Suggestions for coping with the PT network without CRR

[STB]

4.  A rethink on the 'one seat mantra'.  Frequency on trunk routes, bus and rail needs to be fed properly.   I am past possible inconvenience for some of changing seats, providing the frequency is there I don't think it is going to be a longer term issue.  Far better to have widespread reasonably frequent feeders into high frequency core routes for maximum uptake.

I don't know why you keep flogging this dead horse.  The people don't want it.  And what's it got to do with CRR?  Without CRR, the exact opposite is true, as there may be a need for more buses to run all the way to the CBD for capacity reasons in peak hour, especially to supplement the Cleveland line.

I tend to agree with that.  Firstly, it's been proven already that people (especially in the BCC area) don't like having to do transfers.  Except if they drive their car, people tend to not treat the car as part of their total journey if they are catching a train for example.

Also, doing progressive ramp ups of bus routes along key train catchment corridors can spread loadings between bus and rail and hence be more effective.  There are other more effective ways of dealing with kerbside space than just deleting a whole ton of city bound bus routes and converting them to feeders.

[#Metro]

The more we discuss this, the more awful the options seem.
What is happening? The whole PT system is going to be impacted and savaged now, even the buses are going to be affected.
This is not good.

- Another possible thing that could be done rail wise is to run a
circular loop from Bowen Hills over the bridge and to Yeerongpilly,
Tennyson, Sherwood, then all stations back to Bowen Hills.  The loop
could operate depending on peak, if it's an morning peak, you run the
service over the Merivale Bridge first, if you run it's in the afternoon
peak, you run it via Milton first.  That ensures that critical slots are
available while providing some extra seats for those willing enough to
travel the long way to get back.

This is not very clear to me how this is beneficial? I'm confused.

In terms of buses, I think upgrading routes will become more difficult
under the financial circumstances, upgrading a bus route to a higher
frequency is actually a lot more expensive then one might think.  So
here's what I think should probably happen.

Possibly, but don't the upgraded BUZ routes also pull a lot of patronage, and perhaps have very good farebox ratios as a result?

- Another way to tackle kerbside space issues is to have bus routes use
streets on the fringe parts of the city. eg: Alice St.  Or even, spread
out high frequency routes across the city instead of all in one area,
eg: King George Square busway station. Downside to that is a longer walk
distance and the services aren't as visbile to infrequent PT users.

I feel that the longer walk would be anti-integration. I would strongly oppose
dispersal of the high frequency BUZ routes from KGS to all over the CBD.

I feel the need to say that the Elephant in the room here is feeder services. Get rid of the air
that is carried in peak hour. There is no need to have every bus route run into the CBD.
Anyway, I feel that these measures would still not avoid buslock in the CBD, as per the Courier Mail article with
Luke Franzmann's comments.

Boosting short haul services and crosstown services to regional
employment centres, eg: Tingalpa/Hemmant from areas where people travel
from to get to work.  See if employers can provide Planners with the
postcodes of where their employees travel from and use that data to best
key new routes that can operate at least in peak hours at the very
minimum.

I feel that the "predict and provide" philosophy is flawed. This is just my personal opinion.
I feel that it is flawed because it is a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy- that is to say, the
patronage and service autocorrelate through self-feedback.

It's a bit like on the trains at peak hour- the planners
see a lot of people catch trains at peak hour "the demand does that", so they put services on then,
the customers see services are only available at peak hour "the supply is only available then", so they only travel then.
You get a massive spike which overloads the system in peak hour, and then patronage dies in the off peak, which is wasteful.

A different view would be that if high frequency were provided all day, the peak would relax.

The second thing is I feel that it is expensive to increase peak hour bus or train service- because most, if not all units
are in service, this requires the purchase of a new bus, which is easily $750 000 each. That's very expensive, especially
if you only want to run the service for 2 hours per day, during the peak hours.

Growing patronage off-peak through the use of feeder and transfer model is much better I feel, because there are spare
units around, left over from the peak hour.

- Boosting route 598/599 on key areas of the route, not the whole route,
would cost as much as BUZing route 250 to do that and you're looking at
$m+ to do it!  So selecting highly used sections of the route and
boosting those sections would be far more effective.

Slimming down the route and BUZzing it would make more people catch it, so much more that I feel
the farebox may more than offset the initial investment. The way it is being run right now, it is offering
rotten apple service, so of course it will never be a money spinner or made more efficient until it offers
a better scope of hours and higher frequency.

