Split discussion from ... Re: Ipswich and western region

[James]

The new timetable design is yet to grow on me, starting to look like the southern states versions of their timetables in some ways.  Bit hard to read them in PDF form unless you zoom in I find, and not sure on the Melbourne style maps, which is one thing I don't like about Melbourne's public transport, their timetables and maps - basically tells you nothing.

By the way, my mind continues to be blown that between Milton and Darra, you've got a 15min frequency until nearly midnight, and happening 7 days of the week.  Could be a good idea to build up and ramp up the population density of that corridor I think rather than continuing to spread out.  Same with other 15min rail corridors, and just ramp up the apartments, shops and offices as the 15min frequency continues to be spread out and expand over the coming years.

As Gen Y increasingly grow and start buying their own property, I expect to see the amount of apartments being built in the inner suburbs (within 5km of the CBD) to increase quite dramatically. Studies have shown Gen Y value proximity to facilities/the CBD as being higher than having a 1000m^2 block in the middle of nowhere (i.e. would rather a small place in West End or Toowong than a big house in Windaroo).

To just build apartments though, is a bad idea. If you flood the market where there isn't demand, you end up with apartments turning into low-class housing, turning people away from the area generally. And if you look at it, the Coronation Drive/Ipswich Line corridor between the CBD and Toowong probably has the highest concentration of apartment buildings in all of Brisbane, excluding possibly the CBD/parts of New Farm.

Yes, development around rail is good, but we also need to start feeding buses to rail. We have 15 minute frequency Darra - Milton, and how many buses feed the railway line along there? Off-peak, you have five all up (101, 102, 103, 104 and 468), all running on hourly frequency and stopping after 6pm. The buses need to start properly, and seriously, feeding rail (103 to half-hourly, terminate more 400 series routes at Indro, 411/415 at Toowong etc.)

[ozbob]

^ shocking indictment on network planning ...

[#Metro]

Yes, development around rail is good, but we also need to start feeding buses to rail. We have 15 minute frequency Darra - Milton, and how many buses feed the railway line along there? Off-peak, you have five all up (101, 102, 103, 104 and 468), all running on hourly frequency and stopping after 6pm. The buses need to start properly, and seriously, feeding rail (103 to half-hourly, terminate more 400 series routes at Indro, 411/415 at Toowong etc.)

We do not have the funds to have BOTH a feeder bus system to rail AND preserve the direct service network. You are right, these feeders are pathetic, it would be interesting to see what Perth is doing and compare it to Brisbane. The number of people carried, assuming that the bus is FULL (difficult to see at such rubbish frequency) is just 65 passengers. That's just (drumroll) 6.5% a QR train. SHOCKING.

Given that these buses mostly carry air, the figure drops to about 1-2% of train capacity.

High frequency services need to go to train services. A bus every 15 minutes is 4 services per hour is 65 x 4 = 260 pax fed to the trains. Now we are talking.

In peak hour, it is even better 65 x 6 = 390 pax / hour.

What this means is, and I know this might upset people, things like 412, 330, 340, 250 etc need to terminate at train stations. There's no two ways about it.

We will not achieve change by fiddling around the edges and half-hearted changes by cutting back low frequency routes to be feeders and leaving the higher frequency routes to go to the CBD. I want to qualify this statement because I don't want people reading what they want to read and miss the point - this does not mean that every.single.BUZ.route must go to a train station - I am saying that *SOME* need to.

[SurfRail]

^ Gold Coast proves this works.

From July next year we will have high-frequency routes connecting to:

- Helensvale (2 routes - 704 and whatever route connects Helensvale to GCUH and the light rail)
- Nerang (one route - 740)
- Robina (one route - 750)

Plus numerous other bus services feeding these stations as well as Varsity Lakes, Coomera and Ormeau.

On top of that, high-frequency buses feeding even higher frequency trams at:
- GCUH (at least one route from Helensvale)
- Southport (at least one route - 704)
- Surfers (at least one route - 740)
- Broadbeach South (at least 3 routes - 750, 705/777 combo and however many highway services run south of there)

plus buses coming into each of these points from other parts of the city.  If they get their act together in time there is potential for even more high-frequency corridors over time (eg Route 735 from Southport to Nerang, Route 747 from Southport to Robina, Route 761 or 765 from Robina to the coastline), particularly as more light rail extensions are built.

By contrast, where do high-frequency buses intersect with the rail network in even the most marginal way inside the BCC boundaries apart from in the City and Valley?

- Various buses at Boggo Road, South Bank and Buranda (hands down the best examples but generally only useful if you are NOT going to the city)
- 100 at Moorooka (no interchange facilities, non-DDA compliant station, bus goes to the CBD)
- 130/140 at Altandi (no interchange facilities, bus goes to the CBD, passengers trudge through car park and up and down stairs to get to or from the platforms at all)
- 150 at Fruitgrove (similar to Altandi except no car park issue)
- 330 at Zillmere (bus goes straight past at higher frequency than the trains, worse interchange possibilities than any of the above)
- 333/340 at Windsor (similar to Fruitgrove and too close to the city to be meaningful)
- 340 at Carseldine (terminates here coming FROM the city so duplicates a trip from Carseldine to the CBD)
- 345 at Alderley (similar to Altandi)
- 412 at Toowong - about the only decent example anywhere off the busway network, but the facilities are awful (and the silly situation with the 402 as well)
- 444 at Toowong and Indooroopilly - duplicates the rail line all the way in, no reason to interchange whatsoever

All of the stations you more normally associate with feeders or which actually have a bus interchange or something resembling one (eg Sandgate, Toombul, Ferny Grove, Mitchelton, Enoggera, Corinda/Darra/Oxley, Richlands) universally have abysmal feeder bus services, and certainly nothing even approaching BUZ standard.  Half of them have bus services to the city that are just as if not more frequent than the trains!

[James]

We do not have the funds to have BOTH a feeder bus system to rail AND preserve the direct service network. You are right, these feeders are pathetic, it would be interesting to see what Perth is doing and compare it to Brisbane. The number of people carried, assuming that the bus is FULL (difficult to see at such rubbish frequency) is just 65 passengers. That's just (drumroll) 6.5% a QR train. SHOCKING.

Given that these buses mostly carry air, the figure drops to about 1-2% of train capacity.

High frequency services need to go to train services. A bus every 15 minutes is 4 services per hour is 65 x 4 = 260 pax fed to the trains. Now we are talking.

In peak hour, it is even better 65 x 6 = 390 pax / hour.

What this means is, and I know this might upset people, things like 412, 330, 340, 250 etc need to terminate at train stations. There's no two ways about it.

We will not achieve change by fiddling around the edges and half-hearted changes by cutting back low frequency routes to be feeders and leaving the higher frequency routes to go to the CBD. I want to qualify this statement because I don't want people reading what they want to read and miss the point - this does not mean that every.single.BUZ.route must go to a train station - I am saying that *SOME* need to.

Some routes like the 412 and Centenary BUZ need to be left alone and allowed to continue down Coronation Drive. Coronation Drive still has quite strong demand, and 7.5 minute frequency/5 mins in peak is absolutely warranted. The BUZ network, as is, in most cases, serves rail as much as it can. I have spoken about the 330 in another thread, and we all know my attitudes towards the 100 and 340. Future BUZifications, however, need to start going to rail - and that is why we need to further campaign (when new rolling stock starts coming in) for 15 minute frequency to go 7am - 7pm on weekends as well.

There are a few exceptions - 100 BUZ should be feederised - it can be done tomorrow. 300 should be BUZed, long-term we need to get LRT out to Northshore Hamilton though. Wynnum/Manly should get a feeder BUZ to Wynnum stations/Manly/Cannon Hill - no buses from this area should proceed to the CBD. 359 should be chopped at Mitchelton/Enoggera and BUZed, either that or the 350. Cross-city links in Brisbane will be best done by a BUZed GCL.

Lapdog, I don't get your hate for the BUZ network. Yes, trains are a more efficient way of doing things, but for the most part, the BUZ network is the most efficient high-frequency bus network in the country, serves its purpose well, and plugs key gaps. Future BUZes will need to feed to rail/other BUZ routes (aside from 300 BUZ, Bulimba BUZ and  450 Centenary BUZ), but right now the BUZ network is almost perfect (the only thing which needs to happen is de-BUZ 100/120/340, and remove the 222 and 333 because of duplication).

SurfRail, Gold Coast is helped significantly by the fact that it is polycentric with demand going everywhere at different times of the day. There's demand to/from the railway line at the start of AM peak/end of PM peak, there's demand between Robina, Surfers/Southport and Broadbeach, and then there's demand between the major shopping centres, which unlike Brisbane, do not have an 'obvious road which continues to the CBD' kind of thing.

I have spoken at length about this before, and will again - until the train network gets 15 minute frequency, minimum 6am - 9pm 7 days a week, the rail network is, and will continue to be, nothing more than an overgrown welfare network. And the fact we continue to have such frequency is due to the failure of successive governments to invest in rail in Brisbane, instead looking to chuck BUZ routes everywhere and build busways which are 1km long and have sections missing.

[#Metro]

Some routes like the 412 and Centenary BUZ need to be left alone and allowed to continue down Coronation Drive. Coronation Drive still has quite strong demand, and 7.5 minute frequency/5 mins in peak is absolutely warranted. The BUZ network, as is, in most cases, serves rail as much as it can. I have spoken about the 330 in another thread, and we all know my attitudes towards the 100 and 340. Future BUZifications, however, need to start going to rail - and that is why we need to further campaign (when new rolling stock starts coming in) for 15 minute frequency to go 7am - 7pm on weekends as well.

Look, everybody is self interested and can think up very good reasons why their pet route / routes in their suburb should not be touched, but everybody elses modified. There is also huge demand on the SE Busway, it carries 150 000 trips per day, so that should mean that my 161 Rocket should always continue to the CBD right? 

Most of the demand on 412 comes from UQ-Toowong. Next are people going to the CBD. Coronation drive has the last proportion of that. In the absence of route 402, the proportion of passengers going to Toowong and no further on the 412 would be even higher and would probably compose the overwhelming majority of pax.

I am not denying that there are people who want to go to Coro Drive and live in St Lucia. But when services are changed people will also change their behaviour to use other routes that also service that corridor.

