590 Continued....

[Gazza]

Haha, finally got a response on this issue today once I picked on them for not sending it through last night.

Below is their response, and my immediate reply back which I sent a few minute ago:

Dear Gavin
In response to your feedback of 27 August 2011 and our interim response, I am pleased to advise Brisbane Transport has conducted their investigation. I apologise for the delay in providing this information to you.
Brisbane Transport has advised that when travelling on route 590, if customers want to continue onto Toombul Bus Station they need to transfer to route 308 at DFO Bus Station. Route 590 was designed to travel only as far DFO Bus Station. The decision not to continue route 590 onto Toombul Bus Station was made in line with cost and strategic value when measuring the outcomes of the continuing this route beyond DFO.
Should you require further information regarding this issue, or any other matter, please visit the TransLink website at http://www.translink.com.au/ . Alternatively, the TransLink Call Centre is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week on 13 12 30.
Kind regards
Jade
TransLink Customer Support,

Dear Jade,
In that case, why wasn't the 308 Bus shortened back to Toombul, with the 590 bus then replacing it over the DFO-Aviation Precinct segment?
Doing this would have been relatively cost neutral....Both the 308 and 590 currently shadow each other with an identical route over this segment anyway, so the ability to extend 2km from DFO to Toombul would have been offset by not needing to run 308s.
From a strategic point of view, this would have meant that the 308-590 transfer would be occurring at Toombul rather than DFO, which makes more sense due to.
-More opportunities to connect with other Bus and Rail services at Toombul.
-More comfortable facilities for transferring passengers at Toombul bus station compared to DFO.
-Eliminates the current situation of having the 2 bus routes duplicating each other through the low density industrial area of Lomandra Drive / Aviation Precinct....The 590 alone should be more than enough for this area, especially considering it offers better frequency and service hours than the 308.
Regards
Gavin Seipelt

STB, can you shed any light on their thinking? Would have it been BT who actually designed the route?

What is logical about duplicating two routes in a low density industrial area, and imposing a 2km transfer onto a lower frequency service for those wishing to get onto the rail network etc?
I'm sure the DFO generates some trips, but it's in the middle of nowhere.

Dumb dumb dumb. Even when they have a clean slate to design a new route, they still do stupid stuff.

Arrrgh, it's times like these I wish I had the direct contact to higher ups/ministers that Bob does...Get stuff like this sorted!

[somebody]

There's a lot of dumb things done in Brisbane's PT system.  I have learned that this is unlikely to change in the future, and improvements which might involve change to an existing service are unlikely to get popular support from the Brisbanites.  If we can influence a few positive changes, then I think that is the best we (including ozbob) can hope for.  If we don't like it, we should live somewhere else.

Perhaps I am cynical.

[#Metro]

Route 590 was designed to travel only as far DFO Bus Station. The decision not to continue route 590 onto Toombul Bus Station was made in line with cost and strategic value when measuring the outcomes of the continuing this route beyond DFO.

Why was it done that way... because it was done that way!


I'm 99.99% happy with the 590, just that minor blemish.... sigh, I guess it can't always be 100%

Extending to Toombul and cutting back the 308 is a no-brainer.

[STB]

Gazza,

I had a look at the timetable and I suspect it's probably because it's more operationally efficient, in terms of holding a clockface timetable.  An additional 10mins to Toombul would require more buses/resources onto the route (590).  This is assuming if you cut back route 308 back to Toombul and ran it between Chermside and Toombul only, however I then noticed that you are then duplicating route 598/599.  If I was still a Planner I probably would've deleted route 308 entirely and had those passengers between Chermside and Toombul use route 598/599 and between Toombul and DFO use route 590.

I'm not sure who would've planned it though as I have heard that the structure of the planning team has changed a lot in the past few years.  It was probably a bit of both BT and TransLink.

Hope this helps.

EDIT: On further inspection of the timetable, it seems that you would need to add additional trips to route 590 for it to run between Toombul and DFO (and beyond) to ensure that there is no loss of service in the early morning - First trip of route 590 is at 6:25am to Garden City from DFO; first route 308 trip from Toombul to DFO is at 5:12am - so even though you would negate the KMs (cost) initially there would be a increase on cost with those additional trips on route 590 to make up for the loss of route 308.  I suspect that is what the Planners might've played with and decided against when planning it - aka what is the budget and what happens if we do this, what will the cost of additional trips of route 590 cost in lieu of removing route 308.  Pure speculation though.

