Is this an option to reduce cost/improve safety at night

[rtt_rules]

Ok we all know how late you run trains at night is based on need vs cost, but what limits the need is often perceived risk/safety by passengers. Personally I would not want my wife (daughter I had one) travelling home from work in CBD late at night by train unless it was to a major station hub from which I or other was waiting to pick them up. How late and which line would be by case by case basis.

So options for the operators
Dubai's Metro normally started from around 6am and it takes around 80min for a train to go one end to another all stops and normally no option for express running. However recently they have started trains starting around 5:30am'ish in 10min intervals and only stop at major destinations. And these are not the same for each direction. They have done a bit of homework to do this and its currently on trial. What it means is that in early hours when passengers are light, the trains are missing the stations were its unlikely to draw any or significant number of bodies and thus increasing the usefullness of the service to those who do use it as its faster, but lower cost as it doesn't stop every 3min. I think there are only about 10 stops verus 30 odd normally.

So how to apply to Australia/QRCT.
After a certain time at night (line dependant). Trains would only run limited express, stopping only a major destinations and stations with good security but overall probably only stopping at 25% of the stations. At some of these major stations, there would be buses to convey pax to those intermediate stations on a as required basis but also able to stop at any destignated bus-stop along the allocated route to drop off/pick up. As the stopping train station is likely to see more numbers than currently, its more justified to have manned security there.

Trains have lower operating costs as they stop less and less likey to have a problem as people are in greater numbers due to increased safety and the less stopping gives the sensation of speed which on say Beenleigh line you may save about 10min. Trains are not wasting time, energy and costs stopping at stations people are not using.

Whether this is applied to running trains later than current timetable or eariler ansd what stations is open for debate on a line by line basis.

regards
Shane

[HappyTrainGuy]

I don't really have an issue with safety but I wouldn't like any of my family walking home from any station by themselves. As long as you don't make yourself a target (flashing ipads, iphones, laptops etc) travelling across the majority of the network is pretty safe. You get a few loonies on the trains themselves but at night 6 car trains can become 3 or even 2 car services which happens alot on EMUs (not in an operating sense but the amount of carriages that passengers can sit in) helps with the safety in numbers theory along with security onboard being able to see more of the train. North of Carseldine the bus network pretty much shuts down at 6pm which is why trains get empty really quickly during the winter months. I've said it before on here the issue with people catching trains late at night isn't the lack of security at stations but the areas directly surrounding the stations that turns people away. Take Zillmere. The station is very well lit. The intersection of Murphy Road/Zillmere road where the 330 buz stops is well lit. That 200m section of pathway between the two... could be alot better. Its also where some of the grubbier people gather and lurk around before getting on the train to go where ever - Usually Caboolture/Lawnton/Bray Park/Geebung/Nundah. Zillmere road on the park and ride area has a street light every 100m if they are even working. There is a giant vacant property where the grubs tend to gather around to drink/do drugs/vandalise the place. You can be on the train with the door opened and hear people screaming and yelling but nothing visually at the station. Its not until the doors close and the train is leaving the station that you see groups of people sitting on the gutters near the entrances to the station. The same is applied across much of the Caboolture line. Strathpine has a vast amount of car parking that tends to gather the imsohardcoredrinkinglookatmeteens that like to lurk around and along station road. Bray Park has a 100m walk to Gympie road but to get there you have to walk along a narrow 3m wide pathway where people lurk around near the Gympie Road entrance or hanging around in the darkness of the nearby school oval. Street lighting away from the station is also very poor - worse than Zillmere. Lawnton - Good station lighting, good lighting to the park and ride across the road, to get to the houses to the south you have to walk along a narrow unlit pathway that screams mug me, surrounding streets have hardly anything in terms of lighting which is on par with Bray Park. Dakabin - Very well lit station but not a single street light outside the railway property. Friday nights you can get very good patronage on the outbound trains till 1am in the morning but alot of them use the park and rides, get picked up from the station, have numbers or live within 100m of the station entrance.

[somebody]

I'd say that Dutton Park and Yeronga aren't too bad but Fairfield is pretty ordinary.  Indooroopilly, Toowong, Milton are all fine too IMO.

Bowen Hills is one of the major train stations on the network but has pretty dubiously safe pedestrian access with that narrow path at the north end and only slightly better at the south end.

[HappyTrainGuy]

Edens Landing or Holmview wouldn't be winning over any passengers anytime soon. Especially Holmview with its 900m odd pathway through the middle of nowhere 

[Stillwater]

I felt very confident about safety after hours on the QR network, mainly due to reasonably good lighting at most stations and the stepped-up CCTV footage.  QR really needs to be praised for that.  THEN came the copper wire thefts on the North Coast Line.  I began wondering who was on the other end of those CCTV cameras?

Questions:  Where are the QR CCTV cameras monitored and how many people are doing the monitoring at any one time?  Is it QR employees, a security firm working under contract and is there a link from the monitoring station to the police, so suspicious behaviour can be referred to the cops?  How many screens are being monitored in real time?  How many cameras and how many sets of eyes?

[HappyTrainGuy]

I doubt you'll ever know that information for security/confidentiality reasons but in the case of the copper wire theft I doubt there would have been people viewing CCTV feeds for platforms at 1-2am in the morning when the last passenger train was something like 4 hours ago.

[somebody]

I doubt you'll ever know that information for security/confidentiality reasons but in the case of the copper wire theft I doubt there would have been people viewing CCTV feeds for platforms at 1-2am in the morning when the last passenger train was something like 4 hours ago.

Good point.  Hopefully it would have been recorded though.