- Instead of BUZing a route outright, do what has been done for route
555 and doing progressive upgrades of the route over a number of years.
 Key routes I would suggest would be routes 100, 120, 180, 220, 227,
230, 235, 270 and other routes that service a train station catchment so
there is alternative travel if one finds it difficult to board the train
station due to heavy loading.

I would suggest QR seriously think about removing seats and increasing capacity that way.
Remember, this adds more buses to peak hour, each bus is $750 000 or so, you need heaps of them
and the busway and CBD streets are already very close to capacity. A limited solution I feel.

[#Metro]

I don't know why you keep flogging this dead horse.  The people don't want it.  And what's it got to do with CRR?  Without CRR, the exact opposite is true, as there may be a need for more buses to run all the way to the CBD for capacity reasons in peak hour, especially to supplement the Cleveland line.

A PT system built on "Direct service only routes" is a dead horse. There is just no way you can cater to trips everywhere with this kind of system
except during peak hour. That's the problem. If you want an all day PT system, you are going to have to use transfers as the fundamental building block
of the PT system.

In the same way Airlines cannot afford to fly everyone directly to every city on earth, it is not affordable nor feasible (they make you interchange at Singapore, Hong Kong or
Dubai) A a bus system will have to start looking at integration and hubs.

[ozbob]

I tend to agree with that.  Firstly, it's been proven already that people (especially in the BCC area) don't like having to do transfers. 

Tough, a proper connected network will be needed for the overall good of community.   Life is like that ...

It is outdated thinking that has lead to a very mediocre system at this point in time. Clearly the paradigm needs changing.

[#Metro]

Also, doing progressive ramp ups of bus routes along key train catchment corridors can spread loadings between bus and rail and hence be more effective.  There are other more effective ways of dealing with kerbside space than just deleting a whole ton of city bound bus routes and converting them to feeders.

What options are here? I feel that some capacity may be freed up by deliberately running buses in competition with trains (cringe), but 1 full train in peak hour (1000 pax)
is 13 buses (arctic), the cost? 13 x $750 000 = $9.7 million per train load, and that's just to get the bus running during peak hour, we haven't taken route length into account
and driver wages. Remember BCC is trying to dump the bus system on to the State Government because most the staff AIUI of the BCC are now bus drivers, this is a huge
and growing drain on the finances of the BCC, BCC is going to have a huge hit and ratepayers are going to be blasted to the moon with costs and subsidy when all these
buses need to be purchased to cover for the trains during peak hour.

[Arnz]

I tend to agree with that.  Firstly, it's been proven already that people (especially in the BCC area) don't like having to do transfers. 

Tough, a proper connected network will be needed for the overall good of community.   Life is like that ...

It is outdated thinking that has lead to a very mediocre system at this point in time. Clearly the paradigm needs changing.

The Hub system may work in some areas, but will not work in outer areas.  For example heavy PnR and bus feeder interchange stations in the interurban areas (Landsborough, Nambour, Robina, etc) those commuters basically already change modes once (Bus > Rail or Car > Rail). 

Making those commuters change twice would pretty send most of those commuters back into their cars for the whole journey and add to the traffic on the highways.

[ozbob]

The Hub system may work in some areas, but will not work in outer areas.  For example heavy PnR and bus feeder interchange stations in the interurban areas (Landsborough, Nambour, Robina, etc) those commuters basically already change modes once (Bus > Rail or Car > Rail). 

Yes, they are clearly a bit different from metropolitan Brisbane ..

[#Metro]

Agree. One interchange is enough, and they are long distance too.

I personally don't mind doing multiple interchanges closer to the city- which I know is the exact opposite of what other forum posters are saying here.
The reason why i don't mind so much is because the services as you get closer and closer to the city become more frequent and easier to walk to.

I don't know if it would be similar with the melbourne trams as well. Certainly when I was down there, you just caught whatever tram and then changed,
it was no big deal. Do something in the mean time, jump on another tram again, off to the right destination.

So some times I just catch the next bus from wherever to Cultural centre and then change or catch a bus, eat something and then come back and catch the right bus.

[ozbob]

I just had a quick look again at the Connecting SEQ 2031  bus plan.  Clearly they are moving to busways and urbanlink corridors which will be the main workhorse routes.  These will then be connected to locally at transfer locations.  The sooner they start the better IMHO.

