Brisbane's most and least popular bus routes

[ozbob]

Brisbanetimes --> Brisbane's most and least popular bus routes

There is a difference of more than 3 million trips a year between Brisbane's most and least popular bus routes.

At a Brisbane City Council 2018-19 budget information session, public and active transport chairman Adrian Schrinner revealed the performance of some of Brisbane's bus routes.

Route 66 which travels along the busway to connect the University of Queensland and the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital was Brisbane's most popular bus route, carrying 3.1 million people a year.

A Monday to Friday loop service running from Deagon to Shorncliffe had the lowest patronage with 1968 passengers in a year.

Cr Schrinner said the suburban loop services generally had the lowest patronage compared to the popular bus routes which mainly used the busways.

Opposition transport spokesman Jared Cassidy said despite low patronage on some routes they were still very important services.

"They service an area that doesn't have any other public transport," he said.

"The loop connects suburban areas that are way too far away for people to work to those train stations.

"My experience in riding them, it's called locally the whiz bus service, the predominant ridership is older people."

Cr Schrinner said there were no plans to cut services but there would soon be a network review.

There are currently 1223 council buses servicing Brisbane.

In 2018-19 the council will retire 59 of those buses, but will also deliver 45 new buses, 16 of which will be a larger articulated bus.

Cr Schrinner said those bus sizes delivered the equivalent of 60 new buses.

More than 33 million was allocated for the 2018-19 financial year to deliver the new buses.

Cr Cassidy said the administration had committed to building 240 buses in the current term, which was 60 less than the last term.

"While we have a contract with Translink to provide services on particular routes it doesn't mean we can't increase the capacity of those routes, which we should be doing," he said.

"We should be investing in more buses ... while [it is] 60 rigid equivalent buses it is still just 45 vehicles."

[ozbob]

Note the tables expand at https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/queensland/brisbane-s-most-and-least-popular-bus-routes-20180618-p4zm61.html

https://twitter.com/Robert_Dow/status/1008746017464856576

[Cazza]

All of the highest patronage routes are BUZ services (apart from the 66 which still has BUZ level frequencies).

[Derwan]

The 150 has the honour of the highest patronage for a service that travels outside of the inner suburbs. 

This service still leaves people behind during the morning peak period - and frequently has standing room only, even on weekends.

[techblitz]

afaik its also the only HF route where you have to put up with driver changes mid route. So you have to show a bit of patience especially if your in a rush to make a connecting route at garden city eg: GCL/180 
Peak hour bunching/overcrowding aside....I like the success of the 150...

Im also increasingly impressed with the patronage on the MG. Its now getting very good loadings counter peak between gabba and CC. Still a long way to go for that stretch to Coorparoo.....but we all know a simple carindale corridor review will fix it.

[tazzer9]

The maroon glider stats seem wrong.  No way does it have that many people using it. 

[tazzer9]

i've seen the whiz bus at sandgate station before. I took notice of it because it uses one of those cute dinky little buses.

[Cazza]

The maroon glider stats seem wrong.  No way does it have that many people using it.

I think you'll be surprised. It does do well most trips I'm on between Ashgrove and either the City or Southbank. Plenty of people from Ashgrove, Enoggera, Alderley and sometimes even The Gap use Ashgrove Coles (and the surrounding streets) as a park'n'ride. But we all know how to maximise it's routing but sadly BCC won't budge. Hopefully the metro will help sort things out.

[techblitz]

schoolkids absolutely hammer it between mater and CC as well.

These most popular routes stats are pretty irrelevant given the current context of things..

We need separate o.t.r figures NOW....to find out which routes are screwing people around the most to the point of being unattractive.

eg: ive just sat at goodna for 7 minutes and in that time:
      522 due  Goodna 3.21pm arrives 3.29 (8 mins late)
      500 due Goodna 3.24 arrives 3.35 (11 mins late)

[Otto]

The maroon glider stats seem wrong.  No way does it have that many people using it.

I think you'll be surprised. It does do well most trips I'm on between Ashgrove and either the City or Southbank. Plenty of people from Ashgrove, Enoggera, Alderley and sometimes even The Gap use Ashgrove Coles (and the surrounding streets) as a park'n'ride. But we all know how to maximise it's routing but sadly BCC won't budge. Hopefully the metro will help sort things out.