[BrizCommuter]

Ok we all know how late you run trains at night is based on need vs cost, but what limits the need is often perceived risk/safety by passengers. Personally I would not want my wife (daughter I had one) travelling home from work in CBD late at night by train unless it was to a major station hub from which I or other was waiting to pick them up. How late and which line would be by case by case basis.

So options for the operators
Dubai's Metro normally started from around 6am and it takes around 80min for a train to go one end to another all stops and normally no option for express running. However recently they have started trains starting around 5:30am'ish in 10min intervals and only stop at major destinations. And these are not the same for each direction. They have done a bit of homework to do this and its currently on trial. What it means is that in early hours when passengers are light, the trains are missing the stations were its unlikely to draw any or significant number of bodies and thus increasing the usefullness of the service to those who do use it as its faster, but lower cost as it doesn't stop every 3min. I think there are only about 10 stops verus 30 odd normally.

So how to apply to Australia/QRCT.
After a certain time at night (line dependant). Trains would only run limited express, stopping only a major destinations and stations with good security but overall probably only stopping at 25% of the stations. At some of these major stations, there would be buses to convey pax to those intermediate stations on a as required basis but also able to stop at any destignated bus-stop along the allocated route to drop off/pick up. As the stopping train station is likely to see more numbers than currently, its more justified to have manned security there.

Trains have lower operating costs as they stop less and less likey to have a problem as people are in greater numbers due to increased safety and the less stopping gives the sensation of speed which on say Beenleigh line you may save about 10min. Trains are not wasting time, energy and costs stopping at stations people are not using.

Whether this is applied to running trains later than current timetable or eariler ansd what stations is open for debate on a line by line basis.

regards
Shane

Sounds like a pretty good method of reducing train patronage even further. Overall costs would probably increase due to need for buses, timetables would be inconsistent due to different run times, and passengers of quieter stations would be disadvantaged with longer journey times. Would the inbound bus services be guaranteed to make the connections as well? Another idea for the fantasy foaming file.

BTW, it should be noted that the many of the "problem causing" passengers use the busier stations.

[somebody]

I don't see why you'd have bus and train running parallel with either other.  If there isn't enough demand for the train, just run the bus.

[HappyTrainGuy]

Pax for Quieter stations: again, this maybe the price you pay for safer transport. 10-20min longer for a safer trip home. Potentially bus stop maybe closer to house than station.

Sorry but this whole theory of it being safer just isn't true for the Caboolture line if not the entire SEQ network. If anything it would be worse safety wise. Nothing like waiting at a unlit, no CCTV, no emergency intercom bus stop waiting for a bus just to give a few people the illusion that its safer. All it would do is p%ss off anyone using the PT network. Costs would be higher than the current system. The bus drivers could be put more at risk - additional security on them similar to night link buses. Bus-Train interchange would become a pain in the ass. Rail buses would be duplicating current bus routes. Special events would just confuse the hell out of people. In most of the cases the ones that make everyone feel unsafe are the ones that get on from the city/transfer at the city/get on at the more popular stations. The rail network is safe as it is. Just fix up the bus network - routes, running hours, frequency etc. Cut the cr%p that buses must stop running at 6pm. Get the councils to provide better lighting on the streets surrounding the stations. More public presentation of police patroling the areas surrounding the stations that have key problems.

Then you have lines like the Shorncliffe line. Banyo would be popular but not so much Nudgee. Now you got a railbus only running between Banyo and Nudgee because the road network prevents them from going to Boondall without going past Banyo again or via the Gateway motorway to Bracken Ridge/Deagon. Caboolture line... Sunshine would obviously get the chop but now your sending railbuses where buses don't even run during the day. Dakabin would be up there. Virginia.... maybe might be an option for that list (I don't think it would make it) but I can't see any other station making that list. Nambour line train services can get cut and passengers shuffled onto buses.

It just won't work.

[SurfRail]

The best way to improve safety after dark is to have proper transit officers on every service after 7pm, a la Perth.  Get rid of the overweight, ineffective rentacops.

[Cam]

Get the councils to provide better lighting on the streets surrounding the stations. More public presentation of police patroling the areas surrounding the stations that have key problems.

I've asked Ipswich City Council to upgrade the lighting in 2 streets close to a station. The station & parallel street are well illuminated but the streets that run perpendicularly from the station are relatively dark which makes it difficult to provide descriptions of offenders to police & encourages troublemakers to loiter in the area.

The council has agreed to install 1 additional street light with a higher luminance than the current street lights & replace another with a street light of higher luminance.

I've had couple of visits from & lengthy conversations with a sergeant from a local police station who has admitted that they usually don't have the numbers to proactively police the streets surrounding railway stations at night. Our community could most benefit from a proactive police presence on Thursday, Friday & Saturday nights but police are typically called from one job to another on these nights.

[HappyTrainGuy]

Our community could most benefit from a proactive police presence on Thursday, Friday & Saturday nights but police are typically called from one job to another on these nights.

I'm not so sure about other regions but the QPS do operate in a similar way and make their presence known at Lawnton/Bray Park/Strathpine/Zillmere/Nudgee/Banyo on Friday/weekend nights by including them into local patrols when available. Banyo-Nudgee tends to get a few patrols along the surrounding streets because people get on the p%ss from the BWS near Virginia station and end up tresspassing at the Golf Course or walking along the no so lit streets to get drunk at the near by sports fields then cutting through the railway corridor to then hide out in the empty school grounds.

[p858snake]

I felt very confident about safety after hours on the QR network, mainly due to reasonably good lighting at most stations and the stepped-up CCTV footage.

Admittedly most have good lighting, But they don't always seem to be turned on at night time till some odd times.