SEQ Bus Review - Log of Affected Routes

[SurfRail]

http://railbotforum.org/mbs/index.php?topic=9359.0

[techblitz]

Keep the P system. The 680 is just a shocker in the peak times (should be a Pre Paid route during peak) when everyone wants a top up. North Lakes is just an absolute shocker at that! 315 is looking at going prepaid soon aswell which is good imo.

+1

the 680 needs a seperate review just on its own!

no public trasnport options for northlakes residents after 6pm on saturday and sundays (unless they want to head to the city via redcliffe/sandgate lol)
3.30-4pm full bus problems at petrie station outbound.

guess a review wont come till the new bus station comes or will it?

[STB]

@TT until there are means to sell and top up Go Cards across all TL buses, then there is a social justice reason to keep running all day services on top of the peak hour only services to provide accessibility for all users, peak hour services are generally different to the peak hour services anyway, bypassing stops, taking shortcuts etc.  It is public transport for a reason, to serve the public, Go Card or no Go Card.  So, IMO I think you are being a little bit extreme in your idealistic view of the P routes so I tend to agree with Golliwog.

Just as a side note, and I want to be frank about this....this is partly why I left the forum, the extreme idealistic, and occasionally out of touch views (and I am looking at two people in particular who seem to live their entire life on this forum, which personally I feel sad for them in that regard as there is much more to life than RBOT eg: family, friends, career etc) that are on here that really put me off on RBOT.  And I'm not afraid to say that now that I'm only here to comment on the SEQ Bus Network Review, before I return back to my normal life outside of transport matters and re-delete my account.  And I hate to say it but I'm not the only one who shares that view of RBOT nowadays, now I've gone outside the circle and spoken to others about RBOT and the forum itself.  While the positive thing I find is that Ozbob still has got the passion for transport (but also balances out RBOT with other things in his life), and gets taken seriously, and that I'm pleased about.

[techblitz]

@TT until there are means to sell and top up Go Cards across all TL buses, then there is a social justice reason to keep running all day services on top of the peak hour only services to provide accessibility for all users, peak hour services are generally different to the peak hour services anyway, bypassing stops, taking shortcuts etc.  It is public transport for a reason, to serve the public, Go Card or no Go Card.  So, IMO I think you are being a little bit extreme in your idealistic view of the P routes so I tend to agree with Golliwog.

Just as a side note, and I want to be frank about this....this is partly why I left the forum, the extreme idealistic, and occasionally out of touch views (and I am looking at two people in particular who seem to live their entire life on this forum, which personally I feel sad for them in that regard as there is much more to life than RBOT eg: family, friends, career etc) that are on here that really put me off on RBOT.  And I'm not afraid to say that now that I'm only here to comment on the SEQ Bus Network Review, before I return back to my normal life outside of transport matters and re-delete my account.  And I hate to say it but I'm not the only one who shares that view of RBOT nowadays, now I've gone outside the circle and spoken to others about RBOT and the forum itself.  While the positive thing I find is that Ozbob still has got the passion for transport (but also balances out RBOT with other things in his life), and gets taken seriously, and that I'm pleased about.

well said stb

everyone is entitled to thier opinions.Forums are wonderful places that unfortunately can be just as addictive as poker machines or watching footy etc......so its hard to blame some people for spending so much time on them.


and please remember rbot members if someone objects to something that the majority of members agree on,its those very people that make forums interesting and promote discussion.

Would be a rather bland forum if everyone agreed on the same thing huh?

[ozbob]

No one will agree with everything.  People have their points of view, just because it might not be inline with the accepted position is neither here nor there.

Frankly, we are not here to please everyone. People need to learn to let things go.

Carry on!   :bi

[STB]

No one will agree with everything.  People have their points of view, just because it might not be inline with the accepted position is neither here nor there.

Frankly, we are not here to please everyone. People need to learn to let things go.

Carry on!   :bi

Just for the record, I am not here to be pleased, I am here to provide comment, I just find it frustrating when extreme views are put in without regard for what others are saying, which has happened here before on quite a few occasions.