The trams in Melbourne are actually doing what is flagged for bus in SEQ2031 effectively interms of the busways/urbanlink corridors.

Here it is:

Signature projects – bus
Eastern and Northern Busways
Eastern Busway to Capalaba and Northern Busway to Bracken Ridge.
UrbanLink bus and HOV network
High-frequency 'turn up and go' UrbanLink bus services with priority on strategic
corridors. Redesign of the bus network to provide effective feeder services to UrbanLink
bus public transport corridors.
Western bus priority corridor
A high-frequency bus service with priority from Kenmore to the city.
CoastConnect
A high-frequency bus service with priority from Maroochydore to Caloundra via
Mooloolaba and Kawana Town Centre.

Page 8

The point is with CRR delayed this becomes a more urgent requirement IMHO as more pax will need to moved by bus as the capacity of CRR won't be available as planned.

We might just yet see bi-artics on the busways ..

[#Metro]

High-frequency 'turn up and go' UrbanLink bus services with priority on strategic
corridors.

^^^ There is the Core Frequency Network Right There! 

[mufreight]

High-frequency 'turn up and go' UrbanLink bus services with priority on strategic
corridors.

^^^ There is the Core Frequency Network Right There! 

A road based network that is already at the point of gridlock and lacks the capacity to accomodate any real increases in capacity that will with the increasing numbers of commuters having no choice but to return to using private cars, this due to the inadequacies of the public transport system overall, a situation which will exacarbate rapidly as overall demand increases.

[mufreight]

If, as the government says, it is pushing ahead with the business case and financial analysis for the CRR, it will contain two detailed sections: (1) what happens if we don't proceed with this project and commit to its cost, and (2) an analysis showing other ways to spend the money that otherwise would be allocated to CRR, thereby proving CRR to be the superior solution.  These sections are not commercial-in-confidence and should be released publicly to encourage debate about alternative scenarios.  Of course, the alternatives themselves will cost money that is not budgetted.  This will be a significant restraining factor in looking at options.  Yes, they will be far cheaper, but they will still cost.

The benefits are in the order of 35 billion dollars IIRC. So the cost is large, but the benefits are at least 3 times larger than the initial outlay.
There is an alternative that is 50% cheaper than CRR as planned, this is the duplication of the Merivale bridge. The problem here is that there is the busway
in the corridor there, the Brisbane Exhibition and convention centre is in the way as well as an office/residential highrise and or backpackers plus I would think it would also have conflicts of its own with the ipswich line, and it would completely miss woolloongabba. Oh, and something would need to be done about the city tunnels as well.

Another less than effective solution in which the costs would outweigh the short term benefits for a less than desireable result that would over time cost more than CRR for a far less effective result that would not service either the Wooloongabba or the gardens area of the city, with the box of band aids empty as it so obviously it is, the bleeding heart politics of an incompetent government in no way reduce the increasing urgency of the need of this infrastructure and the money that will be expended on ineffective stop gap solutions would be better directed towards starting the CRR, time to bite the bullet and do what should have been done five to ten years ago.
   

[#Metro]

with the box of band aids empty as it so obviously it is, the bleeding heart politics of an incompetent government in no way reduce the increasing urgency of the need of this infrastructure and the money that will be expended on ineffective stop gap solutions would be better directed towards starting the CRR, time to bite the bullet and do what should have been done five to ten years ago.

Mufreight,

I agree with you. The irony is that Cross River Rail was in part, developed to prevent the bus system overloading, in fact, it was one of the potential
relief mechanisms for the SE busway, and this is detailed in the Lord Mayor's Mass Transit Report 2007. So there is actually going to be a domino effect and
a chain of consequences arising from this that will impact Brisbane City Council both operationally (the busway is full, we have a problem!) and also financially (you are expecting BCC to fork out $9.7 million to buy enough buses to replace each extra train load of passengers during peak hour?).

Based on these rough calculations, and the fact that I guesstimate that the state government only saves about 1-2 billion,  and the cure seems to be almost as bad or worse than the disease (all these awful 'alternatives' that don't really do the job of getting more Gold Coast, Cleveland and Beenleigh commuters to work, they are just too far to reach with BCC buses in many cases, and even if they could be reached, the sheer number of new buses and staff required would wipe out the $1-2 billion "savings" easily).