Lapdog, I don't get your hate for the BUZ network. Yes, trains are a more efficient way of doing things, but for the most part, the BUZ network is the most efficient high-frequency bus network in the country, serves its purpose well, and plugs key gaps. Future BUZes will need to feed to rail/other BUZ routes (aside from 300 BUZ, Bulimba BUZ and  450 Centenary BUZ), but right now the BUZ network is almost perfect (the only thing which needs to happen is de-BUZ 100/120/340, and remove the 222 and 333 because of duplication).

What hard evidence do you have that I hate the BUZ network. That's not something I have brought to the table, that's something that you have brought to the table. I specifically warned in my above post that *SOME* BUZ routes would need to be feederised, but not all because I KNEW someone would read something totally different. If you only send low frequency hourly or half hourly routes to train stations nothing is going to change. You cannot argue that you want high frequency feeders but at the same time make them all sacred cows. You can't invent new high frequency feeders either because of the sheer cost to add them PLUS keep the old network on top of that. We all know what that leads to - mass cost explosions - the hallmark of the current paradigm.

Toronto has no problem sending buses every 4 minutes to terminate at train stations. Melbourne doesn't have this problem either. And yet we do. Ha!!

I have spoken at length about this before, and will again - until the train network gets 15 minute frequency, minimum 6am - 9pm 7 days a week, the rail network is, and will continue to be, nothing more than an overgrown welfare network. And the fact we continue to have such frequency is due to the failure of successive governments to invest in rail in Brisbane, instead looking to chuck BUZ routes everywhere and build busways which are 1km long and have sections missing.

I would have agreed with you until about 2 weeks ago. We are going to get the TUZ network on January 20th. This is a HUGE WIN and will cause a mass increase in rail patronage for the first time in a long time. The fact that the whole inner network is being done up all at once is even more breathtaking and unbelievable. QR has done a FANTASTIC job. The half hourly trains on the Doomben line show that it really is here to stay and a vote of confidence in that lines future. What are the chances BT will keep the bus replacement buses after that date now that they will not be needed? LOL.

[HappyTrainGuy]

Now if only we can get BT to understand what the words 'feeder', 'rail feeder' and 'sunday service' means 

[James]

Look, everybody is self interested and can think up very good reasons why their pet route / routes in their suburb should not be touched, but everybody elses modified. There is also huge demand on the SE Busway, it carries 150 000 trips per day, so that should mean that my 161 Rocket should always continue to the CBD right? 

Most of the demand on 412 comes from UQ-Toowong. Next are people going to the CBD. Coronation drive has the last proportion of that. In the absence of route 402, the proportion of passengers going to Toowong and no further on the 412 would be even higher and would probably compose the overwhelming majority of pax.

I am not denying that there are people who want to go to Coro Drive and live in St Lucia. But when services are changed people will also change their behaviour to use other routes that also service that corridor.

What hard evidence do you have that I hate the BUZ network. That's not something I have brought to the table, that's something that you have brought to the table. I specifically warned in my above post that *SOME* BUZ routes would need to be feederised, but not all because I KNEW someone would read something totally different. If you only send low frequency hourly or half hourly routes to train stations nothing is going to change. You cannot argue that you want high frequency feeders but at the same time make them all sacred cows. You can't invent new high frequency feeders either because of the sheer cost to add them PLUS keep the old network on top of that. We all know what that leads to - mass cost explosions - the hallmark of the current paradigm.

Toronto has no problem sending buses every 4 minutes to terminate at train stations. Melbourne doesn't have this problem either. And yet we do. Ha!!

I would have agreed with you until about 2 weeks ago. We are going to get the TUZ network on January 20th. This is a HUGE WIN and will cause a mass increase in rail patronage for the first time in a long time. The fact that the whole inner network is being done up all at once is even more breathtaking and unbelievable. QR has done a FANTASTIC job. The half hourly trains on the Doomben line show that it really is here to stay and a vote of confidence in that lines future. What are the chances BT will keep the bus replacement buses after that date now that they will not be needed? LOL.

I have also spoken about how while the weekday frequency is nice, for this to be effective, we need weekend frequency as well. The total lack of investment in PT services on weekends is in fact starting to create a "third peak hour" on weekends. Roads like Gympie Road, Moggill Road and Old Cleveland Road, among others, are starting to experience congestion on weekends (especially on Saturdays) as well as weekends, yet we run the same standard of service on weekends as we do at 10pm on a Monday night!

And this is where the connective network comes into its own - people can start using PT to get to the shops on the weekend, to see friends. I'm sure it is like this at other shopping centres, but finding a carpark at 2pm on a Saturday at Indooroopilly is like trying to find a train to catch from Doomben on a Sunday. Services need to be boosted on weekends sooner rather than later, otherwise we are going to be finding our roads have worse congestion on a Saturday morning than they do on a Wednesday afternoon (for example).

You need to stop extracting everything and using it to support the 161. The 161 has no place in the bus network - you know it, I know it, and everybody on RBoT knows it. It is an hourly express bus which serves no useful purpose aside from for a few hundred people in a small estate. Yes, there is a lot of demand UQ-Toowong but there is also demand UQ-Coro Drive, City-Coro Drive just along Coronation Drive in general, and to suddenly reduce frequency along that corridor to super-TUAG (that is, turn up and go in the literal meaning, as in walk out the door and "oh sh%t, the bus is here, but I can see the next one 500m down the road!") to every 10 minutes in peak. It's a big increase in waiting time and a big loss in capacity.

Low frequency routes should be feederised first as they are the ones which are most convenient to feederise (impact on the least amount of passengers), are often the most wasteful (i.e. carrying the least passengers) and will save the most resources (a bus with 30 pax going to the CBD is paying its way more than a bus with 1 passenger going to the CBD). And these sums add up. If we feederise the 425, 430, 433, 435, 453 and 460 (454 gets BUZ, 444 remains as BUZ, 433 takes the all-stopping routes), assuming Indro - CBD to be 7km in length, you save 126km in-service running per hour. This is enough to double the frequency of most of these routes aside from the 460.

Admittedly the Indooroopilly example is easy to do (and its why the western suburbs are probably the easiest to save money on, you don't even need to do a proper review), but you can save money which can be re-directed into more frequent routes. And I did not say anywhere that we need to keep the existing network - but at the same time, we can't throw the whole thing out and denounce the whole network as rubbish and needing more feeders, because in its current state, we cannot do this to the network.

In fact, realistically speaking, if you want to save bus resources, get building a railway line straight down Mains Rd. You could probably render half of BT's fleet useless just by running a railway line down there and feeding pax into the railway line (yes, I'm aware pax will also need to go to Garden City, that can be adequately designed into the network).

[aldonius]

You need to stop extracting everything and using it to support the 161.

Poe's Law, mate, Poe's Law. (Namely, extremism is often indistinguishable from its parodies).

The 161 has no place in the bus network - you know it, I know it, and everybody on RBoT knows it.

[#Metro]

I have also spoken about how while the weekday frequency is nice, for this to be effective, we need weekend frequency as well. The total lack of investment in PT services on weekends is in fact starting to create a "third peak hour" on weekends. Roads like Gympie Road, Moggill Road and Old Cleveland Road, among others, are starting to experience congestion on weekends (especially on Saturdays) as well as weekends, yet we run the same standard of service on weekends as we do at 10pm on a Monday night!

I agree with you but I don't agree we need to wait until utopia comes. Isn't there decent service on all inner Ipswich line stations on the weekend too? You have to start somewhere. The sooner feeders start, the sooner the go card data will start to show rises in patronage on trains at train stations, the sooner the planners will wake up and put on more services. The planners need proof to put on services, at the moment there's none because the buses compete with the trains.

You need to stop extracting everything and using it to support the 161. The 161 has no place in the bus network - you know it, I know it, and everybody on RBoT knows it. It is an hourly express bus which serves no useful purpose aside from for a few hundred people in a small estate. Yes, there is a lot of demand UQ-Toowong but there is also demand UQ-Coro Drive, City-Coro Drive just along Coronation Drive in general, and to suddenly reduce frequency along that corridor to super-TUAG (that is, turn up and go in the literal meaning, as in walk out the door and "oh sh%t, the bus is here, but I can see the next one 500m down the road!") to every 10 minutes in peak. It's a big increase in waiting time and a big loss in capacity.

Disagree. The 161 is an essential public service that many old people and people with medical conditions (claustrophobia) find useful
due to the high levels of empty space on the bus. It is an essential community service for claustrophobics who use the busway and to take it away is cruel and heartless. Won't someone please think of the children? Claustrophobes pay taxes too and need to get around otherwise we would all be shut up in our house all day too scared to use other services with too high a passenger load.

Just because there is demand does not imply that it has to be served by a direct trip. Is there not demand for passengers going to the Toronto CBD when 16 buses per hour terminate at Toronto's Jane Subway station in the AM peak hour? And yet the bus terminates there. Why not send it all the way to the Toronto CBD? There's demand on the way. The train frequency in peak hour is very very good. People need to stop looking at their navel when considering the issue of being consistent in applying principles in an objective way across a network. Most demand is from UQ-Toowong. That's why there is the 402 in existence - to take the extra load to Toowong.

When situations change, people change their behaviour to adjust. Yes they might scream at you first, but it is high time to move from mealy mouthededness and half-hearted change because the end goal will never be achieved with that approach. I think there should be only ONE bus between Indooroopilly and the CBD - the 444 BUZ- and that should be run at very high frequency all day. Everyone else should change. The demand from Coronation Drive on 412 is far lower than the demand from UQ-Toowong or UQ-CBD. There is a CityCat that goes to St Lucia plus you have the 66 as well for those trips PLUS a train from the CBD to Toowong PLUS there is going to be a CityCat terminal installed on Coro Drive as well. Like I said, enough navel gazing.

Low frequency routes should be feederised first as they are the ones which are most convenient to feederise (impact on the least amount of passengers), are often the most wasteful (i.e. carrying the least passengers) and will save the most resources (a bus with 30 pax going to the CBD is paying its way more than a bus with 1 passenger going to the CBD). And these sums add up. If we feederise the 425, 430, 433, 435, 453 and 460 (454 gets BUZ, 444 remains as BUZ, 433 takes the all-stopping routes), assuming Indro - CBD to be 7km in length, you save 126km in-service running per hour. This is enough to double the frequency of most of these routes aside from the 460.

Perhaps.

