How bus route numbering works?

[burgo]

I'm new to using BCC Buses and was curious as to how the numbering system works. I'm also curios to know how bus numbering works, I have a vague idea of the letter prefix indicating depot.

[aldonius]

Welcome to the forum!

The route numbering is a mostly regional/area based system.

• Southside (almost all BCC) routes are 100-199.
• Eastside (BCC) is 200-239; Redlands/Bayside 240-299.
• Northside is 300-399, almost all BCC. 
• Westside is 400-499, mostly BCC.
• Ipswich is 500-539; Logan 540-589.
• Northern region (i.e. Strathpine and further north) and Sunshine Coast is 600-699; unsure of split.
• Gold Coast is 700-799.
• School services are four digits, but different to nearby regular services.

There are a few interesting things.

• 590-599 are used for Brisbane cross-town routes like the Great Circle Line
• The New Farm/Tenerife routes are all through-routed from the south or west-side, hence the 199, 196 and 470
• Some inner-Brisbane routes are only two digits, like the 60 CityGlider or 40/50 City Loops.

No idea about physical bus numbering and depots, sorry.

[burgo]

Thanks for the thorough reply @aldonius, I have noticed the two digit routes, I catch the 66 to UQ Lakes for example.

[hU0N]

Do you mean route numbering? Within Brisbane the first number indicates quadrant (1=S, 2=E, 3=N, 4=W), the second number is the sub-region within the quadrant, ie 38x is The Gap, 37x is Ashgrove/Bardon, both in the north quadrant; 46x is Forest Lake, 45x Centenary, 44x Moggill, 43x Kenmore, 42x Chapel Hill, 41x Taringa/St Lucia all in the West Quadrant. Sub regions are numbered approximately counter clockwise in their various quadrants, with a few exceptions (such as 47x Toowong). Route numbers within sub regions are more or less arbitrary, however express services frequently (but not always) are numbered one number up or down from the corresponding all stops route.

Additionally, 2x, 3x, 4x, 5x routes are shuttles or loops, 6x routes are glider standard (although the 66 isn't branded as such), 59x routes are circular routes, 7xx, 8xx, 9xx routes are school routes.

5xx (except for 59x) and 6xx routes were originally for non Brisbane Transport routes (although Translink has added other four digit route numbers to supplement this).

Finally, 111, 222, 333, 444 were to be the original BUZ routes and therefore do not always serve the sub region you'd expect. Later BUZ routes were numbered according to the standard numbering instead.

[hU0N]

To clarify, 7xx was reallocated to Gold Coast, so 7xx school services were renumbered as S7xx, but Brisbane Transport don't generally show the S on the front of the bus.

[STB]

Ex TransLink Planner here - the last number on the route numbers normally (not always) represents the type of service, so generally anything with a '0' eg: 130 is the main all day route that normally only runs along major roads, any route with an odd number close to the main route number eg: route 131 is a peak hour express route.  There are some exceptions such as in the Brisbane West region (long story).

111, 222, 333, 444 are the main Brisbane BUZ routes with the first number indicating which region (111 is the southern region primary BUZ route, 222 is the eastern region primary BUZ route etc), 555 is a cutdown BUZ type service for Logan and is the main route to/from Logan.  Inner city routes that supplement the routes coming from the outer areas use the two digit numbers (60, 61, 66 etc).

[STB]

5xx (except for 59x) and 6xx routes were originally for non Brisbane Transport routes (although Translink has added other four digit route numbers to supplement this).

From what I've heard routes 580-599 is reserved for Flagstone/Yarrabilba/Ripley, the 598/599/590 is more of an oddity with Brisbane City Council using those numbers.  Will probably change in the future though if TransLink ever get proper control over the bus network planning off Brisbane City Council, but that's another story.

[bcasey]

With respect to the physical bus numbers and depots, I'm pretty sure there is a website out there that tracks this data, but I can't remember what the address is.

[STB]

See this ----> http://www.brisbanetransport.info/

[hU0N]

Ex TransLink Planner here - the last number on the route numbers normally (not always) represents the type of service, so generally anything with a '0' eg: 130 is the main all day route that normally only runs along major roads, any route with an odd number close to the main route number eg: route 131 is a peak hour express route.  There are some exceptions such as in the Brisbane West region (long story).

Call me odd, but that's a story that I'm kind of interested in.

[James]

Ex TransLink Planner here - the last number on the route numbers normally (not always) represents the type of service, so generally anything with a '0' eg: 130 is the main all day route that normally only runs along major roads, any route with an odd number close to the main route number eg: route 131 is a peak hour express route.  There are some exceptions such as in the Brisbane West region (long story).

Call me odd, but that's a story that I'm kind of interested in.

STB knows the full story, but long story short, when BT's routes were being renumbered from 2-digit ones (with 2xx Rockets and 5xx Cityxpress, amongst others), the 1xx, 2xx and 3xx routes all went under a fairly considerable review (I believe this was either in 1998?) by the one planner. The 4xx routes, however, were done by a different planner, who just renumbered the routes from two digits to three (e.g. 11 became 411, 12 became 412, Cityxpress renumbered as 4xx sub-regions).

[SurfRail]

Brisbane Transport, for all its faults, has excellent fleet management - the fleet numbering consists of 100% contiguous ranges of fleet numbers (so you can always tell roughly what a given bus is depending on its fleet number), and contiguous ranges of those buses tend to live at the same depot.  4 of the 7 depots only have 2 types of bus each (5 if you count Toowong which has the one-off Volvo hybrid also living there).

The current depot codes are:

C = Carina
E = Eagle Farm
G = Upper Mt Gravatt / Garden City
S = Sherwood
T = Toowong
V = Virginia
W = Willawong

Past depot codes have included A (Abbotsford Rd Bowen Hills), B (Bracken Ridge), R (Richlands) and L (Light St Fortitude Valley and then Larapinta).

On regional numbering, the Gold Coast pattern is (roughly)

70# - coastal corridor from Helensvale to Tweed
71# - Helensvale and Runaway Bay area
72# - Coomera and Ormeau area
73# and 74# - the "central" area bounded by Southport, Griffith Uni, Nerang and Nerang-Broadbeach Rd
75# - Robina and Burleigh area
76# - Elanora and Palm Beach area
777 - Airport express
TX# - theme parks
60# - Tweed bus routes (part of the NSW regional numbering system)

Jarrett Walker also has this article on his blog:

http://www.humantransit.org/2011/08/do-line-numbers-matter-at-all.html

[burgo]

Thanks for the replies. The route numbers seem important for BCC operations, but do the general population even pay attention or notice the patterns in route numbers?

[Arnz]

The Sunshine Coast equivalent for buses is:

60x: Caloundra area routes (including the Caloundra to Maroochydore corridor)
61x: Maroochydore area routes (including the Maroochydore to Nambour corridor)
62x: Noosa area routes (including the Noosa to Maroochydore corridor)
63x: Nambour area routes.

[red dragin]

Thanks for the replies. The route numbers seem important for BCC operations, but do the general population even pay attention or notice the patterns in route numbers?

When I lived at Everton Park I took advantage of the close numbering. At Kelvin Grove it didn't matter with the busway.

At kangaroo point I walked or drove - bus was pointless.