I actually think these governments need to get over public debt phobia. We need this. Otherwise business and residents alike will just pack up and move to Perth. Seriously, Perth is like Brisbane, nice beaches nearby, nice small quiet city. Good jobs. And you can actually get to work on time and they have functional transport around.

[#Metro]

A road based network that is already at the point of gridlock and lacks the capacity to accomodate any real increases in capacity that will with the increasing numbers of commuters having no choice but to return to using private cars, this due to the inadequacies of the public transport system overall, a situation which will exacarbate rapidly as overall demand increases.

There will always be a need for surface bus transport. Always.
And there will always be a need for high frequency bus routes to go to those areas where there is no rail, and also do the job of feeding passengers to and from their homes and the rail system. So we will still need to use roads, but the rail network will grow in importance, simply because it is completely independent from the road network and allows commuters to escape congestion on the road.

I really don't believe there are any acceptable alternatives to cross river rail. They are all band-aids with limited effect really, and they are all bad and do not do the job properly. How can you substitute a rail system that might carry 60 000 passengers/hour in peak? Or even 15 000 for that matter (the SE busway capacity at the moment) with buses.

It's just dreaming really.

We can put up our band aid alternatives, but really, it's just not going to do the job. I wonder if Brisbane City Council realises the flow on impact is about to land on their budget in the form of more buses required and more subsidy?

[Stillwater]

It is the finances of CRR that I find the most puzzling, especially when the state government expects the federal government to meet most of the cost.  So, lets get this straight. In order to save money (its tiny bit of the total) the state government will delay a start by two years and the construction schedule may be stretched out so CRR is finished in 2020.

CRR would cost $10 billion, and maybe more, when work starts in a few years (not $8 billion).  Assuming the split of government financial exposure is 75:25 (federal versus state).  That's a $2.5 billion contribution from the state government, say $500 million over each of five years.  The entire sum is not required up-front.

There is no 'saving' to the taxpayer.  The taxpayer pays tax to both the state and the federal government.  Queensland's deferral represents a saving of costs associated with two years of state payments.  Calculated as interest on $1 billion (two years payments), the saving is $100 million (approximately, at the rates governments can borrow money).

So, in order to save $100 million to state taxpayers, those same taxpayers – as federal taxpayers – will have to pay more.  Admittedly, the burden would be spread around, as taxpayers from other states would be contributing to the federal component of the construction cost.  An extra $2 billion bill to the taxpayer due to deferral in order for the state to save $100 million.  The Queensland Government saves $100 million, the taxpayer has to find an additional $2 billion.  So, in order for Queensland government coffers to be $100 million better off, the taxpayer is out of pocket to the tune of $1.9 billion.

The result is a higher cost for CRR and denial of $1.9 billion that would have gone into other infrastructure around Australia.

[Stillwater]

And there are additional costs.  TT pointed out the cost of benefits of CRR.  The delivery of these benefits will be delayed two years also.  So the economic value of the benefits won't occur in that two-year period.  Therefore, they become costs to the community.

[#Metro]

The delay of CRR is not costless. It only looks smiley on the paper balance sheet. Many of the costs will shift to areas for which there are no paper balance sheets that are publicly viewable- the costs of time and inconvenience on business and their employees, the cost of providing sub-optimal stop-gap alternatives to mop up the demand, and the opportunity cost of lost business etc etc.

Just because it looks smiley on the balance sheet does not necessarily mean it is smiley all round.

[ozbob]

Yes Stillwater and TT, it would appear the simple logic behind deferring CRR is that the State won't have to actually put up money for two years.  But the cost of that will far exceed any 'notional savings'.  There is also the consideration that the Feds might not have been able to fund either, so it is mutually convenient and looks 'nice'.  Let's face it, they have a lot of form in this flawed thinking model, eg. Beerburrum to Landsborough, 4th track Corinda to Darra and the like.  It was clear to me in 2006 that we were in big trouble, hence this group.  Slowly the issues are becoming more mainstream but the effects of this delay with CRR will be a lot more than 'inconvenience to commuters'.  It will be financially devastating as congestion compounds at many levels.  They are hoping that a commodity recovery will mitigate I expect.  I am not so sure.  And we have the immediate problem of some very risky weather events looming. Not over yet red rover ...

As we have examined in this thread, the delay is going to compound at many levels.  We can only try to suggest things to be done to mitigate the impacts of a failing transport system.  Whether they listen or continue along the flawed path is a moot point.