Low frequency routes mean that you could wait up to half an hour to one hour for your connection in the middle of your journey. How can someone (not necessarily you) argue for this and then turn around and reject a connection to a high frequency train coming every 6-7 minutes in peak hour and 15 minutes off peak??? That's not consistent.

There is little to be saved from cutting low frequency routes. That's because there are hardly any services on these anyway and therefore any savings will be low. Consider two bus routes, both the exact same length, that saves say $100 by feederisation on each run.

Low Frequency (6am - 11pm) = 17 hours x 1 service/hour = 17 services x $100 saving per service = $1700 day saved.

High Frequency (6 am - 11 pm) = 17 hours x 4 services/hour = 68 services x $100 saving per service = $6800 per day saved.

The mathematics is irrefutable - the greatest savings come from feederisation of HIGH frequency routes NOT low frequency routes and thus that's where the greatest efficiencies are to be found. 

Admittedly the Indooroopilly example is easy to do (and its why the western suburbs are probably the easiest to save money on, you don't even need to do a proper review), but you can save money which can be re-directed into more frequent routes. And I did not say anywhere that we need to keep the existing network - but at the same time, we can't throw the whole thing out and denounce the whole network as rubbish and needing more feeders, because in its current state, we cannot do this to the network.

Um, that's exactly my statement when I said *SOME* routes would have to be feederised. I made this point clear on two occasions above. *SOME*

In fact, realistically speaking, if you want to save bus resources, get building a railway line straight down Mains Rd. You could probably render half of BT's fleet useless just by running a railway line down there and feeding pax into the railway line (yes, I'm aware pax will also need to go to Garden City, that can be adequately designed into the network).

This is an idea I agree with and some old plans do show that a busway down mains road was one of the busway concepts. I think rail down mains road is feasible by using a cut and cover tunnel which is much cheaper and faster than tunnel boring because I can be dug straight down from the surface. The alignment is far superior in terms of location, accessibility and density/shopping centres than a rail line using the freight corridor ever will be. And that's why I support that idea.

[Gazza]

Look, everybody is self interested and can think up very good reasons why their pet route / routes in their suburb should not be touched, but everybody elses modified. There is also huge demand on the SE Busway, it carries 150 000 trips per day, so that should mean that my 161 Rocket should always continue to the CBD right? 

The logical fallacy with this argument is that you are pitching tongue in cheek/sarcastic reasons to keep the 161, against actual reasons, for keeping the 412.

I just wish you had some degree more consistency to your arguments. It's like, when you were talking about your Centenary suburbs subway you were opposed to sending it via UQ because that would add 1 minute to the journey time.

But you have no issue adding much more than that by making everyone on the Coro Drive corridoor take a bus part of the way, then walk to a train station.

In the present brisbane context, where train lines and a lot of core bus routes will still be every 15 mins at best in the medium to longer term, there would undoubtedly be a rough circle you can draw around the CBD where, within the benefits of imposing a transfer would outweigh any positives.

It's like, you wouldn't terminate the 333 at Windsor and have people take the train into the CBD. Alderley too would probably not be worth it as a termination point (And would leave people on Kelvin Grove Rd out in the cold regardless), but certainly by the time you get to Ennoggera and Mitchelton you are in the territory where a bus transfer would be an improvement.

It's like how in Perth, they don't bother making people go from bus to train at Leederville, 2.2km from the city, but they are certainly doing it at Glenadough, 5km from the city.

In a city with a subway system operating at higher frequency, then the size of the circle around the CBD where it becomes worthwhile to transfer starts to Shrink a bit.

[James]

I agree with you but I don't agree we need to wait until utopia comes. Isn't there decent service on all inner Ipswich line stations on the weekend too? You have to start somewhere. The sooner feeders start, the sooner the go card data will start to show rises in patronage on trains at train stations, the sooner the planners will wake up and put on more services. The planners need proof to put on services, at the moment there's none because the buses compete with the trains.

One railway line with HF does not maketh a high-frequency rail service.  Put on the high-frequency rail services, and then we can start adding MORE BUZ SERVICES which feed to LOCAL TRAIN STATIONS or BUZ ROUTES. Caps because that needs to be emphasised. Most future HF services will need to go to major interchanges (for example, in my own review, CFN 411, CFN 425 and CFN 440).

Right now you can only do this along the inner Ipswich Line. Wynnum BUZ? Without rail high-frequency, a BUZ needs to go all the way to the CBD. With HF on rail 7 days a week, we can introduce a BUZ and just send it to the local train station. You could probably double the frequency in the areas west of Cannon Hill on the 215/220 just by terminating the routes there. Quadruple if you made the 220 into 223/224-like feeder trips.

Disagree. The 161 is an essential public service that many old people and people with medical conditions (claustrophobia) find useful
due to the high levels of empty space on the bus. It is an essential community service for claustrophobics who use the busway and to take it away is cruel and heartless. Won't someone please think of the children? Claustrophobes pay taxes too and need to get around otherwise we would all be shut up in our house all day too scared to use other services with too high a passenger load.

Just because there is demand does not imply that it has to be served by a direct trip. Is there not demand for passengers going to the Toronto CBD when 16 buses per hour terminate at Toronto's Jane Subway station in the AM peak hour? And yet the bus terminates there. Why not send it all the way to the Toronto CBD? There's demand on the way. The train frequency in peak hour is very very good. People need to stop looking at their navel when considering the issue of being consistent in applying principles in an objective way across a network. Most demand is from UQ-Toowong. That's why there is the 402 in existence - to take the extra load to Toowong.

When situations change, people change their behaviour to adjust. Yes they might scream at you first, but it is high time to move from mealy mouthededness and half-hearted change because the end goal will never be achieved with that approach. I think there should be only ONE bus between Indooroopilly and the CBD - the 444 BUZ- and that should be run at very high frequency all day. Everyone else should change. The demand from Coronation Drive on 412 is far lower than the demand from UQ-Toowong or UQ-CBD. There is a CityCat that goes to St Lucia plus you have the 66 as well for those trips PLUS a train from the CBD to Toowong PLUS there is going to be a CityCat terminal installed on Coro Drive as well. Like I said, enough navel gazing.

First part: Gazza has articulated my response well.

The logical fallacy with this argument is that you are pitching tongue in cheek/sarcastic reasons to keep the 161, against actual reasons, for keeping the 412.

The CityCat is no use for Coronation Drive, and in fact, I'd contest that if you don't live in West End, it is useless for UQ students. I've only used it a few times from UQ, and that has been to get to West End or QUT GP.

And you ignore that the 412's weekday frequency > train frequency. Counter-peak, the 412 has 5 minute frequency! Toowong station, 15 minute frequency. I think that in itself defeats your proposition, unless you believe we should more than halve CBD-bound frequency in the PM peak. To add to this, the interchange facilities at Toowong are not great, and there is not the room for them. Indooroopilly, once government grows a brain, will have great bus/rail interchange facilities.

Perhaps.

Low frequency routes mean that you could wait up to half an hour to one hour for your connection in the middle of your journey. How can someone (not necessarily you) argue for this and then turn around and reject a connection to a high frequency train coming every 6-7 minutes in peak hour and 15 minutes off peak??? That's not consistent.

There is little to be saved from cutting low frequency routes. That's because there are hardly any services on these anyway and therefore any savings will be low. Consider two bus routes, both the exact same length, that saves say $100 by feederisation on each run.

Low Frequency (6am - 11pm) = 17 hours x 1 service/hour = 17 services x $100 saving per service = $1700 day saved.

High Frequency (6 am - 11 pm) = 17 hours x 4 services/hour = 68 services x $100 saving per service = $6800 per day saved.

The mathematics is irrefutable - the greatest savings come from feederisation of HIGH frequency routes NOT low frequency routes and thus that's where the greatest efficiencies are to be found.

Of course, but HIGH frequency routes are also the routes which are more difficult to give service improvements too. 412 pax already have what is one of the best bus services in Brisbane, with full seated loads on 5pm on Sundays.... yet you tell the residents that you believe the route should be axed.

Lets say we feederise the 417. The 417 travels about 6km City-Toowong and 6km Toowong-Long Pocket. By feederising this hourly route (terminating it at Toowong), even though we do not give it high frequency, we increase the frequency to every 30 minutes. If we further feederise it and send the route to Indooroopilly, we reduce the route-km to 3km. Now we can give it 15 minute frequency!

This is an example of where new BUZifications are going to come from. Yes, going to Toowong you have a BUZ running every 10/15 minutes meeting a bus every half an hour - but pax do not need to wait as long. Resources are also saved as the bus no longer has to run to the CBD. There are positives in feederising infrequent routes, as then resources can be pooled and put towards a frequent route, or frequency can be boosted on all routes generally.

And for the most part, we can't feederise most of the current BUZ routes (100 is the exception).

[#Metro]

The logical fallacy with this argument is that you are pitching tongue in cheek/sarcastic reasons to keep the 161, against actual reasons, for keeping the 412.

Route 161. Goes through a high demand corridor (busway). Tick. Goes to an important activity centre (my house/Garden City Shopping Centre). tick. Goes past a uni (GU) tick. Goes to the CBD. tick. 

Loosen up!!

I am not convinced that 412 is essential. The Coronation Drive corridor would already be covered by a new CityCat terminal and BUZ 444 operating at boosted frequency. I think the big demand is between UQ and Toowong and I would rather use the funds that are paid to the driver from that point onwards to go into paying for services elsewhere on the network. Feel free to disagree and push your own ideas, I'm not stopping anyone from putting up whatever ideas they want. But that's the concept I will work from if I were designing the network plan.

I just wish you had some degree more consistency to your arguments. It's like, when you were talking about your Centenary suburbs subway you were opposed to sending it via UQ because that would add 1 minute to the journey time.

My jury is out on that idea to UQ. I'm not for it and I'm not against it, I just feel uneasy about it. Feel free to convince others/the engineers who might build it/put your case forward.

Like I said http://railbotforum.org/mbs/index.php?topic=9824.0

I'm not sure about a deviation via UQ. I'll leave that question to the engineers scoping team. The advantage is that yes there is a train to UQ, the disadvantage is it is a deviation, deviations add time, add cost (1.5 km tunnel = 400 million or so?), and there already is a busway there, something that Centenary suburbs don't have and one can use buses. I can see some good points that Gazza has made, but I just feel unnerved about it, and I think that's fair enough to say that. I think it is also more than fair to expect maps of proposals, especially when others do this and think that I don't have to feel bad for asking for that.

