SEQ: Zone irregularites/anomalies

[ozbob]

Might be useful to have a list of the places where there are zone differences eg. Oxley, rail zone 3, bus zone 4.

If you know of any please list them.  Thanks ..

[somebody]

Milton rail zone 1, bus zone 2 (s/be zone 1 IMO)
Boggo Rd, rail zone 1/2, bus zone 2.

[Golliwog]

Windsor Rail zone 1/2, bus zone 2.
Ferny Grove rail zone 3, bus zone 4 (though the new bus stop signs say zone 1...)

Adding to this: The bus stop at the Great Western is zone 3/4 http://jp.translink.com.au/travel-information/network-information/stops-and-stations/stop/010965

This is so passengers using both the 362 (zone 3 only) and the 367 off-peak loop (Upper Kedron = zone 4) can all get to the shops on a 1 zone fare, but because of the bus interchange at the station being zone 4 only (not a border one, which I think it should be) anyone who catches a train from the city then uses the 367 towards Keperra (i.e. as a feeder service) gets pinged an extra zone, even though if they got off at Keperra and waited for the 362 and went to the same stops they wouldn't pay extra.

[aldonius]

Boondall & Zillmere (rail z3 vs bus z4) right through to Nundah or thereabouts (2 vs 3). It's like the rail zone boundary is 50% further out...

Auchenflower and Toowong also.

[ozbob]

Twitter

Michael G Swifte ‏@TransFixSEQ

@Robert_Dow Revised Translink 2004 zone map highlights zoning conflicts from the outset of integrated ticketing. pic.twitter.com/u2HKUDDnWI

[STB]

I know the irregularities was due to when the integrated ticketing was rolled out, they wanted to reduce the impact in price rises between the train and bus systems, basically to average them out with the differences between the two.  Now the network has been in place for a decade now almost, might be time to review that as it's kinda moot now.

The changes I think should happen is that Helensvale I think, the zone boundary should be moved south a bit rather than looping around Helensvale station and incurring an extra zone, or at least calling that a zone boundary 11/12, and the part near Deception Bay Road and Anzac Ave where route 680 passes through zone 7 for about 300m before dipping back into zone 6, that should be made a zone boundary so if you are on route 680, you only pay for zone 6 and not an extra zone 7 for 300 or so metres, but if you are heading north on route 660 you pay zone 6 and 7 as you should.

The rest I'd realign the zone boundaries to be in line as close as possible to the buses, which they have done in the past, notably the Redlands region way back in 2006 when they moved the zone boundaries east to follow the natural geography instead of cutting through suburbs where one side would be paying an extra zone to down the street, which was unfair to people (route 266 for example).

[James]

Twitter

Michael G Swifte ‏@TransFixSEQ

@Robert_Dow Revised Translink 2004 zone map highlights zoning conflicts from the outset of integrated ticketing. pic.twitter.com/u2HKUDDnWI

Very good image. It shows how distorted zones are on the Ipswich line. I've in fact seen a passenger get caught out by this on a bus along Coronation Drive. He obviously caught the train from the CBD to Auchenflower (zone 1), and then decided he'd catch the bus back, only to realise the bus is in zone 2 and not be let on board. I can accept a few anomalies on zone boundaries, but both the Ipswich and Caboolture lines are shockers for these anomalies.

[SurfRail]

A proper review of the fare system should:

- Provide a lower flagfall fare component
- Remove the arbitrary limit on transfers and trip-chaining
- Fix all of these ancient grandfathering arrangements
- Remove paper ticketing
- Review the various suite of discounts (9 then free, pensioners 2 then free, off-peak) and create something more homogenous (eg like getting rid of all the FUD stuff and having lower base fares and greater off-peak discounts).
- Get somebody banging on TfNSW's door about go card being offered on Surfside NSW routes
- Identify which of the qconnect services adjacent to SEQ should be included on the TransLink fare scale (Woodford-Kilcoy, North Stradbroke Island ferries and local buses, Toowoomba/Highfields bus services, Maleny to Beerwah and Maleny to Nambour, Gympie etc)
- Set out a 4-5 year pricing strategy with clear and transparent goals
- Investigate commercial opportunities to extend go card functionality for other payments

Chance of this happening would be NIL.

[aldonius]

The Translink Ripoff have received and published a map for zones 1-4 (& parts of 5) based on the gtfs dataset. This shows all the stops everywhere, and their zone.


https://i.imgur.com/HrZxKcr.jpg

[#Metro]

Can someone tell me step by step how to use TL's GFTS data and mapping together?

[aldonius]

It's a messy process.


If you want to get a KML, there's TransitFeedDistribution, specifically KMLWriter (NB: with the second link some drongo has pasted the entire  contents of something, so the page loads rather slowly).
This has prebuilt versions for Windows, on other platforms you'll need a reasonable amount of Python knowledge.

Update: I did that at the end of last year. It took quite a while to convert, and the saved KML file I just opened was almost 70 MB with Google Earth almost entirely unresponsive.

[ozbob]

Any more?

[SurfRail]

Suffice to say this is something that definitely needs to be raised with the fare review taskforce.  If we still have fare zones, the boundaries have to take no account of mode and be entirely consistent.