Thanks for the contributions all to this thread so far.  It is important I think to demonstrate that by not proceeding immediately with CRR the stop-gap measures needed themselves will cost, and cost hugely, and this then further exposes the flaws in our public transport/road transport planning and implementation for decades now.  I am not sure if the present Government and Bureaucracy is up to the task any more, hopefully I am wrong.  Based on the track record so far though, they in a big 'transport struggle street' now as is the community, compounded by myopia, knee-jerk responses, and petty political grandstanding.  As was shown in the recent Victoria election, transport is one of the key issues. So be it ...

[Stillwater]

It also means, Ozbob, that we must cast a critical eye over documents such as Connecting SEQ 2031 - commend the government for its vision while, at the same time, urging the government to stick to the building blocks and timetable that comprise the vision.  Connecting SEQ 2031 is now Connecting SEQ 2034.

This is a vision that's uncosted, and with big ticket items (Trouts Road etc).  What's missing is a companion document that shows a finance and taxation model to meet the $130-odd billion cost.  That is the elephant in the room.

The government points to the 2031 vision while, at the same time, fiddling with the component bits without realising, or not wanting to realise, that this compromises the vision outcome, costs and deadlines.

[#Metro]

This is a vision that's uncosted, and with big ticket items (Trouts Road etc).  What's missing is a companion document that shows a finance and taxation model to meet the $130-odd billion cost.  That is the elephant in the room.

Yes that is $6.5 billion dollars per year (so a CRR tunnel), every year for the next 20 years. Fantasy???

[somebody]

I tend to agree with that.  Firstly, it's been proven already that people (especially in the BCC area) don't like having to do transfers. 

Tough, a proper connected network will be needed for the overall good of community.   Life is like that ...

It is outdated thinking that has lead to a very mediocre system at this point in time. Clearly the paradigm needs changing.

I would say that this charge is much more fairly leveled in Sydney.  Where the Epping bus flyover is being removed and the Randwick depot routes are poorly deployed.  However, that's the way it needs to be done without integrated ticketing, or at least arguably.

Lack of transfers are the least of the troubles here.  What's with the reluctance to adopt the via Skew St portal routing for example?  There are so many issues of poor planning in the radial system.  Also the part where you cannot change anything is a problem.  250 via Gabba & 151 still running via Mains Rd (153 runs via the Gateway Motorway now, but needs to be 1 route).  Another common complaint is the lack of cross town routes.

As for the Alice St suggestion, I do support this in some cases.  The current City Precincts routes are ineffective.  Why's the 136 do that detour via Garden City?  Abolish that and put in a Warrigal Rd City Precincts route.  Perhaps all stop to Buranda. 344 is also pretty strange.  457-9 also need to be cut.

[colinw]

Yes that is $6.5 billion dollars per year (so a CRR tunnel), every year for the next 20 years. Fantasy???

SEQ 2031 is, and always was, a glossy brochure fantasy that has about as much chance of becoming real as Iemma's North West Metro did in NSW. The fact is that if the funding & will to proceed with the keystone project (CRR) is not there, then there is no way imaginable that the other $100 billion+ of Nolan's pipedream is going to happen.  And even that 2031 vision is actually a few extra lines drawn on a map of what was once a vision for 2026 - Trouts Rd, Ripley, Flagstone. Meanwhile other projects that have been on the books for ages get deferred over and over again despite the Government issuing releases that unambiguously commit to them. Landsborough, promised very clearly to be done by 2012 see here, here, here and here.  CAMCOS as far as Caloundra unambiguously promised for 2015 by the current Deputy Premier - here.  What has happened to these committments I ask?  So why do we allow ourselves to be suckered by all this fancy 2031 stuff when we KNOW it cannot possibly be funded by the state, at least until there is a major reprioritisation regarding road and other projects.

The 2031 vision requires a steady rate of expenditure sustained over the life of several Governments.  Given the dysfunctional state of politics & Government in this state, I can see no way that can possibly occur.  What we have instead seen is a couple of projects get "lucky" (Springfield, MBR - an election stunt by Gillard, but a useful one for QLD), while many of the other projects move to the right at a rate of 1 year per year, building up a huge "bow wave" of long deferred projects that recede into the future, getting less affordable the whole time they do so.  CAMCOS is the classic example of this, now joined by duplication beyond Beerburrum and any extension of the Gold Coast line beyond Varsity Lakes.  I suspect stage 2 and beyond of Gold Coast Light Rail will be in this category as well, it seems even a link up to heavy rail at Helensvale is deferred to 2018 at the earliest, rendering the system a disconnected curiousity for its first few years of operation.