In the present brisbane context, where train lines and a lot of core bus routes will still be every 15 mins at best in the medium to longer term, there would undoubtedly be a rough circle you can draw around the CBD where, within the benefits of imposing a transfer would outweigh any positives.

If you want to draw your network based on that idea, feel free. The thing with me is that Coronation Drive is subject to very variable traffic congestion, most of the demand is between UQ and Toowong (and even more so if 402 was removed) and I would rather spend the money elsewhere rather than duplication.

No evidence that the benefits outweigh the positives has been presented. Any such case would have to consider what the alternative use of the funds freed up might be, for example, converting an hourly route to a half hourly route elsewhere on the network, how people might modify their behaviour and the number of people inconvenienced. My rough estimate is that only 20% of passengers on route 412 originate on the Coro Drive Corridor and almost all could transfer to a Coro drive service OR use the CityCat once the Park Road terminal goes in.

It's like, you wouldn't terminate the 333 at Windsor and have people take the train into the CBD. Alderley too would probably not be worth it as a termination point (And would leave people on Kelvin Grove Rd out in the cold regardless), but certainly by the time you get to Ennoggera and Mitchelton you are in the territory where a bus transfer would be an improvement.

The difference between that and the 412 is that a large proportion of the passengers are not getting off at a point before reaching the CBD. It's not like 50% of passengers on 333 suddenly decide to get off at Lutwyche before the bus goes to the CBD. Under a connected network 333 would be a trunk route (i.e. it would take passengers from buses terminating at Chermside), So making passengers change twice (feeder bus at Chermside-BUZ333-train) would be not preferable. This is NOT like the 412 in the sense that UQ is not like a feeder bus centre where people collect to go to the CBD after having hopped off another bus.

Also another difference is that people who want a direct trip to Coronation Drive for whatever reason could go and catch the CityCat. Perfectly good ferry terminal at Regatta and another terminal will be built at Park Road. The 412, if allowed to go down Coronation Drive, will be carrying 50% air on average all the way to the CBD (air parcels left by departures at Toowong), duplicate the direct ferry and also duplicate the 444. Like I said, I'd rather spend the money on something else.

I'm not stopping anyone from drawing up their own costed/route length measured network plans and posting them. Please, I don't agree 100% with anybody and I don't expect anyone to agree 100% with me. Take the parts you like and discard the parts you don't and make your own proposals.

[#Metro]

One railway line with HF does not maketh a high-frequency rail service.  Put on the high-frequency rail services, and then we can start adding MORE BUZ SERVICES which feed to LOCAL TRAIN STATIONS or BUZ ROUTES. Caps because that needs to be emphasised. Most future HF services will need to go to major interchanges (for example, in my own review, CFN 411, CFN 425 and CFN 440).

Right now you can only do this along the inner Ipswich Line. Wynnum BUZ? Without rail high-frequency, a BUZ needs to go all the way to the CBD. With HF on rail 7 days a week, we can introduce a BUZ and just send it to the local train station. You could probably double the frequency in the areas west of Cannon Hill on the 215/220 just by terminating the routes there. Quadruple if you made the 220 into 223/224-like feeder trips.

Disagree. Have you heard the announcement recently that the largest rail service upgrade in QR's history will take place on January 20th next year? This is fantastic news and the first step to getting a proper network (convincing BT to feed rail - ha! - is the next step but we are making progress on this front because this is a massive gain that will support the conversion of the bus network to a feeder system. We are 50% there. I take your point about the weekend inconvenience on Sat and Sunday however it is nowhere near as critical as we will not have work rush hours to deal with.

The CityCat is no use for Coronation Drive, and in fact, I'd contest that if you don't live in West End, it is useless for UQ students. I've only used it a few times from UQ, and that has been to get to West End or QUT GP.

Disagree. As I keep pointing out that a ferry terminal at park road will be constructed by BCC. The number of passengers that originate from Coronation Drive are a minority proportion of route 412 passengers IMHO. The great majority of demand is for UQ-Toowong (~ 50%) followed by UQ-CBD (30%) and UQ-Coro (20%). These figures are in an environment where 402 is taking load, and so the figure for UQ-Toowong would be far higher in the absence of a 402. 20% x  65 seat bus = 13 people. It is just not worth the cost!!

And you ignore that the 412's weekday frequency > train frequency. Counter-peak, the 412 has 5 minute frequency! Toowong station, 15 minute frequency. I think that in itself defeats your proposition, unless you believe we should more than halve CBD-bound frequency in the PM peak. To add to this, the interchange facilities at Toowong are not great, and there is not the room for them. Indooroopilly, once government grows a brain, will have great bus/rail interchange facilities.

Disagree. You ignore the fact that you have already previously raised all these arguments and that I have already presented real-world evidence soundly refuting them in the form of the Monash 601 bus. You have not presented any real world evidence to support your case other than assertions that they are correct. The fact that route 402 also terminates at Toowong further adds local evidence in direct contradiction to your argument.

I reproduce what I said in the thread http://railbotforum.org/mbs/index.php?topic=10222.msg132373#msg132373

Can you explain how the 601 to Monash University runs at higher frequency than our 412 despite the fact that UQ is a much larger university than Monash? Can you explain how it is that this bus running at ~5 minute frequency feeds passengers into Huntingdale Station where the trains only run every 15 minutes?

Can you further explain how it is that this bus route which is often full has no interchange facilities (like Toowong) whatsoever at the train station and requires passengers to cross a road at Traffic Lights, walk down a set of stairs into a pedestrian subway and then up a ramp??

May I only suggest to you that 412 and 411 Termination at Toowong is desirable and feasible.

Of course, but HIGH frequency routes are also the routes which are more difficult to give service improvements too. 412 pax already have what is one of the best bus services in Brisbane, with full seated loads on 5pm on Sundays.... yet you tell the residents that you believe the route should be axed.

You're not making a planning argument. You're making a 'we-can't offend the local residents' argument. I do not accept it. I am not axing the 412. I am sending it to Toowong Station. I think it is possible to do with a proper change management plan, something that appears to be non-existent at TransLink.

And for the most part, we can't feederise most of the current BUZ routes (100 is the exception).

Sure. But I did take extreme pains to say *SOME* high frequency routes should be feederised. 412 is NOT in that category of sacred cow routes.

[Gazza]

Goes to an important activity centre (my house/Garden City Shopping Centre). tick. Goes past a uni (GU) tick. Goes to the CBD. tick. 

Loosen up!!

No, still not a direct comparsion. That one is an obvious duplication of one that does do all that (111).
Again, stop making toungue in cheek "on paper' comparisons, and look at what the route is actually doing in real ife.

I think the big demand is between UQ and Toowong and I would rather use the funds that are paid to the driver from that point onwards to go into paying for services elsewhere on the network. Feel free to disagree and push your own ideas, I'm not stopping anyone from putting up whatever ideas they want. But that's the concept I will work from if I were designing the network plan.

But the 412 gets full cost recovery right? So re-allocating the bus to shitsville won't actually "save" any money.

Also another difference is that people who want a direct trip to Coronation Drive for whatever reason could go and catch the CityCat. Perfectly good ferry terminal at Regatta and another terminal will be built at Park Road.

They are very far apart though aren't they?
The problem is you are viewing the service coverage as a disparate collection of stops...a couple of current/new city cat stops that will be 1.4km apart, a few train stations on the other side, also a fair distance apart.
I do think coro is in need of a single seat local service, because the distances involved would mean the wait/walk times for transfers along that corridoor would be longer than the actual trip.

and BUZ 444 operating at boosted frequency

Now hang on just a sec!

You say that the 412 is wasting resources, but boosting the frequency of the 444 out to Moggill is perfectly ok? That in counter peak you plan on having buses going all the way out there every  5 mins or so?

The way I see it, the 412 is effectivley a 444 short working of sorts, that covers a high demand, high density corridor along Coro (And then the 402 sits as another short working within that, boosting capacity between the station and UQ)

If the 412 can manage full loads by itself, they sure as hell wont fit on the 444s.

[#Metro]

Interchange "facilities" at Huntingdale, Monash 601 high frequency bus, services every 4 minutes to a uni feeding rail. Few developments with houses nearby as the area is industrial and hence almost all pax are transfer pax.

Interchange facilities - none - plain bus stop. Pax cross road to get to the station and then walk down into a pedestrian subway.
http://goo.gl/maps/yanpF

Interchange facilities are a nice to have. Frequency, span and decent connecting service are far more important. The bus stop can be moved to be closer to Toowong as well. Perhaps place it where the cab rank is outside woolies Toowong.

When people are faced with challenges there are two main ways to approach it.

1. Focus on the problem, why it won't work, why it can't be done, blah blah blah
2. Focus on the solution. How problems can be overcome and innovate.

I'm in the second category.

[Gazza]

Services every 4 minutes to a uni feeding rail.

Monash is also way out in the burbs (So not feasible to continue to the CBD) and doesn't have anything else around it, so there's no point for it to go anywhere beyond Huntingdale station.

Besides, 29 is the equivalent service at UQ right? Services every 5 mins, operating as a feeder.

[#Metro]

Still focusing on nitpicking?

No, still not a direct comparsion. That one is an obvious duplication of one that does do all that (111).
Again, stop making toungue in cheek "on paper' comparisons, and look at what the route is actually doing in real ife.

I can write whatever I want so long as it stays within the TOS.
Secondly, disagree. I want to replace the 111 with a subway. That should be clear that there is no duplication there then.

But the 412 gets full cost recovery right? So re-allocating the bus to shitsville won't actually "save" any money.

Disagree. The cost recovery will still be good under a feeder PLUS you'd be able to improve services elsewhere on the network. It is a fallacy to narrowly consider only people on the bus and neglect to consider everyone else on the wider network. It should be obvious if 412 users get more, then someone is getting less elsewhere. The pie is only so big.

They are very far apart though aren't they?
The problem is you are viewing the service coverage as a disparate collection of stops...a couple of current/new city cat stops that will be 1.4km apart, a few train stations on the other side, also a fair distance apart.
I do think coro is in need of a single seat local service, because the distances involved would mean the wait/walk times for transfers along that corridoor would be longer than the actual trip.

Fine. You go off and draw up your own network plan with that in there. It will not be featuring in my network plan. I am not paying for 13 people to get their own one seat ride. I'd rather spend that capacity elsewhere to extend the network and improve services for more people.

