On the Buses

[SurfRail]

I understood the early running benchmark was 2 minutes, not 5.

Other comments from TransLink's social media reps have indicated it is as much as 10 minutes, which is patent rubbish.

[bcasey]

Part of the problem is the timetables themselves. By going with clockface timetables as many services currently do, the timetables are usually catered towards the peak periods when there are delays caused by congestion. However in non-peak periods, this means there is a huge amount of fat in the timetable, which results in very early buses, and idle bus drivers when they get to the end of their trip. If Translink/BT/etc used the historical data that they have to better optimise the timetables based on the different periods of the day, it would be both much more reliable for commuters, and could also help them either save money and/or increase frequencies by reblocking the buses/driver runs.

Also, from what I understand about the scheduling program they use, HASTUS, it uses timing points, rather than each specific stop, to optimise the schedules, which means there could be a large variation in arrival/departure times in the intermediate stops if the timing points are too far apart. Additionally, to improve the computation time of optimising schedules, programs like HASTUS tend to simplify the problem by dividing the day into periods of time, and use the same timing for several consecutive trips, even though in reality this will often not be the case.

[James]

True last and first buses, low frequency routes would be disadvantaged. I catch buses all the time pretty rare that they leave ahead of schedule. Remember you don't want a situation where the buses are idling mid route (because they are a few mins ahead of schedule)  full of passengers wanting to get to the end destination. Very frustrating.

People tend to be pretty accepting of the dwells in my experience. While it is rare, it is immensely frustrating for passengers when services do leave early.

At least in my case though, when services leave early, it is for absolutely no reason (i.e. the driver has intentionally left the terminus early and the bus hasn't been full).

[techblitz]

In the intra you need to be at the stop earlier because there is a higher chance that the bus will run slightly early....also dependent on what vehicle traffic the route hits...

@bcasey

there is a big difference in traffic levels in peak/intrapeak.....translinks clockface seems to be working well intra but off-peak its embarrasing....

Examples of what your pointing out bcasey already happening....
the 369......trip time from toombul to mitchy 31 minutes intra peak...school/work peak its purposely bumped up by 4 minutes to 35......590 is the same....intra its timeabled at 58 mins gc to toombul.........stepped up to as much as 65 minutes in the peaks....

[ozbob]

http://translink.com.au/travel-information/service-notices/58096/details

Special service: inbound route 471 Mount Coot-Tha

Last updated: 12.12pm Sunday 6 September 2015

At 1.20pm, a special route 471 bus will do one journey up to Sir Samuel Griffith Drive at Mount Coot-Tha Summit, Mount Coot-tha to collect any remaining passengers from The Mount Coot-Tha Classic. This will be the last service accessing this stop today. Customers can go to Mount Coot-Tha Road at Botanic Gardens, stop 19, Mount Coot-Tha to catch their bus for the remainder of the day.

[aldonius]

Caught a 599 from Toowong to Mitchelton yesterday afternoon for safari. At least some people who got on at/before Toowong got off at/after Mitchelton.

GCL even in peak isn't incredibly slower than the train - maybe up to 25%, but not more. In terms of frequency and wait time reliability I wouldn't recommend it, though

[techblitz]

the real benefit of the gcl is the fast x-connection between the cleveland/caboolture lines and the beenliegh/ippy lines)...major timesavings.
For reilability...its literally 100% ontime on school holidays....which clearly shows the havoc that vehicle traffic causes with the wider translink network....its always predictably around 5 mins late intra school holidays...

[ozbob]

Twitter

Brisbane Times ‏@brisbanetimes 23m

New rainbow bus the Pride of Brisbane's fleet http://bit.ly/1PZSgpT 

[verbatim9]

While coming back from Ikea on a Logan City Translink bus I noticed a new bus they have in service. Much more spacious inside, Wider centre doors, A large LED display from the rear of the bus with Destination and route number. Asked the driver about them, he said "yes we have 6 of them". No pics taken was in a hurry for a train connection.
Rear display looked like this

[SurfRail]

^ Park Ridge Transit have at least one Optare Tempo which has a "full" destination sign at the back (their most recent delivery IIRC).  Wasn't on a 545 service was it?

Clarke's last (known) deliveries were 6 Volgrens with nice wide twin-leaf side doors but they do not have rear displays.