My wife and I have been discussing this and other developments in this city.  We now believe it is very likely that we have purchased our last house in Brisbane or Queensland for that matter.  I can stay in my current job and seamlessly transfer to Melbourne (trams past the door of the office), or take a transfer to UK office (small town with a rail service better than any in Queensland, and an easy walk or cycle ride to work). Frankly, Brisbane and Queensland are starting to look very unattractive.  It is no great surprise that our fastest growing office is Perth, followed by Melbourne, or that we have just decided to relocate our Asia-Pacific HQ from Australia to Singapore.

For at least the next 10 years I think the mantra has to be doing more with what we already have, which means running the rail system to its absolute limit of capacity.  Boosting offpeak frequency to flatten out the peak, plus fare incentives for travelling in the shoulder period.

The busways I think will need to be used as an ersatz metro by running a very frequent and high capacity core service, converting a lot of services that feed into the busway to feeders, and trying to smooth out "clumping" by running the thing almost as if it is a railway.  This will alleviate some of the chaos you see at busway stations where too many services to actually use the busway platforms often turn up at once.

Off the busways, again we need to focus on developing a core frequent BUZ network, and try to maximise the passenger loadings we get out of the limited road capacity in the CBD.  That means running high capacity buses frequently on many core routes, and if necessary banning less utilised or secondary routes from the city and making people change.

I keep hearing that SEQ people won't change services or transfer.  Why is that?  Rather than just accepting it, it may be time to work out what makes us "different" here (if indeed we are - I don't buy into any of that Queenslanders are special nonsense).  There is something about how our system functions that discourages transfers and makes us rigidly adhere to the "everyone must get a single seat journey" idea, even though it is a horrendously inefficient way to run a public transport system and inevitabely clogs up the centre of the system with duplicate routes.

Finally, the Government needs to bite the bullet about bus priority measures and bus lanes, even if it means overriding council.  Car lanes are not sacred, and if people can see buses & trains whizzing past while they sit in the smog, they might actually be convinced to switch mode.

[Stillwater]

That puts things in perspective.  CRR is the keystone supporting everything else.  Delaying it for two years has significant flow-on consequences and costs.  Announcing that it will be delayed two years assumes that it is a viable, proven project.  That's not the case and governments have not committed to its construction.

Connecting SEQ 2031 promises the equivalent of a CRR ever year for 20 years.  Unrealistic.  The more fundamental question - What is a realistic budget over the next 20 years and what can that buy?

Connecting SEQ 2031 promises the contents of the entire supermarket, when we have a $200 a week grocery budget.  So, what is the best value for money based on a realistic budget?

[somebody]

What options are here? I feel that some capacity may be freed up by deliberately running buses in competition with trains (cringe), but 1 full train in peak hour (1000 pax)
is 13 buses (arctic), the cost? 13 x $750 000 = $9.7 million per train load, and that's just to get the bus running during peak hour, we haven't taken route length into account
and driver wages. Remember BCC is trying to dump the bus system on to the State Government because most the staff AIUI of the BCC are now bus drivers, this is a huge
and growing drain on the finances of the BCC, BCC is going to have a huge hit and ratepayers are going to be blasted to the moon with costs and subsidy when all these
buses need to be purchased to cover for the trains during peak hour.

Even if your price is correct, a 6 car train is (was) worth $17m and change.  This point is strongly against rail transport vs bus transport.  Here's a link: http://www.railpage.com.au/f-t11307061-s0.htm

[#Metro]

Yes, assuming you can build all those buses, find all the people to operate them. And you have to run on congested roads too!
This is not a lifecycle cost and it is not a cost that includes operations either! Shall we introduce express buses from Coolangatta?
IMHO not a solution, maybe partial relief.

Trains last longer than buses too- no bus from 1979, trains refurbished since then, look good as new, still on the network.

For at least the next 10 years I think the mantra has to be doing more with what we already have, which means running the rail system to its absolute limit of capacity.  Boosting offpeak frequency to flatten out the peak, plus fare incentives for travelling in the shoulder period.

Running the rail system so close to or at capacity is sheer madness! It is a recipe for disaster! Every person with rail operations knows that it is highly un-desirable to run the system close to capacity, because if something goes wrong, you get cascading delays across the network and utter chaos.  

