Deviations

[LBR2204]

Deviations are important for the network especially during school times but can be a nuisance. A major problem in South East Queensland is that deviations aren't indicated on the signage. This was a major issue on the 338 after school as it ran via St Pauls omitting a major part of Brendale that the typical route serviced although it has been removed and there are probably other notorious bus routes that have the same issue. The City of Manchester has a very good approach in addressing this issue. In Manchester routes that run on a deviation have a suffix after the route number to indicate the deviation as shown on the attached diagram. It is something that I believe could be implemented in South East Queensland.

[James]

Ideally, the more school buses decoupled from the regular network, the better. They are notorious for being overcrowded, running late and being quite loud. Also, the route variations in Manchester can get quite confusing when you end up with a 42, 42A, 42B and 42C.

[LBR2204]

Yes. It can be if there are too many suffixes of the same route number but if it is done right it can be very useful. I do agree though that school services should be separate from public services. The 338 at 3.00 is usually full and gets pretty delayed.

[SurfRail]

Adelaide does this - generally makes it quite clear, but when coupled with Adelaide's other bewildering array of route numbering conventions it gets overwhelming.

[Cazza]

As much as they are handy in some cases, I don't really think that they should be used all that much, if at all. It just overcomplicates the network.

The 3 main keys to a successful PT network are:
C- Consistency. Timetables (e.g. headways/frequencies), the physical "course" that the route takes and the stopping patterns all need to be consistent and simple. This improves the network legibility and increases reliability of the services.
C- Connectivity. Services (and different modes) have to seamlessly connect with one another. People aren't just travelling from home to the city and back anymore meaning that it is almost impossible to cater for everyone to have a one seat journey (that's what Uber is for). With connecting services, cross-town journeys are made (almost) hassle free.
F- Frequency. Services have to be running to appropriate frequencies (this also ties in with consistency- no point having routes depart at :09, :17, :34, :49 and :57 for example. Who would remember that?). Cross-town connectors and other core routes should be run at high-frequencies to make transferring quick, efficient and appealing. Other key routes or secondary services should be run at 30 mins or better headways, both Off-Peak and Weekends. Feeder buses shouldn't have frequencies lower than 60 mins (and even that is stretching it at times).

If there are one or two services a day doing a deviation around school times, just run a school service. My favourite example is the 2:35pm outbound 359 which runs its normal route to Everton Park, turns left onto Griffith St, then comes back around onto South Pine Rd via Mitchelton Station, just to stop at Mt Maria. This diversion adds around 18 mins onto the trip . Just run a school service departing Mitchelton Station at around 3:10pm. There are plenty of under-utilised school routes in the North-West that can be canned.

I personally don't like deviations/diversions (especially on key routes) but I can see they have merit in some scenarios.

The 338 is a special case though. Some of it's routings are just ridiculous. Just wait till HTG sees this thread and he'll let you know all about it