As a regular driver on the MG, I can say for sure it has become more popular. I've also noticed more 385 pax to Paddo Cent and Bardon wait for the MG.
Also I do have to leave people behind at KGS on occasions during the afternoon peak.


Edited to include correct Quote

[300LA]

Are there any regular announcements that offer this kind of information for the rail network? (Patronage per line, or per station would be interesting)

[aldonius]

300LA - QR used to put out station-by-station AM peak patronage data. I don't think they do so any more. I believe they collected this by putting people with clickers in every doorway.

I wanted to RTI myself a representative month's worth of go card touch on/offs for the network, but there are some serious anonymisation concerns and the guy I talked to said they'd be releasing something similar soon. This was a bit over two years ago.

[burgo]

To account for the small ridership, The Whiz uses a midi bus. In my experience it's passengers are typically older, and use it to get to Sandgate Village/Station.

The new Optimus artics should be dedicated (during semester) to the 66 in my opinion. It would be nice to have an artic service arriving on the hour and half hour to coincide with classes finishing, I don't know the logistics of this. Anecdotally, I think the 66 figures would be lower if students utilised routes 29 & 169 to get to Boggo Road/Park Road for transfers. One third of an at capacity 66 bus can sometimes empty at Boggo Road.

[aldonius]

It takes the 66 not quite half an hour to get end to end. From observations at UQ Lakes, I think they take about 15 minutes layover. So to use the same vehicles for the rush you'd need a driver change, and it'd be relatively fragile.

The biggest problem with the 66 is the last northbound service leaving at 9:30. Plenty of stuff still happening on campus at that time of night.

File under "this should be better once Metro kicks in".

[tazzer9]

I wanted to RTI myself a representative month's worth of go card touch on/offs for the network, but there are some serious anonymisation concerns and the guy I talked to said they'd be releasing something similar soon. This was a bit over two years ago.

I reckon they aren't releasing that data as it can be used by groups like this to show how far behind QR is lagging and the massive drop off in patronage.  I heard recently they said there was 50 million users of the rail network last year.   Comparing that to melbourne metro of over 200 million and 280 million for sydney trains and 150 million for transperth trains.  Much more if you include NSW trainlink and V/line. 

[Whippa]

I wanted to RTI myself a representative month's worth of go card touch on/offs for the network, but there are some serious anonymisation concerns and the guy I talked to said they'd be releasing something similar soon. This was a bit over two years ago.

I reckon they aren't releasing that data as it can be used by groups like this to show how far behind QR is lagging and the massive drop off in patronage.  I heard recently they said there was 50 million users of the rail network last year.   Comparing that to melbourne metro of over 200 million and 280 million for sydney trains and 150 million for transperth trains.  Much more if you include NSW trainlink and V/line.

I'd imagine you can twiddle with the origin destination data currently released to achieve something of the sort (albeit this data is clumped in months, not annual). Just gotta turn the station ID's into names for it to be more useful and it won't show lines per-se but you can assign that by boarding station in say morning peak if you wish. (Though doing this analysis may not be for the feint hearted) I might try throw it in R or something while I'm at uni one day and have time if that'll be useful for people.

[SurfRail]

I wanted to RTI myself a representative month's worth of go card touch on/offs for the network, but there are some serious anonymisation concerns and the guy I talked to said they'd be releasing something similar soon. This was a bit over two years ago.

I reckon they aren't releasing that data as it can be used by groups like this to show how far behind QR is lagging and the massive drop off in patronage.  I heard recently they said there was 50 million users of the rail network last year.   Comparing that to melbourne metro of over 200 million and 280 million for sydney trains and 150 million for transperth trains.  Much more if you include NSW trainlink and V/line.

Sydney is higher than that now, closer to 360 million.  The figure for Perth is for the whole system, not just rail (and it is a touch less).

[tazzer9]

I wanted to RTI myself a representative month's worth of go card touch on/offs for the network, but there are some serious anonymisation concerns and the guy I talked to said they'd be releasing something similar soon. This was a bit over two years ago.

I reckon they aren't releasing that data as it can be used by groups like this to show how far behind QR is lagging and the massive drop off in patronage.  I heard recently they said there was 50 million users of the rail network last year.   Comparing that to melbourne metro of over 200 million and 280 million for sydney trains and 150 million for transperth trains.  Much more if you include NSW trainlink and V/line.

The NSW stats are a bit old, but were official, 2013 i think.  I found a report from WA and the number i quoted was for rail only, they had 3 seperate figures for rail, bus and ferry.