[ozbob]

Brisbanetimes --> How to get people back on the buses

Marketing spin doesn't hide network failure or rip-off fares sadly .. 

[ozbob]

For interest ...

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Twitter

Taras Grescoe ‏@grescoe 3h

These Two LA Bus Stops Might Change the Future of Cities http://bit.ly/1LZkBMa 



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Twitter

Taras Grescoe ‏@grescoe 3h

Humble bus stop becomes digital hub: Pilot project in #LA has wi-fi, USB port, real-time info. http://bit.ly/1NjWN7x 

[pandmaster]

Brisbanetimes --> How to get people back on the buses

Marketing spin doesn't hide network failure or rip-off fares sadly .. 

Wow this is complete rubbish from BT. The author either proposes something ridiculous (e.g. workstations on buses), something that already exists (e.g. real-time tracking) or makes a completely incorrect assertion (e.g. fares are not the issue).

The only useful things I take out of this are that Wi-Fi should probably be installed in new buses and that maybe it is a good idea to link the "Sorry bus full" desto (which barely ever gets used) with the real-time tracking if feasible.

[bcasey]

With respect to the "Sorry Bus Full" idea for real-time info, there is an experimental field in the GTFS-Realtime specification called OccupancyStatus, which provides the degree of passenger occupancy for the vehicle, one of which is "FULL". https://developers.google.com/transit/gtfs-realtime/reference#OccupancyStatus_VehiclePosition

I have brought this up to Translink before on the developer forum, and the response they gave me was the following:

"Regarding the experimental occupancy-status field, we cannot populate this at the moment as the raw information is not being fed into TransLink in real time. There is immense value in providing this information and it will be considered as a future enhancement."

So for the moment at least, it is a technical limitation with their current system. I'm assuming that they only send the GPS positions in real-time, and none of the ticketing data. They are aware of it however.

[SurfRail]

I vaguely recall that the ticketing data updates itself every 30 minutes or so via 3G.  Could be wrong.

[bcasey]

I vaguely recall that the ticketing data updates itself every 30 minutes or so via 3G.  Could be wrong.

If that is the case, it's still not useful for real-time though, when you want to know how full a bus is before it gets to the next stop. You could use historical data to estimate how many people are on board, but that would only be kind of accurate for regular commuters, and wouldn't be able to take into account irregular commuters, or more specifically, incidents like the trains breaking down, forcing everyone onto buses. Ideally it would be sending every transaction in real-time, which would help translink with detecting fraud and fare evasion, etc, but even just a simple update of the occupancy when the doors close sent in real-time would be useful for a number of applications.

[nathandavid88]

^ Park Ridge Transit have at least one Optare Tempo which has a "full" destination sign at the back (their most recent delivery IIRC).  Wasn't on a 545 service was it?

Clarke's last (known) deliveries were 6 Volgrens with nice wide twin-leaf side doors but they do not have rear displays.

I caught a PRT Tempo 545 for the first time last week. Was an interesting change from the normal models I usually get from LCBS and PRT down this way.

[ozbob]

Was out on Ippy buses today.  515 I travelled on from Yamanto to Ippy CBD

Photograph R Dow 22nd September 2015

[ozbob]

Bus stop at Yamanto ... rolled gold bus stop 



Photograph R Dow 22nd September 2015

[cartoonbirdhaus]

Bus stop at Yamanto ... rolled gold bus stop

On par with train stations between Maitland and Dungog. 

[ozbob]

The stop above is at Meadow St on Warwick Road Yamanto, grass verge on approaches .. not really built up.  Bit of future proofing I suppose ..



As a point of interest, it is actually on the old railway formation.

Photograph R Dow 22nd September 2015

[verbatim9]

Brisbanetimes --> How to get people back on the buses

Marketing spin doesn't hide network failure or rip-off fares sadly .. 

Wow this is complete rubbish from BT. The author either proposes something ridiculous (e.g. workstations on buses), something that already exists (e.g. real-time tracking) or makes a completely incorrect assertion (e.g. fares are not the issue).

The only useful things I take out of this are that Wi-Fi should probably be installed in new buses and that maybe it is a good idea to link the "Sorry bus full" desto (which barely ever gets used) with the real-time tracking if feasible.

