On time bus performance - discussion

[SurfRail]

I'm actually on the State's side here.  This is a rare example of them actually enforcing their contracts, which is what they should be doing universally at all times.  If they are meant to be the system manager, then they need to be in control of messaging and data, not BCC.

[ozbob]

Good on BCC  for showing how bad it really is. TMR won't.

There is a major issue with transparency, and prompt reporting in Queensland.

Sad ...

[Cleveland Line]

I'm actually on the State's side here.  This is a rare example of them actually enforcing their contracts, which is what they should be doing universally at all times.  If they are meant to be the system manager, then they need to be in control of messaging and data, not BCC.

Exactly, they need to enforce contract conditions otherwise they become meaningless which is not good at all for the operation of the network.

Good on BCC  for showing how bad it really is. TMR won't.

There is a major issue with transparency, and prompt reporting in Queensland.

Sad ...

Don't kid yourself. BCC are not doing this for any reasons of genuine transparency, it is purely political as part of the Lord Mayor and Transport Minister ongoing public spats.

Why else would they suddenly decide to release it again? Without even bothering to ask TMR?

"The metro would triple the number of services on route 66, the same route which has over 3000 missed stop services this year," she said.]

And who would pay for these services? TMR/ State Government....
So just more empty Metro promises from Lord Mayor

[#Metro]

Brisbane City Council has been issued a breach notice from TransLink after releasing data on the number of buses missing stops because they are full each month.

Earlier this year, lord mayor Adrian Schrinner said the council would release the monthly data again, saying the council had originally done so several years ago until TransLink requested it stop.

Brisbane Times reported the August figures, which showed bus routes to and from the University of Queensland were some of the busiest and buses were frequently forced to

The notice is unenforceable for the simple reason that TransLink cannot cancel the contract. The unwritten policy is that TransLink will

always contract BCC for buses within the BCC area as there is no competitive contracting.

Even if they fine BCC... it will backfire spectacularly at the election ... BCC will simply pass whatever fine lands on it onto ratepayers.

I think the LM is trying to goad TL into fining it. Can you imagine that happening on the cusp of an election?

I wonder if the Minister for Instagram will see it for what it is?

[ozbob]

Of course it is political Cleveland Line.

The whole circus is.  The end result of not revealing the true situation is the bus network is a shambles sadly.  Try getting OTR for bus routes.
At least some improvements to the 66 were done. 

There is  service funding starvation in SEQ.  Many regions are getting desperate.

The notion of TransLink enforcing contract conditions is laughable agreed #Metro. Years and years of failure to enforce ...

[ozbob]

RACQ --> Get on board public transport reporting

The State's peak motoring body has echoed calls for open and transparent data reporting about public transport performance on Brisbane's bus network.

The Brisbane Times has reported disputes have erupted between Brisbane City Council and the State Government over the release of data on the number of buses missing their stops each month.

RACQ's Head of Public Policy Rebecca Michael said Queenslanders had the right to know how their public transport network was performing in the State's capital.

"When compared with the rest of the country, Queensland publishes very limited performance and reliability information about public transport modes," Dr Michael said.

"Victoria publishes a daily, monthly, and quarterly performance for its metropolitan trains, trams, and regional trains. New South Wales has monthly performance breakdowns for each bus operator readily available for current and recent years. It also has similar current daily, weekly, monthly and yearly reporting for trains and individual lines in major cities and regional areas."

Dr Michael said building trust in public transport reliability and performance was critical in encouraging drivers to make the shift to public transport, reducing congestion.

"People use reliability of public transport to inform many decisions in their daily life, including where to live, buy property, work, and schooling," she said.

"That's why we've been calling for an Integrated Public Transport Authority to deliver Queenslanders seamless services.

"We need to optimise the network, and that begins with understanding the demands and shortfalls on our network, which requires open and transparent data."

[Cleveland Line]

RACQ have hit the nail on head, instead of just applauding one side...

[James]

RACQ have hit the nail on head, instead of just applauding one side...

You know this state is well and truly stuffed when the road motoring lobby is making strong points on how to properly run public transport.