Sydney is higher than that now, closer to 360 million.  The figure for Perth is for the whole system, not just rail (and it is a touch less).

[SurfRail]

I found a report from WA and the number i quoted was for rail only, they had 3 seperate figures for rail, bus and ferry.

No chance.  Rail is around 60-something million, system wide for all 3 modes is 140-something million.

[achiruel]

It takes the 66 not quite half an hour to get end to end. From observations at UQ Lakes, I think they take about 15 minutes layover. So to use the same vehicles for the rush you'd need a driver change, and it'd be relatively fragile.

The biggest problem with the 66 is the last northbound service leaving at 9:30. Plenty of stuff still happening on campus at that time of night.

File under "this should be better once Metro kicks in".

How late do you think the 66 needs to run? Keeping in mind there are still options (412 and CityCat) late at night, even though they are longer, especially for southside residents.

[tazzer9]

66 needs to operate at a reduce frequency to at least 10pm on weeknights and at least 9pm on saturdays.  However, I would only run the 66 at these later times.  No 29, 139, 169 or 209.  people who would normally use those can change at mater hill if needed. 

[Cazza]

A few months ago, I rode along the green bridge at UQ at around 9pm and there was a 169 heading to 8MP completely full. Not sure if it left people behind but from what I saw, had standees from front to back.

Now, is the only reason the 66 isn't classified a BUZ or CityGlider because it finishes around 9:30? This is currently the last service of the day from UQ Lakes. I think (at least during Uni terms) that it should be extend to 11pm. As Aldonius said, the Metro would bring services much later to what they currently run.

Using the ferry or 412 doesn't really help someone heading south so later services on the 66 are probably needed.

[red dragin]

UQ must have a different night life to QUT Kelvin Grove.

In my evening travels through the Kelvin Grove campus I came across very few people, enough for maybe half a bus.
The only activity was normally the security guards feeding the stray cat that they had adopted as a pet.

[tazzer9]

Uq is often abandoned after 7pm but occasionally it's not.  And having no buses leave uq lakes after 7pm on a Saturday when exams finish after 7pm is a joke.  Often a hundred people will walk down to the lakes, some realise there's no more buses but others it takes a while to realise.  Most end up going 412 or walking across the bridge.

Last time this happened to me I walked to Dutton park station and only realised after getting there was a track closure

[aldonius]

I think they usually try to avoid scheduling 3 hour exams last thing on a Saturday, but it is theoretically possible to have a couple of hundred students getting out of the venue at 8:45pm.

Personally, I think the last 66 needs to leave campus maybe an hour later. 10:30pm.

[matlock]

I remember at a networking evening on a Friday at UQ, one of the event organisers had to leave early because the last 66 was leaving and she needed to interchange at Boggo Road for a southbound train. I was shocked to find out the 66 wrapped up so early.

[Whippa]

Hi everyone,

As promised, I've used the Translink Origin Destination data to give a snapshot of bus patronage by route, day and time. I used the month of October 2017 as the current data only goes to Feb18 and October is thus the most recent month without school and university holidays nor the summer break impacting patronage and is post BT strikes from memory.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12lLYMfavu5WIcVhbsHoBeFLR8915wGmFQZUoYORjD1E/edit?usp=sharing

I will do something similar in terms of rail boardings by station in the near future as well as I know quite a few people here will be interested in that.

[ozbob]

^  thanks.

I have combined two threads into one here

Origin-destination data (and route patronage data)  > https://railbotforum.org/mbs/index.php?topic=12835.0

[James]

I think they usually try to avoid scheduling 3 hour exams last thing on a Saturday, but it is theoretically possible to have a couple of hundred students getting out of the venue at 8:45pm.

Personally, I think the last 66 needs to leave campus maybe an hour later. 10:30pm.

UQ actually tends to schedule their 3-hour exams for a Saturday, I believe this is due to the rotations being 9:30/13:30/16:30, allowing for two lots of 3 hour exams which don't interfere with the next block, compared with weekdays having 8:00/11:15/14:30/17:45, with a 3 hour exam at the end of the day finishing at an uncivil 20:55.

I have had two exams finishing around 7:40pm on a Saturday, and the PT is shocking at that hour. If you're Indro-bound, you either have to sprint to the 428 departing at 7:52pm or wait an hour. In reality, most just drive - parking is free and plentiful on weekends.