And yes to Techblitz, you summed it up nicely on what I was saying.  RBOT for me became addictive and among other things in my life it caused me to lose people in my life who I cared dearly for, and continue to do so even though they have left my life.  And that part hurts the most.

I'm quoting two people in particular as I now know there is life beyond RBOT,  and I while I don't know the circumstances of those two people in particular, I certainly would find it sad that RBOT for them is an addiction, spending their entire time here online.  It's all a balance, and that's something I've had to learn the hard way.

Anyway, enough rambling from me, back to topic....

[Gazza]

@TT until there are means to sell and top up Go Cards across all TL buses, then there is a social justice reason to keep running all day services on top of the peak hour only services to provide accessibility for all users, peak hour services are generally different to the peak hour services anyway, bypassing stops, taking shortcuts etc.

Agreed, a P route is like a peak hour express train, its not just a case of P rotues being identical to an all day route, cos they aint!
My issue is when there are too many variants for every possibility, like the centenary suburbs!

[HappyTrainGuy]

+1

the 680 needs a seperate review just on its own!

no public trasnport options for northlakes residents after 6pm on saturday and sundays (unless they want to head to the city via redcliffe/sandgate lol)
3.30-4pm full bus problems at petrie station outbound.

guess a review wont come till the new bus station comes or will it?

Who knows. I guess that's one of the pitfalls of the PT network pretty much north of Aspley/Carseldine as it just drops off the face of the planet in regards to its frequency and running hours. The 680 also needs a look at how its ran into the interchanges off peak ie the large waits at Strathpine, Petrie station and North Lakes for example. I know its a long route and it needs some slack built into it but damn they can be some long waits if no one gets onboard to top up their gocard The traffic issues at Petrie are almost gone so running times should be sped up again in that section. The arvo crush runs could just simply be fixed with running a couple extra shorter 680s if rollingstock is an issue running all the way to Chermside ie Starts at Starthpine. From the network review it looks like Redcliffe area (Kippa Ring, Scarbrough etc) are getting the routes set up for when the railway line goes through so hopefully the 680 will have had a good look at as a key route until the railway line is in play and routes changed to feed into it.

@TT until there are means to sell and top up Go Cards across all TL buses, then there is a social justice reason to keep running all day services on top of the peak hour only services to provide accessibility for all users, peak hour services are generally different to the peak hour services anyway, bypassing stops, taking shortcuts etc.

Agreed, a P route is like a peak hour express train, its not just a case of P rotues being identical to an all day route, cos they aint!
My issue is when there are too many variants for every possibility, like the centenary suburbs!

The P339 went the other way and merged with the daytime 335 but it was a long time coming only because it bypassed Chermside (which alot of locals didn't like as they couldn't go to Chermside or transfer to any other services at Chermside) for the whole of each peak hour direction without providing a 335 which would normally do the route as there wasn't enough patronage to warrant an additional  service 335 when included with the 325 services.

[techblitz]

with the 124...perhaps translink feel that a moorooka shops to sunnybank shops route should remain.....however this bus route has very low patronage issues during offpeak between sunnybank and moorooka.

you know my views on the 369.Back to half hourly to bring it inline with the 590.Also remember that on sundays we have a 15 minute crosstown service on the northside yet NO crosstown services on the southside.

With the 379/385 suggestion...im willing to go with anything that fixes the peakhour overcrowding of the 385.Iim also quite interested to see if the planned maroon glider will affect 385 numbers.

[#Metro]

So, IMO I think you are being a little bit extreme in your idealistic view of the P routes so I tend to agree with Golliwog.

For many years a P system did not exist. Nothing radical about that. The P system came in, in part to push people off paper. It is designed to be duplicative/redundant. Once paper is gotten rid of, like it was supposed to when cards came in, then the purpose of having a whole different set of P buses isn't so strong. And particularly so if all door boarding is taken up.