[ozbob]

RACQ have hit the nail on head, instead of just applauding one side...

You know this state is well and truly stuffed when the road motoring lobby is making strong points on how to properly run public transport.

Yo.  RACQ does support our plan for a proper public transport authority.  They are on our media mailing list (their request btw).

Mostly they are on the mark, sometimes a little off.  But it is useful for them to engage at times like they do.

[#Metro]

Yo.  RACQ does support our plan for a proper public transport authority.  They are on our media mailing list (their request btw).

Mostly they are on the mark, sometimes a little off.  But it is useful for them to engage at times like they do.

Maybe we could have some special joint media releases in the future. Wouldn't that be interesting? 

[ozbob]

Brisbanetimes --> Metro delays until March as buses too full, Brisbane council complains

More than 500 buses on average per week were too full to take on passengers in September, the latest data shows, as Brisbane City Council complains its key mass transit project, Brisbane Metro, is still delayed.

The council began releasing the monthly "bus full standing load" data again earlier this year, after repeated questions about why the data had stopped being released, pointing to the data as proof the city needs its $944 million Brisbane Metro project.

Lord mayor Adrian Schrinner's decision to release the data again each month has furthered a spat between the LNP administration and the state government, after the council did not inform TransLink they were releasing the data.

Under contractual obligations governing Brisbane's buses, data releases must be signed off by both council and TransLink.

Across September, more than 240,000 bus trips were taken, of which 2049 reported being too full to stop and take on more passengers.

The busy route 66, from the University of Queensland to the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital, again topped the list of the routes with the highest full standing loads.

Route 66 alone reported 248 buses too full to take on passengers, down from 416 in August, and down from 291 in September last year.

Deputy mayor Krista Adams released the September data in council chambers on Tuesday afternoon, saying the number of buses full each month was "appalling".

"Last month there were a total of 2039 full standing loads - that is 510 bus loads a week, an increase of 133 on September last year.

"The problem is only getting worse.

"Importantly, 65 per cent of the bus loads were during peak hours, but that's still a 35 per cent that occurred during off-peak, so it's not just daily work commuters who are copping the brunt of the problem.

"It's shift workers, it's school kids, it's carers, it's anyone travelling in Brisbane during the day."

Cr Adams said the Brisbane Metro would help solve the full standing load issue for residents, but said the state government was still dragging their feet on approving the $944 million public transport project.

Cr Adams said the Transport Minister was "refusing" to meet her in her role as public and active transport committee chairwoman, or respond to her letters, and said she would be making a complaint to the Integrity Commissioner.

She said the council no longer expected to see any approvals for the start of Brisbane Metro before March, which is when the local government elections take place.

It means the council's LNP administration will go to the polls with their key transport project in limbo after design, location and approval disputes with the state.

"[Mr Bailey] has agreed for me to accompany the lord mayor to a meeting in a couple of weeks' time, but hopefully now we've cracked the 300-meeting mark we might get some decisions from the Minister," Cr Adams said.

Mr Bailey said residents were "tired of this out-of-touch blame game".

"Patrick Condren obviously has our unelected lord mayor Schrinner's long-term LNP council worried," he said.

"These bizarre rants from the unelected lord mayor and his deputy are happening more often as undealt with issues at City Hall pile up."

[#Metro]

So two signatories are required to release the data?

Clearly, someone has done a PR risk analysis and worked out bus full figures were a risk that needed control measures applied.

Any comment from the Minister for Instagram?

[ozbob]

Updated bus OTR for Q4 FY 18/19.

Spreadsheet > https://backontrack.org/docs/bus/otr/busregionsq419.ods

[ozbob]

Southern and Western regions performing very poorly.

Some of the bus routes in these regions would have routes that would struggle to get to 50% on-time running.

Well over due for reform now ..

[ozbob]

https://twitter.com/railbotforum/status/1187959498859675651

[ozbob]

Sent to all outlets:

27th October 2019

SEQ bus on-time running - continues to worsen

Good Morning,

Years of failure to reform bus networks are now impacting in deteriorating on-time running, despite the generous on-time window of eight minutes ' Within six minutes after or two minutes before the scheduled arrival time '. Rail (Citytrain) has a much tighter on-time window of 3 minute 59 seconds (interurban 5 minute 59 seconds). Bus on-time target is 90%.