BUSES ARE NOT TRAINS

[colinw]

Running the rail system so close to or at capacity is sheer madness! It is a recipe for disaster! Every person with rail operations knows that it is highly un-desirable to run the system close to capacity, because if something goes wrong, you get cascading delays across the network and utter chaos.  

BUSES ARE NOT TRAINS

You are correct and from an operational viewpoint I agree with you, however we have been left with no choice.  I note that you have been one of those most vocal about increasing frequency - do you now believe that cannot be done thanks to the loss of CRR? (Edit: that sounds "cranky" ... not intended to come across that way, interested in your thoughts about how far we can push frequency on the system without breaking it).

Clearly the PEAK period cannot handle more than a token increase in train numbers, but in the shoulder & offpeak period I see no reason not to boost frequency on most lines to 20 minutes or 15 minutes, at least within the bounds of Richlands, Ipswich, Ferny Grove (post duplication), Caboolture, Shorncliffe, Airport, Manly & Kuraby.  Ideally I'd like to run 4TPH Richlands to Petrie (eventually Springfield to Kippa-Ring) overlaid on 4TPH Ipswich to Caboolture, making an 8TPH "virtual metro" from Darra to Petrie, although the impact of this on the Nambour timetable would need to be very carefully considered.  The thing is that the Western Line to NCL sector can be boosted in capacity relatively independently of any impacts from not building CRR.

There are also a number of infrastructure shortcomings that should be corrected sooner rather than later, and will be needed even with CRR.

- 4th platform at Oxley, and the missing electrification.
- Lawnton - Petrie triplication.  Needed for MBRL, but the sooner the better.
- Additional crossovers in Salsibury to Kuraby, to get 4TPH down to Kuraby ASAP.
- Sandgate to Shorncliffe duplication - get 4TPH to Shorncliffe.
- Maybe some works at Manly to facilitate 4TPH that far? (Not familiar enough with the line to know what's needed - used to live at Wynnum but have only ever been beyond Wynnum to Cleveland once, and that was over 20 years ago).
- Reduction of excessive dwell times in at Central & Roma St. Maybe Bowen Hills as well, although I understand that is for crew change purposes.

[somebody]

Trains last longer than buses too- no bus from 1979, trains refurbished since then, look good as new, still on the network.

This point hardly registers on any accounting analysis, such as discounted cashflow.

Running the rail system so close to or at capacity is sheer madness! It is a recipe for disaster! Every person with rail operations knows that it is highly un-desirable to run the system close to capacity, because if something goes wrong, you get cascading delays across the network and utter chaos. 

All rail systems must be run at a high utilisation to be cost effective.  Having a poorly utilised rail system is madness.

[#Metro]

All rail systems must be run at a high utilisation to be cost effective.  Having a poorly utilised rail system is madness.

Yes I agree, but you always must have breathing space. Don't worry, when QR's peak hour reliability starts looking like Connex in Melbourne
used to and starts occurring frequently during peak hour, interrupting thousands of commuters, I can tell you who's galaxy poll ratings are going
to be falling...

On your second point, yes, That's why "Think bus, fill train" is important. But I often hear protests at that sort of thinking!!!  

[#Metro]

You are correct and from an operational viewpoint I agree with you, however we have been left with no choice.

It is very dangerous from a safety perspective I feel to run the system at absolute maximum. It also makes the system prone to
cascading delays and unreliability during peak hour. This is true for all transport systems.

I note that you have been one of those most vocal about increasing frequency - do you now believe that cannot be done thanks to the loss of CRR? (Edit: that sounds "cranky" ... not intended to come across that way, interested in your thoughts about how far we can push frequency on the system without breaking it).

My issue with the rail system is not so much peak hour frequency. Peak hour frequency is actually not bad- the Ipswich line, for example, will run trains every 4 minutes at Indooroopilly, which is a metro standard of frequency. My problem (and the forum poster Somebody has picked up on this) is OFF-PEAK frequency. That's the issue. 30 minutes is totally unacceptable. There is space for 15 minute frequency to rail stations with or without CRR.

