Busway capacity

[aldonius]

Given the sometimes bitter debate over how much capacity the inner SEB actually has, I thought I'd do some empirical research.

The number I had in my head was 'somewhere around of 220' buses an hour in peak direction immediately north of the Wooloongabba junction.

I looked at the stop timetables from 7am to 8am (specifically 7:00 through 7:59 inclusive) for each station around the junction.

At Mater Hill Platform 1, there are 143 services timetabled to stop. Of course, this isn't quite where we need to measure.

At Buranda P1, there are 145 stopping services (excluding the north/UQ-bound 77, 139, 169, 209). Arguably, that's already well above the limit if every bus is to stop there.

At Wooloongabba P1, there are 65 stopping services (excluding the 12 UQ-bound 29s).

Summing Buranda and Gabba inbound we have 210 services per hour per direction.

Now, not every route that passes through Buranda stops there. I know of the 130, 140 and 150 (cumulatively 19 through Mater Hill in that time period), I guess the P142 also (2 or 3 in that hour) and probably a few more.

So at least 221 vehicles in that direction - bang on target.

According to btbuses.info the most common bus type has a seated capacity of 44 and a standing capacity of 62. So with a few standees and a few larger buses we will assume 50 people per vehicle on average.

Granted about 3% of those buses are 340s counter-peak and near-empty, but that will be cancelled out by 2-3 more people on each other service or a few more non-Buranda-stoppers.

Anyway, 221*44 = 9724 and 221*62 = 13702. So there's our ballpark estimate for full buses.

As a reference, a 6-car SMU/EMU at crush loading is 1000 passengers, and those can go at up to 24 per hour - nearly double total busway capacity.

For further reference the Light Rail vehicle will do 308 maximum design capacity and run 8 per hour at design frequency - 2464; but could presumably double frequency & capacity if required to 4928. Trebling a little more difficult, to 7392.

The TL bus review report indicates about 82% of total seat-capacity utilised coming out of Buranda, but this is off only 118 total inbound services... odd. Substantially lower out of W'Gabba - more like 50% of seat-capacity.

Anyway, 9724*80% = 7780. Given some are artics but many are from W'Gabba, I think the busway probably has about 7500 inbound commuters through that particular junction between 7 and 8 AM.

In conclusion, busway today already beats GCLR at triple-frequency maximum design loads in terms of sheer raw capacity past a given point, but both are monstered by heavy rail.

[ozbob]

The busway stops are becoming very difficult to use for many at peak.  Light rail is much easier to use.  With comparable loads light rail is much cheaper to operate in the longer term.  This is one reason why GC light rail got the nod.  A little bit of forward thinking for a change in SEQ ...

The real issue with the SEQ busways is that they are now at capacity.  The model has to change - bi artics on a trunk and feeder setup is highly likely if BaT carries on and I think that will happen to some degree.  Oh dear, that will upset the one-seaters ....

Nice work Aldonius! Thanks for sharing.

[ozbob]

Light rail Manila carries up to 27,000 passengers per hour per direction peak.   Anything is possible. It is projected with improved signalling this will approach 60,000 per hour per direction peak.

This is hard work, long queues etc. but it works.  Buses are simply not option with these pax loads.  GC Light rail has latent capacity.

[STB]

I actually wonder sometimes if the SE Busway can change tack from instead of a suggestion of it eventually being upgraded for trams (light rail), upgrade it to heavy rail instead and run it underground through the CBD (perhaps linked in with BaT/CRR, and perhaps eventually heading north via the proposed Trouts Road railway up to Caboolture), starting from Beenleigh station, with stations at all the current busway station locations, and inserting additional stations at Rochedale South, Springwood, Daisy Hill, and Loganholme.  In that instance, you could run a mix of local all station services and divert the Gold Coast expresses via that alignment, thus increasing capacity on the Beenleigh line.

It'd be expensive both in disruption and money, but the pay off would be tremendous for that area south east of Brisbane, and the Gold Coast itself, including the current Beenleigh line.

For Mains Road, I'd stick with the idea of light rail/trams along that corridor, and if the busway was converted to heavy rail, you could run trams between Griffith University and/or Garden City and Browns Plains at a high frequency.

EDIT: Hmm, thinking about it further, that would probably help solve the issue of no Park Road station platforms with the current proposed BaT tunnel, the interchange would just transfer to Buranda and Wollooongabba instead.

[STB]

Something along the lines of this...

Mater Hospital would still be serviced by a section of the SE Busway, where perhaps you could run frequent services from Woollooongabba and Buranda to/from Mater Hospital, PA Hospital and those stations.  You'd also start to tunnel just before Buranda using the current SEB alignment to get underneath the city, and then pretty much the same alignment for the BaT project, just that the SE Busway would be mostly turned into heavy rail, except for the Woolloongabba to Queen St section (via Mater Hospital and up to the current Northern Busway section.

[ozbob]

A point of interest.  As far as I am aware the only busway station that was done with a view to possible light rail conversion was Mater Hill.

The BaT will stall any sensible move for high capacity  true metro for a number of years.  I expect that it will come eventually though.

[BrizCommuter]

Light rail Manila carries up to 27,000 passengers per hour per direction peak.   Anything is possible. It is projected with improved signalling this will approach 60,000 per hour per direction peak.

This is hard work, long queues etc. but it works.  Buses are simply not option with these pax loads.  GC Light rail has latent capacity.

Manila "light Rail" is really a segregated metro line.

[ozbob]

Yo!  A light rail 'metro' -->   http://www.lrta.gov.ph/

But it demonstrates what rail is capable of.

[STB]

A point of interest.  As far as I am aware the only busway station that was done with a view to possible light rail conversion was Mater Hill.

The BaT will stall any sensible move for high capacity  true metro for a number of years.  I expect that it will come eventually though.

A Network Planner from TransLink many years ago (about 7 years ago now - he's long gone) mentioned in a meeting that the INB wasn't suitable for conversion to light rail, and hadn't been designed for conversion.