Road traffic congestion impacts significantly on buses not on busways or in bus priority lanes.  It is generally worse at peak times than out of peak.  Run times that are essentially same for a wide range of traffic conditions for a particular  route are clearly wrong.  This leads to late buses and often follow on cancellation of other route services. Very unsatisfactory situation, particularly when the services are low frequency. Can mean very long waiting times for passengers for their next service. Late running of buses also makes connections to rail and bus problematical. Can add hours to journey times.



The Southern and Western bus regions are very poor in terms of on-time running.  These regions are a priority for reform.



More funding for service improvements is needed for bus in SEQ.  We think bus reform and improvement is going to be an important issue in both the BCC elections in March 2020, and the State election October 2020.  Doing nothing is simply not an option now.

Best wishes,

Robert

Robert Dow
Administration
admin@backontrack.org
RAIL Back On Track https://backontrack.org

Reference:

https://railbotforum.org/mbs/index.php?topic=13380.msg229320#msg229320

[ozbob]

Facebook ...

[ozbob]

https://twitter.com/railbotforum/status/1188121032957128709

[techblitz]

Thanks for the trend line analysis ozbob...which paints a very obvious picture on trip time allocation...
TFB seem to be running vastly more accurate trip times than their full translink controlled counterparts...clearly highlighted by the trend line where Brisbane is performing the best(or at the minimum equal with northern)......all while having to deal with some of the worst traffic in SEQ......
How are they doing this?
Simple.....adding on generous differences between peak and off-peak trip times....

[ozbob]

Indeed. 

In the Tracker it is asserted that basically because the collective bus OTR is > 90 % all is well.  No, it is not ... 

It is a similar situation to the aggregate rail OTR reporting.  Aggregate values are one thing, but they cover up the lines, ( = bus regions), that have problems. 

Western has really gone down.  We know that Springfield/Goodna area buses are a mess.  And they are getting worse.  I would be surprised if the 522 OTR was better than 50%.  Other routes are probably greatly impacted as well.  Reform is many years overdue now. 

The forthcoming elections are a good time to push for policy and action on this. 

[#Metro]

In the Tracker it is asserted that basically because the collective bus OTR is > 90 % all is well.  No, it is not ... 

Yes, I have noticed this as a tactic... if you have nasty data, you find a larger set of data to dilute it out.

This also works in reverse - remember Queensland Rails "weekly seats added". What is a weekly seat? People experience commutes in the

morning and afternoon. So daily or weekday services would have been more appropriate... But for the purpose of a media release,

multiplying by 5 to give a bigger number looks better apparently?

Whenever information is pooled and averaged like this, information is lost because you are going from many data points to one or a handful.

[ozbob]

Letter to the Editor Queensland Times 31st October 2019 page 17

Not an option to neglect timetables

[ozbob]

https://twitter.com/railbotforum/status/1189615094855950336

[Otto]

Recovery time between trips has been cut right back as each year passes. In the past we had on average about 10 minutes at a terminus in peak to help catch up when late running.
A combination of factors including more traffic, disappearing holding areas in the City for afternoon peak, turnaround cut to 4 minutes on most runs ( Too bad if the driver needs a toilet break and cant hold on  , the bus will be late ),  it ain't going to get any better soon.

[ozbob]

Updated bus OTR for Q1 FY 19/20

Spreadsheet > https://backontrack.org/docs/bus/otr/busregionsq120.ods

[techblitz]

As decent as the Brisbane trend line is....they have the added benefit of busways and high gocard usage on those bsuways....which would dilute a lot of 'real' ontime running elsewhere eg: coro drive/Ipswich rd.
Whereas somewhere like the gold coast and the 700`s don't have those perks and have to constantly deal with bad traffic and/or paper ticket purchases..

[Cazza]

Plus the stupid amount of fat added at the end of runs to make the bus "on-time". In Brisbane, a bus is considered on time if it leaves it's first stop within the bounds of being considered "on-time" (which is fair enough) and arrives at it's terminus "on-time". So even if it leaves on-time but along the route it somehow is 30+ mins late, then arrives at it's terminus on-time, the bus will be registered as on-time.