We already had a bus review by the last Governemt it just hasn't been implemented yet. Translink "Go Network" but I reckon the "Buz" name can be replaced with a new name for express/limited stop services across all Qld regions to "Go Rapid"

[ozbob]

Feedback received, thanks ..

Services on 397 and 398 are dreadful at the weekend and non-existent in the evenings.  The few buses available do not connect well with the train, with a conveniently timed Saturday morning bus service reaching Ferny Grove Station 2 minutes after the train has left, requiring around a 30 minute wait for the next train.

If a person wants to shop at Brookside at the weekend, he/ she has to have all shopping done in 45 minutes flat or wait an extra 2 hours for a bus back.  Buses are too few and inappropriately timed due to only one bus and one driver being allocated across 2 inbound and 2 outbound services.

[ozbob]

http://translink.com.au/travel-information/service-notices/61036/details

11.42am route 524 outbound bus cancelled

Last updated: 11.52am Saturday 10 October 2015

The 11.42am route 524 outbound bus is cancelled due to an operational issue. The next outbound route 524 bus departs Goodna station at 12.42pm.

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^  marvellous!

[ozbob]

^

Twitter

Robert Dow ‏@Robert_Dow now Brisbane, Queensland

When a one hour frequency bus is cancelled that means a wait up to 2 hours .

> http://railbotforum.org/mbs/index.php?topic=195.msg162447#msg162447 ...

@jackietrad @JoAnnMillerMP

#qldpol

[ozbob]

I think it is time that some consideration was given to the punters in terms of reimbursement for fares or perhaps part fares for taxi costs when these low frequency services are cancelled.  Many folks are left stranded and can not really afford other options.

[ozbob]

New stops for routes 628 and 632 - Walter Hay Drive, Noosaville |

http://translink.com.au : http://translink.com.au/travel-information/service-notices/56736/details

[ozbob]

Brisbanetimes --> Bendy-bus makes 15-minute U-turn

[verbatim9]

I am surprised that an articulated was dispatched for that job. As per the article they knew about the turning circle around Southbank. Articulated suited for busways and transitways

[aldonius]

Caught a 345 northbound out of the city last night, about 8:30pm. Absolutely packed leaving Roma St!. Decent number of seats free by Alderley, though. Food for thought...

[ozbob]

Gold Coast Bulletin --> Surfside Buslines boss' epic wee rant: Employees put on notice about disgusting act

If the drivers are not given access to toilets what are they to do?

Farcical stuff ...

Give them kits ... 

[SurfRail]

Apparently QR still refuses to let Surfside access their station toilets after hours or when they aren't manned.

Great work, seeing that of the 60 TransLink bus routes Surfside operate (after the Nightlink removal this weekend), exactly half of them start or finish at a railway station, while another 7 routes pass through a station en route.

[ozbob]

 

Some days I just want to escape from banana-land ... 

Even Adelaide is looking good 

[ozbob]

^

Twitter

Robert Dow ‏@Robert_Dow now

.@QueenslandRail Is it true that Surfside bus drivers are not given access to station toilets a/h? see> http://railbotforum.org/mbs/index.php?topic=195.msg163563#msg163563 ... @GCBulletin

[SurfRail]

I'd be happy to be proved wrong - this last came up a few years back so it may now be altered.

At the time, the driver break facilities at Griffith Uni and Broadbeach South obviously weren't operating.

[ozbob]

If they are definitely not given access then maybe it is something that should be enabled for the drivers.

The whole toilet issue with QR is a very sad situation overall.

[verbatim9]

They could update the access on their driver go cards to allow after hour proximity access at toilets at stations and stops around the network.

Or simple digital locks installed around the network for after hour access.

[verbatim9]

Surfside bus caught fire too maybe the boss had a bad day
http://m.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/bus-catches-fire-at-nerang-on-the-gold-coast-20151030-gkn8aw.html

[ozbob]

^

Twitter

Robert Dow ‏@Robert_Dow now

.@QueenslandRail Is it true that Surfside bus drivers are not given access to station toilets a/h? see> http://railbotforum.org/mbs/index.php?topic=195.msg163563#msg163563 ... @GCBulletin

^

Twitter

Queensland Rail ‏@QueenslandRail 55s

@Robert_Dow Bus drivers have access to toilets at our stations whilst they are attended. We are unable to issue them with keys out of hours.

[SurfRail]

Why not FFS?