Quote

    and BUZ 444 operating at boosted frequency

Now hang on just a sec!

You say that the 412 is wasting resources, but boosting the frequency of the 444 out to Moggill is perfectly ok? That in counter peak you plan on having buses going all the way out there every  5 mins or so?

412 is going to be a trunk route taking transfer pax at Indooroopilly, so it does need boosting. I do not support the continuation of 444 past Kenmore at this stage. I propose a bridge between Moggill and Riverhills so that the 400 Centenary BUZ can serve them.

The way I see it, the 412 is effectivley a 444 short working of sorts, that covers a high demand, high density corridor along Coro (And then the 402 sits as another short working within that, boosting capacity between the station and UQ)

If the 412 can manage full loads by itself, they sure as hell wont fit on the 444s.

Not at all. The train is 15x the capacity of the bus. They have a choice of using the train or catching the boosted 444. This is only about 30 people (assuming full load) that would transfer, so if we assume half go to the train and half to the bus, that's 15 people or about 20% the capacity of a standard bus. I don't think it is an issue at all. Some people will catch the ferry instead, so even less...

I want to move forward from narrow navel-gazing arguments about how we can't do it etc etc. I'm confident that it is possible to do. Melbourne does it with the 601, Toronto does it with the Jane 35, Brisbane can do it too.

[Gazza]

Still focusing on nitpicking?

Well yeah, because its full of holes.

I can write whatever I want so long as it stays within the TOS.

Of course, but intentional logical fallacies won't actually get you very far with the RBOT readership.

. The pie is only so big.

But a service with full cost recovery isn't taking any of the 'pie', because it wouldn't be eating into the subsidy budget.

Fine. You go off and draw up your own network plan with that in there.

So one has to go and draw up a full blown network plan to comment on yours?

For me it's quite simple. You'd have one 4bph service going to the Centenary, one 4bph to St Lucia, which would combine to make a 7.5 min frequency on the high demand Coro Drive corridor. Everyone else would have a feeder to Indro.
Any supplementary peak hour capacity would be in the form of rockets, sent via the Centenary highway and Milton Rd.

[#Metro]

Monash is also way out in the burbs (So not feasible to continue to the CBD) and doesn't have anything else around it, so there's no point for it to go anywhere beyond Huntingdale station.

Incorrect. There is a high frequency smartbus 900 and there is also a 630 bus to Elwood.

630 bus http://ptv.vic.gov.au/assets/Maps/Routes/PDFs/907_Bus630.pdf
900 SmartBus (High Frequency) http://ptv.vic.gov.au/route/view/1517


Incorrect on the distance as well. Monash Clayton is 22 km from the Melbourne CBD. The Princes Highway is a major arterial that goes directly to the CBD. They could run the bus to the CBD if they wanted to.

To compare,
Riverhills to CBD is ~ 20 km (direct bus)
Bracken Ridge is ~20 km (direct BUZ route)
Browns Plains is 28 km (direct BUZ route)
Inala Shopping Centre is 25 km (direct BUZ route)

Disagree.

[#Metro]

But a service with full cost recovery isn't taking any of the 'pie', because it wouldn't be eating into the subsidy budget.

Disagree. Aren't route operators paid per route km and not on patronage?? If the focus is providing SERVICE then my proposal to feederise it would provide more service to other people WHILE at the same time satisfy the demand to UQ AND still not be eating into the subsidy budget.

[Gazza]

Incorrect on the distance as well. Monash Clayton is 22 km from the Melbourne CBD. The Princes Highway is a major arterial that goes directly to the CBD. They could run the bus to the CBD if they wanted to.

Yeah, 22km, not 3km like it is Toowong/Auchenflower to the CBD.
A 22km route running every 4 mins would be quite a bit more of a burden than a 3km extension of a route doing that.

Aren't route operators paid per route km and not on patronage??

Yes, but fare revenue collected by the operator goes back to TL, and the circumstances of the 412 means that the money flowing back to TL through fares is equal/greater than what they are paying BT to run it...In effect, it actually benefits Translink/The Govt to have the 412 existing.
Same goes for a few other routes that do really well, like the TX2.

[#Metro]

Incorrect. There is the 401 which does the same thing between Melbourne Uni and North Melbourne Train station and that IS a comparable distance to the CBD. It also runs at Ultra-High Frequency like the Monash 601.

Disagree again. I don't think it is my arguments that have factual holes, and I am presenting real world evidence and you have presented...assertions, hypotheticals and no hard real world evidence to back yourself up. Maybe next time you or anyone else is in Melbourne, go and catch the 401 and 601.


http://ptv.vic.gov.au/route/view/1657

Yes, but fare revenue collected by the operator goes back to TL, and the circumstances of the 412 means that the money flowing back to TL through fares is equal/greater than what they are paying BT to run it...In effect, it actually benefits Translink/The Govt to have the 412 existing.
Same goes for a few other routes that do really well, like the TX2.

With a feeder you would be able to turn the bus back and increase capacity a bit more. You would get similar or better revenue for that route and you would benefit people with new services elsewhere on the network as well from the savings.

[James]

Disagree. Have you heard the announcement recently that the largest rail service upgrade in QR's history will take place on January 20th next year? This is fantastic news and the first step to getting a proper network (convincing BT to feed rail - ha!) - is the next step but we are making progress on this front because this is a massive gain that will support the conversion of the bus network to a feeder system. We are 50% there. I take your point about the weekend inconvenience on Sat and Sunday however it is nowhere near as critical as we will not have work rush hours to deal with.

I would say it is more than critical. In order for working families to truly start making do with one car, you need to have adequate PT 7 days a week. In our society, people do not stay home on Sundays and have a roast! Dad goes out to get some hardware supplies, and mum might take the kids down to the cinemas. Mum and dad are at work and the kids are at school on weekdays!

You do not have rush hour during the weekday off-peak either. Regardless, weekend travel is very important, and the fact our roads are congested shows that. A good example is myself and the 428. On weekdays, I have (almost) 15 minute frequency to Indooroopilly. Great, I'll bus it! Saturdays, every 30 minutes - mmmm... mixed feelings. Sundays, every hour - off I go, in my car, clogging up the roads. A proper, frequent feeder system can only operate with 7-7-7 frequency AT MINIMUM.

Disagree. As I keep pointing out that a ferry terminal at park road will be constructed by BCC. The number of passengers that originate from Coronation Drive are a minority proportion of route 412 passengers IMHO. The great majority of demand is for UQ-Toowong (~ 50%) followed by UQ-CBD (30%) and UQ-Coro (20%). These figures are in an environment where 402 is taking load, and so the figure for UQ-Toowong would be far higher in the absence of a 402. 20% x  65 seat bus = 13 people. It is just not worth the cost!!

...and then there's pax to use the route along Coronation Drive as well.

And the ferry terminal, if you haven't looked at a map recently, will do SFA. If you haven't gone for a ride on the ferries, they stop in some of the least connective parts of the CBD and they're slower than a lot of road transport. The fact you consider it a serious option for people lets say, commuting to offices in Milton, or for people in UQ (where the ferry terminal is so far away from the main area, North Korea's nukes would have difficulty getting there), is laughable.

Disagree. You ignore the fact that you have already previously raised all these arguments and that I have already presented real-world evidence soundly refuting them in the form of the Monash 601 bus. You have not presented any real world evidence to support your case other than assertions that they are correct. The fact that route 402 also terminates at Toowong further adds local evidence in direct contradiction to your argument.

I reproduce what I said in the thread http://railbotforum.org/mbs/index.php?topic=10222.msg132373#msg132373

Can you explain how the 601 to Monash University runs at higher frequency than our 412 despite the fact that UQ is a much larger university than Monash? Can you explain how it is that this bus running at ~5 minute frequency feeds passengers into Huntingdale Station where the trains only run every 15 minutes?

Can you further explain how it is that this bus route which is often full has no interchange facilities (like Toowong) whatsoever at the train station and requires passengers to cross a road at Traffic Lights, walk down a set of stairs into a pedestrian subway and then up a ramp??

May I only suggest to you that 412 and 411 Termination at Toowong is desirable and feasible.

You're not making a planning argument. You're making a 'we-can't offend the local residents' argument. I do not accept it. I am not axing the 412. I am sending it to Toowong Station. I think it is possible to do with a proper change management plan, something that appears to be non-existent at TransLink.

The Monash bus is a different set of circumstances - Gazza has covered this all well.

411 termination at Toowong is desirable - frequency can be boosted significantly. 412 frequency is at a level where boosting it will do nothing to further induce patronage - and the waiting time saved (on average, no more than 3-4 minutes) will not be adequate to off-set the cost of transferring (up to 15 minute transfer penalty - !!!).

'Oh but the users of the 170 benefit' - as a user of the 412, unless I also use the 170 frequently (which I don't), I don't give a sh%t about whether users of the 170 benefit. I want to see MY route benefit. Most people only care about their route, and just chopping off half of it without regard for the community (or how the possible transfer penalties may mean that a 412 under the current situation could be in the CBD even before your train has left Toowong!), is bad PT practice.

My own PT philosophy says for every forced transfer, there needs to be compensation. That could be in the form of increased frequency or reduced travel time. What you propose does neither for 412 users, and will deter PT usage in these areas. The only exception to this is when the BUZ route is bleeding money - 100 and 340 would be the main ones, in my mind. The 412 is one of the most popular (and profitable) BUZ routes in the system. There are far more low-hanging fruit to overhaul before you touch that one, and there's even low-hanging fruit in terms of additional services (402 should be completely cut, or at least outside peak, and some of those every-5-minute services cut, and terminated at Toowong/converted to 402s). Users of the 601 haven't had anything better, so there's no reason for them to complain.

Lapdog's PT mentality seems to be 'ooh look, a node with a bus going past it, CUT HERE AND MAKE PAX TRANSFER'.

[#Metro]

I would say it is more than critical. In order for working families to truly start making do with one car, you need to have adequate PT 7 days a week. In our society, people do not stay home on Sundays and have a roast! Dad goes out to get some hardware supplies, and mum might take the kids down to the cinemas. Mum and dad are at work and the kids are at school on weekdays!