Here's one great example: Our beloved Route 230. All throughout the day, buses are timetabled to run between the last few stops on the route (Bulimba Preschool and Apollo Rd Ferry; which Google Maps says can be covered in 6-8 mins at the worst of times) in anywhere between 14 and 24 mins. Some stops that are less than 450m apart are timetabled to take 4 mins. I can pretty much walk that distance in that time. https://jp.translink.com.au/plan-your-journey/timetables/bus/t/230/outbound/2019-12-03?timetableTime=1700. Look at the 5:00pm and 5:20pm departures then scroll to the Bulimba Preschool stop and you can see for yourself.

Why? None other than to manipulate the on-time running statistics. And the 230 is not a lone ranger here. Quite a few timetables operate like this such as the 385 (see below), 220 (https://jp.translink.com.au/plan-your-journey/timetables/bus/t/220/outbound/2019-12-03), 222 (scheduled to take 14 mins between Carina and Carindale for most of the arvo peak hour) etc.

For the 385 in peak hour, it seems to once again take much longer than usual to cover the fairly quiet and uncongested section of the trip. It's timetabled in Peak Hour to take 5 mins between The Gap Village and Settlement Rd, 3 between SR and Hilder Rd, 2 between HR and Parkdale then 3 between PD and The Gap PnR. A 13 min journey for just over 2.5 kms which in reality, takes 5, maybe 7 if the traffic light patterns aren't in your favour. In fact, the Off-Peak timetable is just 6 mins. I would add 2 mins for peak hour to take into account potentially longer waiting times at the traffic lights at The Gap Village and Settlement Rd. Not an additional 7 mins.

So that's definitely one factor keeping TfB's head above water...

[techblitz]

what we need are capable data scientists crunching large datasets collected from bus trips over many years(millions of trips essentially)......match it up with road traffic data and try to come up with some sort of 'smart timetabling (factoring in as many parameters as possible)
The model can be applied to any major city...

[SurfRail]

What we need is to bring in proper competitive tendering (not just for BCC, but everywhere - plenty of the other incumbents are doing a shite job).

I have a good friend who works at one of the operators who routinely pushes for timetable optimisation to save the business money.  What incentive is there to do this at BCC or any of the rent-seeking operators who know they have the job for life?

[techblitz]

Akin to barking up a tree if your waiting for labor to implement it.....best wait for blue team get back in....they are always on the lookout for ways to 'save the business money'.....unfortunately they tend to stuff up a lot of their money saving ventures...

[achiruel]

I'm hopeful that when the M1 roadworks/busway extension are complete that Southern region might improve a bit...maybe.

Although the way they maintain their on-time figures is pretty disappointing. I had a discussion with TransLink recently about a particular route that was always 4-5 minutes late on Sundays. I collected the data for several weeks, because apparently that's too hard for them, despite having access to all the OTR data, and their response was basically "it's within the on time parameters so nothing needs to be done."

I mean I know buses run late sometimes for various reasons, but to have a whole set of data that a particular route ran consistently late and just shrug it off is utterly moronic. I guess in a couple of years as loadings increase and/or traffic gets worse, it will enter the "official" late running stats, and a couple of years after that, TransLink might bother to think about doing something about it. And in the mean time, people who miss their connections with trains or other buses can just get stuffed. 

Akin to barking up a tree if your waiting for labor to implement it.....best wait for blue team get back in....they are always on the lookout for ways to 'save the business money'.....unfortunately they tend to stuff up a lot of their money saving ventures...

blue team will do nothing but slash and burn, with no real consideration for actually improving anything. They hate public transport with a passion, even though they won't admit it. It's ingrained into their way of thinking that any public good needs to be done away with.

I honestly think our best hope is a minority Labor government, they might be forced by the cross-bench into taking some action then. I strongly suspect Trad might lose her seat to the Greens.

[#Metro]

They hate public transport with a passion, even though they won't admit it. It's ingrained into their way of thinking that any public good needs to be done away with.

