evenings.  There are already reasonably good morning services, with an earlier start than most other routes.

This may require Surfside to fetch the other low-floor minibus (no. 801) that lives at Tweed Depot, or borrow some more from the Sunshine Coast, and sticker them up like the current 3 in use.

The resources saved by splitting up the 16 and rationalising the Gaven Heights service should go some way to allowing these to be implemented.

Any thoughts?

[Golliwog]

I don't know much about any of the GC bus routes really, but what you've outlined sounds reasonable. I am a big fan of the Yourbus thing, and certainly agree that Flexilink should have looked more like this. The feather in its cap is most definatly to go-card readers, though that is how it should be. I look forward to the results of their trial being released, and hope TransLink keep an eye on it too. They should be collecting go card data from it all, so hopefully we could see this being rolled out in other areas where services are hard to route due to the larger nature of your standard bus.

As an aside, I would probably vote for a fixed route and timetable for a minibus route, but this to your door service also sounds promising.

[SurfRail]

As an aside, I would probably vote for a fixed route and timetable for a minibus route, but this to your door service also sounds promising.

This was "trialled" VERY comprehensively accross the Coast from the early 90s until 2008.  Doesn't work here.

Normally I take exception to arguments like that, because clearly minibuses work well elsewhere.

However, minibuses on normal route services throughout the Gold Coast presented a nightmare in an environment where the lower patronage services were the ones that had to go up the steep hills, ie nearly every Gold Coast bus route except the highway corridor and former Trainlink routes.  The 14 and 16 in particular suffer from some very difficult slopes, as do the 18, 20A and 21 and several Tweed routes.  Minibuses suffered dramatically from power and gearbox problems after being thrashed around on these routes, and god forbid you found yourself in one of the few air-conditioned vehicles on a slope!

From an operational perspective, it is easier to have larger buses as the "flexibility" is much greater.  A larger bus is only really constrained by the horizontal route geometry, not passenger loadings or hilly routes, and bears the stresses of the journey better (for passenger's and for maintenance' sake).  You only need to keep a sufficient number of shorter wheelbase or minibuses on hand for those routes that really need them - or preferably design your routes around the problem.  The main cost is really the wages and maintenance bill, not so much fuel.

A comparable service which still exists and is now serviced with full size buses is the rather dreadful 737.  Definitely a welfare service this one, with a rather difficult to follow timetable, variable outbound route from Southport and only 4 returns trips per day (albeit on weekends too).  While minibuses are probably a reasonable choice for this service, why bother when a conventional 12.5m bus can do it for not significantly greater cost and allows you to have a general-purpose fleet to the furthest extent possible?

The 3 minibuses currently in use for Yourbus are somewhat better powered than the old manual Mercedes 811Ds which have all now (mercifully) been withdrawn!  This allows the door-to-door feature to actually work without taking hours traversing the Pacific Pines terrain, which is far from flat. I can't see this service working with the older minibuses, a handful of which remain in service over the border.

I will be making additional posts on similar clusterings of GC routes.  While I appreciate not everybody is familiar with them to the extent I am, I'd like to see if people could apply their expertise to resolving some of the more challenging questions.