You do not have rush hour during the weekday off-peak either. Regardless, weekend travel is very important, and the fact our roads are congested shows that. A good example is myself and the 428. On weekdays, I have (almost) 15 minute frequency to Indooroopilly. Great, I'll bus it! Saturdays, every 30 minutes - mmmm... mixed feelings. Sundays, every hour - off I go, in my car, clogging up the roads. A proper, frequent feeder system can only operate with 7-7-7 frequency AT MINIMUM.

There are precedents for routes having an extension depending on whether it is weekday or weekend. My wonderful personal rocket bus 161 extends to the CBD during the week and becomes a feeder during the weekend. I know that the other way around would be what we would be aiming for, but the principle would be the same. Canberra also does the same thing - the entire network becomes a feeder and transfer system on weekends between Belconnen-Civic-Tuggeranong.

In the case of a Wynnum BUZ, you'd just extend the bus to the CBD on the weekend. On the other hand, I doubt it would cost much to fix up weekend train services given that we are talking about 2 days of the week rather than 5. The current situation is that there is no Wynnum BUZ anyway, so I don't understand what the fuss is all about unless it was just a tactic to stall progress.


In the case of route 412, there can be no argument. The train services ARE 15 mins on the weekend. See ---> http://translink.com.au/sites/default/files/assets/timetables/130506-ipswich-rosewood-line.pdf

..and then there's pax to use the route along Coronation Drive as well.

And the ferry terminal, if you haven't looked at a map recently, will do SFA. If you haven't gone for a ride on the ferries, they stop in some of the least connective parts of the CBD and they're slower than a lot of road transport. The fact you consider it a serious option for people lets say, commuting to offices in Milton, or for people in UQ (where the ferry terminal is so far away from the main area, North Korea's nukes would have difficulty getting there), is laughable.

My heart bleeds with concern. Not. Come on. Not only will there be two ferry terminals on Coronation Drive PLUS the 444 that people can transfer to but the number of bus stops NOT serviced within the two ferry terminals must be able to be counted on ONE hand. Is this some kind of a joke? Or is the real reason self-interest dressed up as concern so that local residents who want other people to go without services because they can't be bothered connecting and spending a few mins of their time to change at a huge financial and social cost to others. Sounds like it.

People who want to go to the CBD will change their behaviour. They will

1. Catch the ferry to the CBD or to Coro Drive
2. Catch the 412 and change to a train or 444
3. Catch route 66 to the CBD (if they are going to the CBD)

Please supply the number of times that CityCats have been caught in traffic congestion/accidents on Coronation Drive? That's right. ZERO. They have an effective class A ROW (the fastest and best class for PT) because they don't share the river with traffic lights or cars or pedestrians.

If you haven't gone for a ride on the ferries, they stop in some of the least connective parts of the CBD and they're slower than a lot of road transport. The fact you consider it a serious option for people lets say, commuting to offices in Milton, or for people in UQ (where the ferry terminal is so far away from the main area, North Korea's nukes would have difficulty getting there), is laughable.

Excuse me if you will pardon me but I am a regular user of the ferry. Am I supposed to believe that BCC would spend millions of dollars on constructing a Ferry Terminal on Coronation Drive just so no-one could use it, so it would have no demand and so it could be a decoration? Ha! Come on, you people don't want to change. That's the real reason. Only about 20% (13 people) originate from Coronation Drive and these people have other options (New Ferry Terminal, Change buses). And I can't believe that they can't walk. How on earth do they get around the UQ St Lucia Campus from lecture theatre to lecture theatre, when UQ is an absolutely enormous 144 hectare campus. Perhaps their mother pushes them in a pram?

The Monash bus is a different set of circumstances - Gazza has covered this all well.

Of course "it's different". Queensland starts with Q and when faced with blantant in-your-face hard evidence we just ignore it and say it can't be done.

411 termination at Toowong is desirable - frequency can be boosted significantly. 412 frequency is at a level where boosting it will do nothing to further induce patronage - and the waiting time saved (on average, no more than 3-4 minutes) will not be adequate to off-set the cost of transferring (up to 15 minute transfer penalty - !!!).

Oh the humanity! Toronto terminates full load route 35 buses every 4 minutes at Jane Station. Melbourne terminates full buses every 4 minutes from Monash at Huntingdale with the 601 and it does exactly the same thing with the 401 in the CBD to Melbourne University. Brisbane terminates the 402 at Toowong and you advocate for the 411 to terminate at Toowong.

'Oh but the users of the 170 benefit' - as a user of the 412, unless I also use the 170 frequently (which I don't), I don't give a sh%t about whether users of the 170 benefit. I want to see MY route benefit. Most people only care about their route, and just chopping off half of it without regard for the community (or how the possible transfer penalties may mean that a 412 under the current situation could be in the CBD even before your train has left Toowong!), is bad PT practice.

Excuse me. If you follow your logic through very carefully and think about all the other people in the City of Brisbane you would soon realise that you are advocating for the current network. The legacy of this sort of thinking is very Brisbane Transport, is is the philosophy of hi waste that has led us into the morass of extreme subsidies (70%) some of the highest in the world, extreme levies on ratepayers ($400), extreme waste (50% air at Cultural Centre), and extreme fares (now pushing $5 for one zone). You are right that people only care about themselves. But that's not a planning principle. People cannot expect the PT system to be their own on demand personal taxi service. It is a PUBLIC transport system that is PUBLICLY funded that is there to serve THE PUBLIC at large and if people want a taxi, that is already provided and those people should pay the taxi driver taxi level fares. EVERYONE PAYS so EVERYONE should see benefit for their $400 p.a. money they pour into the BT bus network.

I am sure some people will leave the system. Persons who glue their butt to the seat of the bus upon boarding and do not unglue themselves until termination in the CBD for example. But for every such person lost is many more gained using the same money attracted by higher frequency, better connectivity, more services from extra capacity that feeders bring, more choice of departure time, and new service upgrades elsewhere on the network.

I can show entire cities that operate very well on the feeder and transfer principle (i.e. Toronto, Melbourne with the SmartBus), and yet "that's different" and "it won't work here". Too bad.

My own PT philosophy says for every forced transfer, there needs to be compensation. That could be in the form of increased frequency or reduced travel time. What you propose does neither for 412 users, and will deter PT usage in these areas. The only exception to this is when the BUZ route is bleeding money - 100 and 340 would be the main ones, in my mind. The 412 is one of the most popular (and profitable) BUZ routes in the system. There are far more low-hanging fruit to overhaul before you touch that one, and there's even low-hanging fruit in terms of additional services (402 should be completely cut, or at least outside peak, and some of those every-5-minute services cut, and terminated at Toowong/converted to 402s). Users of the 601 haven't had anything better, so there's no reason for them to complain.

Not at all. To use an analogy, profitable companies often make large numbers of staff redundant. The companies are already profitable, so why do they do this? Because they can make even more savings and make their goods cheaper for everyone else. A few people do feel pain, but overall the greater number of customers benefit.

Now this 412 will get extra capacity as a result of feederisation. And other places will get a service upgrade that extends their mobility to other parts of the city where there were none before.

Of course self interested people "don't give a sh*t" like you say. And you are right. And that's exactly why we have the fares and network issues that we have today.

Lapdog's PT mentality seems to be 'ooh look, a node with a bus going past it, CUT HERE AND MAKE PAX TRANSFER'.

Not at all. I didn't advocate the termination of the 444 at Toowong did I? You know, the least you could do is present facts and hard evidence and real world experience than make jibes. Jibes can't be used for route planning purposes. Facts and evidence can. I've given hard real world examples that it works. And that's good enough for me.

Feel free to make your own plans, but in my plan, 412 is a feeder, I am happy to be criticised dusk until dawn about it, but I have laid out the logic for my decision very clearly, and unless there is some new hard real world evidence, then this is what I have decided and I am sticking to.

[Gazza]

Or is the real reason self-interest dressed up as concern so that local residents who want other people to go without services because they can't be bothered connecting and spending a few mins of their time to change at a huge financial and social cost to others. Sounds like it.

Why would I care. I come to UQ via rail so it wouldn't effect me if it was feeder only. But the 412 gets decent loads in both directions each peak (It's an interesting sight seeing bus stops on both sides of the road busy in peak, so cutting it off would be a regressive step for these passengers.

Of course "it's different". Queensland starts with Q and when faced with blantant in-your-face hard evidence we just ignore it and say it can't be done.

No, its not because its M versus Q. It's because both routes have different urban contexts.

Oh the humanity! Toronto terminates full load route 35 buses every 4 minutes at Jane Station.

What is the service frequency at Jane, compared to the service frequency at Toowong Station...There's your answer.

Feel free to make your own plans, but in my plan, 412 is a feeder,

This plan you keep going on about, but never actually post 

[HappyTrainGuy]

I'd personally like to see the 314 be a Springfield rail feeder. It's nonsense but so to is trying to follow what is going on in this thread.

[#Metro]

What is the service frequency at Jane, compared to the service frequency at Toowong Station...There's your answer.

What's the service frequency at Huntingdale Station in Melbourne?

What people are effectively arguing for is that they are all for feeder buses so long as nobody uses them. Heaven help us if a bus carries high load - keep them away from the train system!! Just remember, one full bus (65 pax) is one very empty train.

[Gazza]

What is the service frequency at Jane, compared to the service frequency at Toowong Station...There's your answer.

What's the service frequency at Huntingdale Station in Melbourne?

Why on earth would you continue the 601 through to the CBD? It would be agonisingly slow.
In this case, getting onto the train from Huntingdale saves you time to and from the CBD.

Same cannot be said for terminating the 412 at Toowong.

[#Metro]

And the people who's bus went from 60 minutes frequency to 30 minutes frequency or 30 minutes to 15 minutes as a result of the savings that were spent elsewhere? Do they factor in this calculation of benefits??

There is a great amount of congestion on Coronation Drive. There are alternatives. People who are going to the CBD can catch the route 66 from UQ Lakes. It is a direct trip that goes on the busway. It goes to the CBD. You have the ferry as well. That goes to the CBD as well and stops at North Quay, a short walk from the Queen Street Mall and QSBS. So we have the CBD passengers sorted. You have the ability to transfer on top of that to a 444 OR a train if people want to be super picky. People in that corridor will also have the 470 on Milton Rd and provided that is made simple and regular, can transfer also at Toowong to a bus.

If you're going on Coronation Drive you also will have the ferry terminals as well. For the sake of 13 people per service, I don't think it is worth spending the huge sums of money for that.