They are big on roads and car parks, but they don't seem to get that they are public roads and public car parks.

[ozbob]

Looking closer at OTR bus for the last 5 quarters.  Southern is ' improving ', rest declining ...

I think Western will start to improve when the 522 is banished (January 2020) and the 527 and 528 replace it.  The OTR of the 522 is around 50%.

[ozbob]

Sent to all outlets:

8th December 2019

SEQ Bus regions on-time running - update

Years of failure to properly reform bus networks are now impacting in deteriorating bus on-time running, despite the generous on-time window of eight minutes for bus ' Within six minutes after or two minutes before the scheduled arrival time '. Rail (Citytrain) has a much tighter on-time window of 3 minute 59 seconds (interurban 5 minute 59 seconds). Bus on-time target is 90%.

Road traffic congestion impacts significantly on buses not on busways or in bus priority lanes.  It is generally worse at peak times than out of peak.  Run times that are essentially same for a wide range of traffic conditions for a particular  route are clearly wrong.  This leads to late buses and often follow on cancellation of other route services. Very unsatisfactory situation, particularly when the services are low frequency. Can mean very long waiting times for passengers for their next service. Late running of buses also makes connections to rail and bus problematical. Can add hours to journey times when connections are missed due to late running.

Looking at the recent trends for bus region on-time running it can be noted that for most regions there is a deteriorating trend, no doubt reflecting in part worsening road traffic conditions.  Southern region has improved a little, but still poor, as is the Western bus region.  With the break up of the Western 522 bus route into two new routes 527 and 528 from January 2020, hopefully Western bus on-time running will improve.



Robert Dow
Administration
admin@backontrack.org
RAIL Back On Track https://backontrack.org

Reference:

https://railbotforum.org/mbs/index.php?topic=13380.msg231025#msg231025

[ozbob]

Facebook ...

[ozbob]

https://twitter.com/railbotforum/status/1203479119171731456

^

Don't miss the bus! 🦊#qldpolhttps://t.co/yIbs3e1kpG

— ozbob13 (@ozbob13) December 8, 2019

[techblitz]

I honestly think our best hope is a minority Labor government, they might be forced by the cross-bench into taking some action then. I strongly suspect Trad might lose her seat to the Greens.

https://www.9news.com.au/national/labor-campaigns-against-privatising-buses/e35b142b-6788-4fe3-8161-2d0bbc3f24ba

Even in a minority government...labor more than likely wont budge on competitive tendering.......not to mention the fact that 'competitive tendering' isn't even mentioned anywhere on the greens qld policies page......all you see is 1$fares,ptaq,free travel for kids and green bridges.

Forget PHON && you would be hard pressed to find any independent out there who wants bus contracts tendered..

[ozbob]

Letter to the Editor Queensland Times 9th December 2019 page 13

Peak hour is out of time

[achiruel]

I honestly think our best hope is a minority Labor government, they might be forced by the cross-bench into taking some action then. I strongly suspect Trad might lose her seat to the Greens.

https://www.9news.com.au/national/labor-campaigns-against-privatising-buses/e35b142b-6788-4fe3-8161-2d0bbc3f24ba

Even in a minority government...labor more than likely wont budge on competitive tendering.......not to mention the fact that 'competitive tendering' isn't even mentioned anywhere on the greens qld policies page......all you see is 1$fares,ptaq,free travel for kids and green bridges.

Forget PHON && you would be hard pressed to find any independent out there who wants bus contracts tendered..

So the Greens want PTAQ, a dedicated Minister for Public Transport,  bus network review, green bridges, but instead we should vote for the LNP who don't give a rat's arse about public transport, simply because they want competitive tendering? Give me a break! Knowing the LNP, they'll issue tenders to whoever donated the most before there election (mind you, they'll do it in a way that escapes the reporting requirements).

[techblitz]

wtf....
the topic that was being discussed here was comptetive tendering....how many ways do you have to be told that the greens and labor aren't interested?? There is a bigger chance of it happening under blue team...regardless of how terrible they are with other public transport achievements
Vote for whoever you want...I don't give a 'rats arse'...