[somebody]

Route 590 was designed to travel only as far DFO Bus Station. The decision not to continue route 590 onto Toombul Bus Station was made in line with cost and strategic value when measuring the outcomes of the continuing this route beyond DFO.

Why was it done that way... because it was done that way!


I'm 99.99% happy with the 590, just that minor blemish.... sigh, I guess it can't always be 100%

Extending to Toombul and cutting back the 308 is a no-brainer.

The italicised bit is an explanation though.

I think the bit where it bypasses Murarrie railway station is a bit daft.  Has BCC's fingerprint all over it.  I also think an argument could be made that it should serve Eagle Junction rather than Toombul for connections to Airtrain, although that trip still means significant doubling back.  Not quite as bad as the current via South Bank option though.

[O_128]

Why would it bypass murrarrie station, is this purely to stop interchange?

[STB]

Why would it bypass murrarrie station, is this purely to stop interchange?

I would say that this is to prevent it backtracking on itself in order to service that industrial area, Metroplex.

[somebody]

Why would it bypass murrarrie station, is this purely to stop interchange?

I would say that this is to prevent it backtracking on itself in order to service that industrial area, Metroplex.

Be interesting to see the patronage figures for these stops, the northern most of which itself involves back tracking.

[#Metro]

Ok, so I caught 590 today from Garden City. The whole trip there was about 10 people over the route length, most getting off at Carindale. So for a Sat morning that is actually quite good. The combined frequency with 599/598 is good- about one every 20 minutes.

I still think the 599/598 on this section should be abolished and absorbed into 590. Having two routes splits the frequency on parallel roads where routes diverge.

The section over the gateway motorway and to Airport one isn't getting a lot of pax, it's mostly wasteland or industrial. As the area develops there might be more pax from that, but actually I think that ending the route at DFO is a good idea. I don't think anyone wants to go Carindale-Toombul, the interchange isn't so bad and anyway, a Carindale-Toombul run might be faster simply by catching BUZ 200 and then changing to a train.

I hope a 358 and the GCL between Indro and Brookside get upgraded and fixed up. This network is improving.

On my way home I caught the train from Toombul to City. Refuse to catch 300 as it is far too slow and too windy it would drive one nuts!
Stuck at Central/Valley-- rotten train system! So slow! So much waiting for signals! Terrible frequency!

[ozbob]

Anyone can see their local political representatives.  Make an appointment through the relevant electorate office.

The 590 terminating at the DFO has been raised with TransLink.  I would not be surprised that as further changes eventuate the 590 does finish up at Toombul.

[Set in train]

I have used the 590 twice, once before and after its timetable change in opposite directions.

The timetable change has made no difference to the lack of on-time running. 3 mins late at Kingsford Smith Dr became 10 by Carina Depot. Change of driver change made it 14 mins late to Carindale.

The first time, I wanted to reach Racecourse Road from Carina, Caught 590, dumped at DFO, 308 was slow to arrive, 7 mins late. The 308 then went on a highly circuitous route, having not consulted a timetable with a map, I was concerned I was on the wrong bus as the route wastes time winding around all the aviation businesses.

I understand the aviation businesses need to be serviced, but so do shoppers need quick delivery to Toombul from DFO and vice versa without the silly loops.

[Mr X]

Why doesn't the 308 just make a stop at DFO on the way back from the Aviation precincts?

[somebody]

Why doesn't the 308 just make a stop at DFO on the way back from the Aviation precincts?

I don't know.  I never knew that it didn't before.  Seems pretty annoying.

[techblitz]

Thought i would revive this thread
Well it looks like BCC came to thier senses finally on the 308/590 toombul suggestion (well done gazza as you were the one who wrote translink personally)

Next move is to try and get them to send the 590 via murrarie (even if only on sundays would be helpful)
and have the 210 terminate at metroplex....considering that the majority of metroplex business is closed on a sunday....the  1/2 hourly 590 does not need to servce this area.
They are obviously commited to the 590 long term and have made the move to toombul...the logical choice is to make the move via murrarie station as well.

Heres a quick breakdown of what sunday cleveland line passengers currently face in getting to dfo/free airport services

The long way....

cleveland to bowen hills 70 mins

bowen hills to toombul 8 mins

toombul to dfo 5 mins =  1 hour 23 mins from cleveland to dfo.

or 13 mins approx from eagle junction to dfo via 369

the above times are exclusive of connection wait times....

another less direct option would be to run the 232 on sundays or have the 210 start/terminate at cannon hill rail.