So I am not concerned.

http://railbotforum.org/mbs/index.php?topic=8757.msg120770#msg120770

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[Gazza]

For the sake of 13 people per service, I don't think it is worth spending the huge sums of money for that.

It's more than that each time I can assure you.

[James]

There are precedents for routes having an extension depending on whether it is weekday or weekend. My wonderful personal rocket bus 161 extends to the CBD during the week and becomes a feeder during the weekend. I know that the other way around would be what we would be aiming for, but the principle would be the same. Canberra also does the same thing - the entire network becomes a feeder and transfer system on weekends between Belconnen-Civic-Tuggeranong.

In the case of a Wynnum BUZ, you'd just extend the bus to the CBD on the weekend. On the other hand, I doubt it would cost much to fix up weekend train services given that we are talking about 2 days of the week rather than 5. The current situation is that there is no Wynnum BUZ anyway, so I don't understand what the fuss is all about unless it was just a tactic to stall progress.

In the case of route 412, there can be no argument. The train services ARE 15 mins on the weekend. See ---> http://translink.com.au/sites/default/files/assets/timetables/130506-ipswich-rosewood-line.pdf

I think it is just better to keep a Wynnum BUZ as a feeder 7-days a week and expand train frequency. BUZification locks in a bus-centric future. Remember this - it is why we have to be very careful BUZing routes.

My heart bleeds with concern. Not. Come on. Not only will there be two ferry terminals on Coronation Drive PLUS the 444 that people can transfer to but the number of bus stops NOT serviced within the two ferry terminals must be able to be counted on ONE hand. Is this some kind of a joke? Or is the real reason self-interest dressed up as concern so that local residents who want other people to go without services because they can't be bothered connecting and spending a few mins of their time to change at a huge financial and social cost to others. Sounds like it.

People who want to go to the CBD will change their behaviour. They will

1. Catch the ferry to the CBD or to Coro Drive
2. Catch the 412 and change to a train or 444
3. Catch route 66 to the CBD (if they are going to the CBD)

Please supply the number of times that CityCats have been caught in traffic congestion/accidents on Coronation Drive? That's right. ZERO. They have an effective class A ROW (the fastest and best class for PT) because they don't share the river with traffic lights or cars or pedestrians.

Or they will go "f*** this" and get in their . Forcing transfers to close to one's destination is not attractive.

With relation to CityCats: They have a Class A ROW, yet between UQ and the Regatta, manage to take the exact same time (off-peak) to complete the journey as the 411 on a Class C ROW, with stops every 300m. When a CityCat stops, it has to moor, open the doors (manually), board passengers through one entry, and then unmoor and get on its way. A bus stops, opens the doors, passengers get both on and off, 30 seconds later doors close and bus gets on its way.

Excuse me if you will pardon me but I am a regular user of the ferry. Am I supposed to believe that BCC would spend millions of dollars on constructing a Ferry Terminal on Coronation Drive just so no-one could use it, so it would have no demand and so it could be a decoration? Ha! Come on, you people don't want to change. That's the real reason. Only about 20% (13 people) originate from Coronation Drive and these people have other options (New Ferry Terminal, Change buses). And I can't believe that they can't walk. How on earth do they get around the UQ St Lucia Campus from lecture theatre to lecture theatre, when UQ is an absolutely enormous 144 hectare campus. Perhaps their mother pushes them in a pram?

The real reason is that if you're going to make me change to complete a journey which is merely 3km in length, when before you were offering a superior service, you are going to encourage me to get back into my car and drive. As I mentioned, BUZ locks in a bus-centric future.

Of course "it's different". Queensland starts with Q and when faced with blantant in-your-face hard evidence we just ignore it and say it can't be done.

Oh the humanity! Toronto terminates full load route 35 buses every 4 minutes at Jane Station. Melbourne terminates full buses every 4 minutes from Monash at Huntingdale with the 601 and it does exactly the same thing with the 401 in the CBD to Melbourne University. Brisbane terminates the 402 at Toowong and you advocate for the 411 to terminate at Toowong.

402 is a waste of space, convert to short-running 412s. 402 isn't really for Toowong pax anyway, its for pax from intermediate stops who get left behind by full 412s.

You see, the 411 is a different kettle of fish. By terminating the 411 at Toowong, you can arrange for the service to double in frequency and meet every train at Toowong. For people north of Toowong, the frequency decrease is so minor it is irrelevant, so your point is moot. By terminating the 412 at Toowong, you take the resources away from it and send them elsewhere, which acts as a deterrent to PT on the 412, as pax are now forced to change (possibly up to 15 minute transfer penalty) when they previously didn't have to.

Excuse me. If you follow your logic through very carefully and think about all the other people in the City of Brisbane you would soon realise that you are advocating for the current network. The legacy of this sort of thinking is very Brisbane Transport, is is the philosophy of hi waste that has led us into the morass of extreme subsidies (70%) some of the highest in the world, extreme levies on ratepayers ($400), extreme waste (50% air at Cultural Centre), and extreme fares (now pushing $5 for one zone). You are right that people only care about themselves. But that's not a planning principle. People cannot expect the PT system to be their own on demand personal taxi service. It is a PUBLIC transport system that is PUBLICLY funded that is there to serve THE PUBLIC at large and if people want a taxi, that is already provided and those people should pay the taxi driver taxi level fares. EVERYONE PAYS so EVERYONE should see benefit for their $400 p.a. money they pour into the BT bus network.

I am sure some people will leave the system. Persons who glue their butt to the seat of the bus upon boarding and do not unglue themselves until termination in the CBD for example. But for every such person lost is many more gained using the same money attracted by higher frequency, better connectivity, more services from extra capacity that feeders bring, more choice of departure time, and new service upgrades elsewhere on the network.

I can show entire cities that operate very well on the feeder and transfer principle (i.e. Toronto, Melbourne with the SmartBus), and yet "that's different" and "it won't work here". Too bad.

No, the hi-waste bus network is due to air parcels like the 105, 112, 113, 202, 326, 327, 314, 336/337, 361 and 417, duplicative waste routes like the 115, 222, 333 and the non-frequent 400 series routes east of Indooroopilly, and an endless amount of P-rockets which split loads and cause air-carrying services (like P205, P206, P208, P426, P341, 431, 446 I could go on all day).

The big trip attractor on the bus network is frequency. The issue is that right now, off the BUZ network, the frequency/network design is crap. The air in the Cultural Centre is not there because of the BUZ NETWORK - it is there because we have infrequent routes carrying air running through the Cultural Centre, combined with an excessive amount of P-rockets which cause uneven loading and suck patronage from the core BUZ routes (130/140 vs. P129/P13x,P141 and 200 vs. P201/P205, I'm looking at you).

I am very confident we could greatly increase the network's capacity and decrease the amount of money having to be contributed by the government without having to force passengers on routes like the 412 to transfer. Northside is a great example. Remove the 340 and have a Chermside North feeder -> this route can be made frequent by the resources saved by the 340 not existing, and thus, as it is frequent, it will attract patronage, and all of a sudden, the farebox recovery of the 340 has increased significantly. This is where we should start making patronage gains. Not off cutting routes like the 412. The example can be expanded to cover routes like the 11x series, Inala buses, Indro buses and so on.

Sure, if the 412 is the only thing left by then, do it - but there are far more low-hanging fruit which should be picked first before we even think about touching the 412 (the 402 being one).

Not at all. To use an analogy, profitable companies often make large numbers of staff redundant. The companies are already profitable, so why do they do this? Because they can make even more savings and make their goods cheaper for everyone else. A few people do feel pain, but overall the greater number of customers benefit.

Now this 412 will get extra capacity as a result of feederisation. And other places will get a service upgrade that extends their mobility to other parts of the city where there were none before.

Of course self interested people "don't give a sh*t" like you say. And you are right. And that's exactly why we have the fares and network issues that we have today.

And this is why for every CUT, there needs to be an equal (or greater) PASTE. Additional 412 capacity will do little to make the service more attractive, and I personally see it creating a bus glut, where the service isn't making any more/much more money than it would otherwise, in exchange for decreased amenity.

I will take my own example. If you terminated the 412 at Toowong (assuming no change to the 411), I would walk to Toowong station. I wouldn't touch the 412 with a six foot pole. I personally would be furious if the 412 was terminated at Toowong - rail frequency would remain the same (and so it should), so in the end I could be left up to 15 minutes worse off.

Long-term, I would get in my car and stop using PT entirely, or Park n Ride at Toowong (on weekends). Oh look, 170 got BUZed, woo hoo, cranky resident of St Lucia doesn't give two sh%ts. You could see the same thing with the 411. 411 users didn't give a rats that they now had a frequent route to Mt Ommaney, they cared about the fact that their trip to the CBD would now take twice as long.

By what your plan looks like, it seems like the kind of thing which would be announced, then shafted because half of Brisbane started trying to save their service because your changes were far too extreme.

Not at all. I didn't advocate the termination of the 444 at Toowong did I? You know, the least you could do is present facts and hard evidence and real world experience than make jibes. Jibes can't be used for route planning purposes. Facts and evidence can. I've given hard real world examples that it works. And that's good enough for me.

Feel free to make your own plans, but in my plan, 412 is a feeder, I am happy to be criticised dusk until dawn about it, but I have laid out the logic for my decision very clearly, and unless there is some new hard real world evidence, then this is what I have decided and I am sticking to.

Real-world facts which don't apply because we don't have trains coming every 6 minutes off-peak on the Ipswich line and UQ is only 6km from the CBD.

[#Metro]

I think it is just better to keep a Wynnum BUZ as a feeder 7-days a week and expand train frequency. BUZification locks in a bus-centric future. Remember this - it is why we have to be very careful BUZing routes.

I agree with you on this point. It is disappointing that the 15 minute frequency does not extend to weekends - it should. It is not like we run BUZ routes at half the frequency on the weekends is it? I agree with the BUZification too - one of the things that really got up my nose with BT is that they BUZzed the 120 and 180 without reforming the network first - so now there is a whole heap of people that are vested in the route who will scream blue murder if any reform is put through, making the whole task so much more difficult to do politically.

Or they will go "f*** this" and get in their . Forcing transfers to close to one's destination is not attractive.