Melbourne has P buses, but only two that I know of. The 401 (Melbourne Hospitals) and 601 (Monash Uni), the rest of the city will simply go paperless from December 29th.

[Gazza]

I don't think it's meant to be duplicative/redundant....they just wanted to makes the rockets faster, being express routes and all.

[somebody]

Oh really?  http://translink.com.au/travel-information/network-information/pre-paid-bus-services

TT is right.

[Gazza]

But these route numbers existed prior to Go Card didn't they?

[somebody]

But these route numbers existed prior to Go Card didn't they?

So?  The idea was to only make routes prepaid that had a non-prepaid alternative.  They didn't succeed in every case.

[Gazza]

Which ones? I can only think of the Centenary routes being the main example.

[somebody]

P216 and P221 being the most obvious offenders.  215/220 don't run at peak times.

I'm sure there are others, but I can't think of them right now.

[#Metro]

I would like to see fewer routes generally, and a simpler system. Many of the routes that mirror are also fast anyway because of the stop spacing. Is there really a significant time difference in speed due to non-on board payments between P88 vs 111 or 555? No, it is just a huge irritation for the 20% of people that forget. And with 100% electronic ticketing that fraction will become even smaller - say 10% or 1%. Are we really going to run ~ 50 different bus routes just to lock out 10% of passengers during mostly peak hour? Concept seems ludicrous and purported time savings highly questionable.

Same deal with 130, 140, 150 buses that have P mirrors. The all day services are already fast. Don't get me wrong - I am not against rockets in peak, but you have to wonder, when cards become 99.99% in use, why run these pre-paid services anymore? If you really want to keep them... drop the P. Let people catch the first service that arrives, and with all door boarding, the people who do need to buy cards won't hold up people with cards already.

I'm happy for people to disagree, but Melbourne by and large is just going to go paperless. Effectively a de facto pre-paid system for all routes.

[HappyTrainGuy]

Is there really a significant time difference in speed due to non-on board payments between P88 vs 111 or 555?

Yes. There is. Most speed issues on the busway are due to the sheer amount of routes with different rollingstock lenghts that converge onto the very space limited platforms. Its not uncommon to see the P88 overtake/stop behind a 111 at a stop and then leave before it does. That's both inbound and outbound.

[somebody]

Is there really a significant time difference in speed due to non-on board payments between P88 vs 111 or 555?

Yes. There is. Most speed issues on the busway are due to the sheer amount of routes with different rollingstock lenghts that converge onto the very space limited platforms. Its not uncommon to see the P88 overtake/stop behind a 111 at a stop and then leave before it does. That's both inbound and outbound.

That could be just because less people are boarding/disembarking the P88, not just possible cash payments.

TT,
Like Melbourne, Brisbane needs to have a full solution.  That should include go card sales and top ups on the buses if you ask me, but with a disincentive.  Constant top ups will be annoying.

Pre paid was a valid idea at the time it was introduced, but it seems to be reaching its use by date.

[#Metro]

TT,
Like Melbourne, Brisbane needs to have a full solution.  That should include go card sales and top ups on the buses if you ask me, but with a disincentive.  Constant top ups will be annoying.

Pre paid was a valid idea at the time it was introduced, but it seems to be reaching its use by date.

I totally agree with this. Totally agree. 

[HappyTrainGuy]

That could be but the times I've used the P88 its been faster than the 111 and there isn't any risk of the bus being held up at a stop for someone buying a ticket. Unlike the 111 where it could be at southbank and bus after bus will go past because one person is fiddling around for change to buy a ticket. As it is the 111 struggles to run ontime. Just catch a 680 to see how painfully slow it becomes when multiple people buy tickets or requests a top up because ticketing infrastructure is so poor up this way. It still runs ontime thanks to the large 10 minute waits that can sometimes be experienced at North Lakes, Petrie and Strathpine.

[#Metro]

Great Circle Line
http://www.qldbuses.info/index.php?page=routedetail&search=599&oprequired=BRT

This QLD buses website maps is quite useful. It would be great if the 369 got GCL Branding...