Free Travel before 7am in Melbourne - the Brisbane perspective

[ozbob]

From Brisbane times click here!

No free travel for QLD's early birds

Georgina Robinson | September 18, 2007

The Queensland Government has no plans to introduce free train travel for "early bird" commuters despite an announcement Melbourne would trial the plan.
The Victorian Government yesterday announced it would make train travel free for commuters who arrived at their destination by 7am.

The special ticket will be trialed on two lines from late October in a bid to ease crippling congestion on Melbourne's overburdened rail system.
Victorian Premier John Brumby said the offer would be extended to all other train lines if it proved successful.

A spokesperson for Queensland Transport Minister John Mickel said the government would watch with interest the Melbourne trial.

However, the spokesperson said there were no immediate plans to implement a similar arrangement in Brisbane.
"We'd be more likely to get more rolling stock than trying to shift commuter habits," he said.

Brisbane-based rail advocate Robert Dow called on Queensland Rail to extend the official morning and afternoon peak periods and add more services.
Mr Dow said the early bird offer had merit but could not work on the local network until services were improved.

"The Gold Coast, Caboolture and Ipswich lines suffer serious congestion from 6am onwards, so if there was free travel before 7am there wouldn't be enough services to take up those commuters anyway," he said.

"Melbourne is fairly desperate because they've got major congestion issues, so they're providing relief for commuters by encouraging them to leave earlier."
Mr Dow said his organisation, RAIL Back On Track, had been calling for peak train services to operate between on weekday mornings between 5.30 and 9.30am and on weekday afternoons between 3.30 and 7.30pm.

"There's been a change in work hours, demographics and lifestyle, people are travelling earlier and finishing work earlier."

[ozbob]

Letter submitted Brisbane mX September 18

Reports of moves in Melbourne Victoria to give free train travel to commuters if they are scheduled to arrive at their destination before 7am weekdays is a desperate move to cope with peak congestion after years of neglect on the Melbourne suburban network.  This will only favour the early start workers and commuters and is unlikely to be a significant factor in changing commuter behaviours.  If such a scheme was implemented on our Citytrain network the few early morning services presently available would not be that attractive as they would be quickly congested.  Far better to expand our peak morning time from say 5.30am to 9.30am, with 15 minute service frequency or less.  This would allow greater utilization of the network at times that do suit commuters and match work and life style patterns.  With the new trains being progressively rolled out significant improvements can be expected with a new timetable in  March 2008 and hopefully again in September 2008, which might approach these service goals.  We would like to see free public transport for senior citizens on Sundays, and Weekend Family Tickets re-introduced for residents.  This would be of much benefit to the community as a whole, rather than a few early birds getting their free ride!

[Derwan]

I'll repost the comment I put on Brisbane Times:

The idea would have merit if peak period services had reached their maximum capacity (i.e. no more trains could physically be scheduled to run on the current infrastructure).

But we still see gaps of up to 27 minutes between peak services on the Shorncliffe line (as an example).

The new trains need to be put into service as they arrive, rather than waiting until the March 2008 timetable change. But then I guess they don't have enough drivers to operate them!