That is an assertion that is a statement which has not been backed up yet with any hard evidence or examples. This assertion sets the value of benefits (such as patronage/frequency increases) to others who are able to get an upgrade elsewhere on the network due to feederisation of 412 at ZERO, which I disagree with. If you are going to talk about costs and benefits then you need to consider not just the people on the bus but the people who are not on the bus as well. Like people on other bus routes, people with rubbish service outside their house who would benefit directly though an upgrade paid for by funds released through feederisation etc.

With relation to CityCats: They have a Class A ROW, yet between UQ and the Regatta, manage to take the exact same time (off-peak) to complete the journey as the 411 on a Class C ROW, with stops every 300m. When a CityCat stops, it has to moor, open the doors (manually), board passengers through one entry, and then unmoor and get on its way. A bus stops, opens the doors, passengers get both on and off, 30 seconds later doors close and bus gets on its way.

It takes 17 minutes to go from UQ Chancellors Place to Regatta Toowong (400m walk)
It takes 11 minutes to go from UQ Ferry Terminal to Regatta Toowong.

So I don't agree. The ferry is also far more reliable as it is not subject to random congestion on one of Brisbane's worst roads.

[#Metro]

The real reason is that if you're going to make me change to complete a journey which is merely 3km in length, when before you were offering a superior service, you are going to encourage me to get back into my car and drive. As I mentioned, BUZ locks in a bus-centric future.

Let me see. If my personal taxi Route 161 is terminated at Garden City, I will have to change buses after just less than a 3km trip!! Oh goodness me!! I must start lobbying hard for direct trip to the Hilton Hotel in the CBD because If I don't get my way, I'm going to have a big dummy spit and I'M GOING TO JUMP IN MY CAR!! Did you hear that TransLink, a CAR!! Vroom Vroom!!

The argument you make is based on cultural and political grounds. These grounds can be challenged because they are not objective constants like geometry. When you shorten a service by feederising it, you get money left over to use elsewhere. That's a product of geometry. Anyone can prove this with a piece of string and scissors at home. The City of Brisbane is changing, and so what used to work might not work so well now just in the same way that a child grows out of its shoes and the shoes become too small. And so you get a new and larger pair that are different. And that's what's going on here.

If people want to hold the general public at large at ransom because they want to protect their concentrated benefits at the expense of others, then I don't agree with that. If people want to have a dummy spit and threaten to withdraw their patronage because the network has to change from a direct network to a connected network (simply because the city is getting bigger) then let them leave the network. Let them buy a car. The space people like that leave behind will soon be filled by other people who never ever had decent services in their area and by others who appreciate the simplicity, extra frequency and superior connectedness that a connective network brings.

Public transport is not some lifeboat where we must save everybody from the car. That's not possible.
If I were a taxi service planner, I would agree and give a direct service. But this is not a personal taxi service. This is a public service where everyone must be considered as well. It's PUBLIC transport not PUBLICLY FUNDED PRIVATE TAXI.

[#Metro]

You see, the 411 is a different kettle of fish. By terminating the 411 at Toowong, you can arrange for the service to double in frequency and meet every train at Toowong. For people north of Toowong, the frequency decrease is so minor it is irrelevant, so your point is moot. By terminating the 412 at Toowong, you take the resources away from it and send them elsewhere, which acts as a deterrent to PT on the 412, as pax are now forced to change (possibly up to 15 minute transfer penalty) when they previously didn't have to.

You have a point but there is an issue. Some places it does not make much sense to add more services because the line might already be frequent and acceptable for connections. Or there might not be the demand for such a service. For example, would we turn the 417 into a BUZ just because we had enough excess route length to do so? I doubt it.

Also, there may already be lots of high frequency on duplicating routes. For example, if the Maroon CityGlider were to be removed from the CBD-Stones corner section, you would see a decrease in frequency. But so what, there are heaps of other alternatives to choose from. The same also goes for busway services.

The network is changing and new services will be added over time as well. So your argument is on loose ground because it is based on the assumption that the service level we have today will be the service level we will have tomorrow. The mohring effect says that an additional user induces another service to be put on which then induces more passengers to use the service and so on and so on. When we start feeding trains this is what we are doing - getting patronage on trains up, so that we will over time build a case for more services as well as patronage grows. In the specific case of Toowong, I think the current frequency is good enough to feed into. If it is good enough to feed the 411 into and good enough to feed the 402 into and good enough to feed the 417 into, then 412 is a good candidate for feeding as well.

I expect service upgrades to Springfield (4tph) and Ipswich (4tph) and QR should look at the possibility of getting services to also stop at Toowong once paths are freed up as CRR et al comes on line in the next few years.

[Gazza]

That is an assertion that is a statement which has not been backed up yet with any hard evidence or examples.If you are going to talk about costs and benefits then you need to consider not just the people on the bus but the people who are not on the bus as well. Like people on other bus routes, people with rubbish service outside their house who would benefit directly though an upgrade paid for by funds released through feederisation etc.

Yes, here is a good post about the problem.

http://www.humantransit.org/2011/07/grids-and-the-short-diagonal-comment-of-the-week.html

Basically, when you have two very short legs at 15 min frequency the your average speed drops because the average wait between services ends up taking up a mammoth part of the total journey time. Public transport becomes very uncompetitive with driving and even walking when the journey involves this arrangement

A long to short transfer (Eg an inbound Ipsiwch Train to a 402) or a short to long (Eg a 601 to Flinders St train from Huntingdale) suffers less from this problem, because the wait time is a much smaller portion of the journey.

This assertion sets the value of benefits (such as patronage/frequency increases) to others who are able to get an upgrade elsewhere on the network due to feederisation of 412 at ZERO, which I disagree with.

But in this case, you have two possible ways of using the resources.

-Running the 412 an extra 3km into the CBD rather than terminating.

-Making 3km of route high frequency elsewhere in the network (Or making 6km worth of half hourly route up to every 15 mins)

In this case, I actually believe a direct 412 wins more patronage than allocating those resources elsewhere.
Or in other words, the patronage you'd lose by making the 412 a feeder wouldn't be made back elsewhere.

[#Metro]

No, the hi-waste bus network is due to air parcels like the 105, 112, 113, 202, 326, 327, 314, 336/337, 361 and 417, duplicative waste routes like the 115, 222, 333 and the non-frequent 400 series routes east of Indooroopilly, and an endless amount of P-rockets which split loads and cause air-carrying services (like P205, P206, P208, P426, P341, 431, 446 I could go on all day).

It is not either or. It's both. If I have two identical routes, one frequent and one not frequent, and on each service we save $100 from feederisation.

All else equal:

Frequent one: 4 services per hour x 18 hours span x $100 = $7200       
Not frequent one : 1 service per hour x 18 hours span x 100 = $1800

More savings are gained by feederising the frequent route than from feederising the non-frequent route, all else equal. You'd have to feederise four times as many non-frequent routes to get the same level of savings from just feederising the frequent bus route.

If you don't agree with my calculation, post your own calculation, and all assumptions and working.

The big trip attractor on the bus network is frequency. The issue is that right now, off the BUZ network, the frequency/network design is cr%p. The air in the Cultural Centre is not there because of the BUZ NETWORK - it is there because we have infrequent routes carrying air running through the Cultural Centre, combined with an excessive amount of P-rockets which cause uneven loading and suck patronage from the core BUZ routes (130/140 vs. P129/P13x,P141 and 200 vs. P201/P205, I'm looking at you).

I agree with you. I just think it is possible to agree with this AND agree that some BUZ routes could also be feederised (e.g. 412, 330 etc) and for both statements to be true at the same time.

I am very confident we could greatly increase the network's capacity and decrease the amount of money having to be contributed by the government without having to force passengers on routes like the 412 to transfer. Northside is a great example. Remove the 340 and have a Chermside North feeder -> this route can be made frequent by the resources saved by the 340 not existing, and thus, as it is frequent, it will attract patronage, and all of a sudden, the farebox recovery of the 340 has increased significantly. This is where we should start making patronage gains. Not off cutting routes like the 412. The example can be expanded to cover routes like the 11x series, Inala buses, Indro buses and so on.

Sure, but if I have the chance to make more savings, why not? Again I think this really is just a case of "I am for feeder services in general but not on my specific bus route".

Sure, if the 412 is the only thing left by then, do it - but there are far more low-hanging fruit which should be picked first before we even think about touching the 412 (the 402 being one).

CUT.

[#Metro]

    This assertion sets the value of benefits (such as patronage/frequency increases) to others who are able to get an upgrade elsewhere on the network due to feederisation of 412 at ZERO, which I disagree with.


But in this case, you have two possible ways of using the resources.

-Running the 412 an extra 3km into the CBD rather than terminating.

-Making 3km of route high frequency elsewhere in the network (Or making 6km worth of half hourly route up to every 15 mins)

In this case, I actually believe a direct 412 wins more patronage than allocating those resources elsewhere.
Or in other words, the patronage you'd lose by making the 412 a feeder wouldn't be made back elsewhere.

You have a point and thanks for taking the time to dig up references. I think it comes down to numbers and number crunching. Remember that other routes (such as services terminating at Indooroopilly) will now also be shorter and so the extra 4.5 km (or 18 km of route length savings) will come in handing for boosting services on their bus services as well. So it depends IMHO.

[longboi]

The biggest losers are those who currently commute by bus into the CBD to transfer to the 412. I would imagine these would be the first ones to leave the 412 and join the 66.

In itself that's not a problem. However, if you need to invest in additional 66s to accommodate those previously using the 412, you're not actually providing any wider benefit to the network. You're just paying to deal with the displaced demand.

[#Metro]

The biggest losers are those who currently commute by bus into the CBD to transfer to the 412. I would imagine these would be the first ones to leave the 412 and join the 66.

Sure. But if they're headed for Coronation Drive they can use the 444. If they are headed to St Lucia they can catch the CityCat for direct services. There is space on that. They have already completed one transfer, which indicates that they are not personally opposed to transfer, and the connection at Toowong will be frequent (buses run every 10 minutes during large parts of the day already on the 412, and every 5 mins in peak) so any inconvenience will be miniscule (2.5 minute wait extra during the busiest period on average even if we assume no frequency boost).

In itself that's not a problem. However, if you need to invest in additional 66s to accommodate those previously using the 412, you're not actually providing any wider benefit to the network. You're just paying to deal with the displaced demand.

Depends on whether there are that many people displaced. 66 itself is an amalgamation of 66 + 109 and despite this the service seems to cope with the combined load of the two former routes well. There's space and there's the ferry as back up as well.