Gold Coast Bus Network Changes - Mid-2014

[SurfRail]

Connections to the Gold Coast line might be a priority in the minds of some members here (seeing so many are from out of the city), but I can assure you this is the LEAST of the city's problems.

Only around 1 in 10 bus trips involves a rail connection because unlike me, most people who live here do not travel out of the city in the course of a normal day, and generally speaking the connections work.  The improvements in frequency for the 709 and 740 will assist this as well.

The biggest problems are lack of availability of service and rostering.

[techblitz]

noticing a lot of back to back 700`s which are 10/20% full at best...weekday off-peak being the worst culprit....yakked to a bus driver recently on this frequency and he said its a total waste of resources and should be scaled back somehow to give other areas better services...

[SurfRail]

I'm surprised we ended up with 8 buses per hour all the way to Coolangatta AND 4 buses per hour to the airport.  The stretch through Palm Beach is well and truly saturated with 14 buses per hour during the day (at the stops at which the 777 picks up and sets down).  Some of this would also be a consequence of there being only limited bus priority south of Nobby Beach and none whatsoever south of Burleigh Heads.

I would resist any attempt to reduce the frequency to less than 6 buses per hour on the 700.

One of the first 2 priorities for improvement should be north of Labrador (either 713 or 719) and north of Helensvale (probably the 725).  Then eradicate any 2 hour gaps during the day, and get all services (except for the 737) to an absolute minimum of 12-ish trips per day weekdays and 8 trips per day weekends, then worry about additional HF routes.

There are 5 new double deckers due very shortly, and another one joined just recently after having spent months touring the country and testing.  Apart from these 6, the last new bus was delivered around a year ago, and several have left the fleet since then.  Time to stop focusing entirely on getting the next light rail extension underway and to get back to looking at what can be done in the shorter term, and that means buying more buses.

[James]

I'm surprised we ended up with 8 buses per hour all the way to Coolangatta AND 4 buses per hour to the airport.  The stretch through Palm Beach is well and truly saturated with 14 buses per hour during the day (at the stops at which the 777 picks up and sets down).  Some of this would also be a consequence of there being only limited bus priority south of Nobby Beach and none whatsoever south of Burleigh Heads.

I would resist any attempt to reduce the frequency to less than 6 buses per hour on the 700.

One of the first 2 priorities for improvement should be north of Labrador (either 713 or 719) and north of Helensvale (probably the 725).  Then eradicate any 2 hour gaps during the day, and get all services (except for the 737) to an absolute minimum of 12-ish trips per day weekdays and 8 trips per day weekends, then worry about additional HF routes.

There are 5 new double deckers due very shortly, and another one joined just recently after having spent months touring the country and testing.  Apart from these 6, the last new bus was delivered around a year ago, and several have left the fleet since then.  Time to stop focusing entirely on getting the next light rail extension underway and to get back to looking at what can be done in the shorter term, and that means buying more buses.

I really question the need for the 700 to be running at 8bph all day. I travelled on a Route 700 from Palm Beach to Coolangatta (on an Easter Sunday though, admittedly) and back, and patronage was low. It has probably evened out a little by now, but I imagine there are still 700s carrying a lot of air down the GC Highway south of Burleigh. Generally when I was down there I noticed patronage on the buses was quite poor (<10 pax) in the Palm Beach area.

Palm Beach, Bilinga, Tugun etc. simply don't have the density to really justify a 12bph service. Sure there's some decent density/activity at Coolangatta, but that's it, everything else is just low-density housing (bar some waterfront highrises, which are tourist-dominated anyway, so quiet for large parts of the year). In addition, the main PRACs in this area are The Pines, Robina and Burleigh in a distant third. For residents in this area, the 760/765 does a much better job at serving passengers compared to the 700.

With regards to improvements with the saved route-km, I would first like to see every route minimum 7am - 7pm 7 days a week running hourly, aside from possibly a few local routes (the Elanora milk runs come to mind). Then boost the 765 such that it meets every train off-peak and at least goes as far as Burleigh.

[techblitz]

cant say i would object to the 700 cut back to 6 per hour....frees up 2 extra buses per hour to service other areas which have crap service.....and there are quite a few complaints aimed at translink on facebook over lack of services on the gold coast...

just on bus-rail connections...the gold coast outbound train i caught yesterday arrived into varsity 5 minutes late....luckily with the 7 minute connection window on the 760...it worked out well...7 minutes the ideal window TRAIN to BUS?... 5 minutes buffer for any train lateness and 2 mins for people to get up to the platform...

[SurfRail]

^ With more bus priority over time I'd like to think we can get the 745 down to 5-6 minutes reliably.  None of the other railway to coastline trunk bus routes have as much bus priority as it has, and there is still plenty of scope for more (eg west of Ross St / Birmingham Rd).

[techblitz]

Currently on a conga line of 3 back to back 700's....2 were late and my one on-time
My one has 2 pax.
700 in front 0 pax
Back one has about 10-20
Each driver is reporting thier loads to base....1 of the late ones are being told to run express burleigh to tweed heads.
Makes sense...