CRR has greatest benefits for increasing PEAK hour capacity. Increasing OFF-PEAK frequency should be much easier to do IMHO. Growing off peak patronage will be very important. I think that it is almost treated as some kind of sacred tome of truth that "nobody will catch trains in the off peak or on weekends" and it is totally wrong- we have proven this with the BUZ in Brisbane, increases of up to 300% in the evenings, and 200% on weekends to levels that are at or above weekday patronage. I see no reason why this can't also be done for trains, and all the money from off peak trips can go straight into reducing the farebox ratio and subsidies.

There are also a number of infrastructure shortcomings that should be corrected sooner rather than later, and will be needed even with CRR.

- 4th platform at Oxley, and the missing electrification.
- Lawnton - Petrie triplication.  Needed for MBRL, but the sooner the better.
- Additional crossovers in Salsibury to Kuraby, to get 4TPH down to Kuraby ASAP.
- Sandgate to Shorncliffe duplication - get 4TPH to Shorncliffe.
- Maybe some works at Manly to facilitate 4TPH that far? (Not familiar enough with the line to know what's needed - used to live at Wynnum but have only ever been beyond Wynnum to Cleveland once, and that was over 20 years ago).
- Reduction of excessive dwell times in at Central & Roma St. Maybe Bowen Hills as well, although I understand that is for crew change purposes.

The Beenleigh line is the one to prioritise, followed by Shorncliffe. The reason here is that 15 minute frequency only extends to Park Rd on the Beenleigh line, at least the other lines have a greater proportion of frequent stations already (like the Ipswich line). 15 minute frequency is important to form the Core Frequent Network.

[somebody]

All rail systems must be run at a high utilisation to be cost effective.  Having a poorly utilised rail system is madness.

Yes I agree, but you always must have breathing space. Don't worry, when QR's peak hour reliability starts looking like Connex in Melbourne
used to and starts occurring frequently during peak hour, interrupting thousands of commuters, I can tell you who's galaxy poll ratings are going
to be falling...

On your second point, yes, That's why "Think bus, fill train" is important. But I often hear protests at that sort of thinking!!!  

Don't go to Sydney.  Almost every track through the CBD is at a 3 minute headway, or close to it.  The only line with any breathing space is the Illawarra/Bondi Junction, which is about 15tph.

You are correct and from an operational viewpoint I agree with you, however we have been left with no choice.

It is very dangerous from a safety perspective I feel to run the system at absolute maximum. It also makes the system prone to
cascading delays and unreliability during peak hour. This is true for all transport systems.

Please don't allege safety violations.

[skippy]

Re-schedule the XPT. It is scheduled to depart Roma Street at 7:30am, crosses the Maryvale bridge and uses the dual gauge track to Salisbury. This track would otherwise be used by the Gold Coast inbound expresses, however by rotten coincidence the XPT effectively prohibits use of this long length of track between for around 20 minutes at the worst possible time.

Compounding the issue is the XPT runs on NSW (daylight saving) time so unless Qld adopts daylight saving or we have summer and winter rail timetables, our 3rd track is effectively out of action for 40 minutes in the morning peak!

[BrizCommuter]

It is very dangerous from a safety perspective I feel to run the system at absolute maximum. It also makes the system prone to
cascading delays and unreliability during peak hour. This is true for all transport systems.

Many metro systems and suburban rail systems run at maximum capacity and have an impeccable safety record. Examples being London Underground, Paris Metro, Paris RER, Moscow Metro, Santiago Metro, Hong Kong MTR, JR Chuo and Yamanote Line (Tokyo), etc, etc. To say that safety is compromised by running a system to maximum capacity has no basis whatsoever.

However, running a system to maximum capacity can increase the chance of delays.

[#Metro]

Let's hope we don't have a brake problem like the Siemens trains down in Melbourne!

[ghostryder]

Skippy
The issue of the Xpt is a prickly one, The Queensland Government contribute to the operational Costs of the Xpt so in part have had a say on when it arrives and departs. Under the current set up the Xpt leaves Sydney at 4.12pm for Brisbane daily, reaching Roma st at 6.30am the next morning. Now to have the Xpt arrive at a decent time in Brisbane say after 9am would mean leaving after 7pm, but here is where you start running into trouble, under the current set up the xpt leaves at 7.30am and arrives in Sydney at 9.06pm, so we now have the xpt arriving at say 9.30am add the hour turn around time we now have the Xpt ready to go at 10.30am and now when the Brisbane Xpt arrives in Sydney it will now be just after midnight not a good time to be arriving, but to change this one Xpt run would also require the need to reschedule and see the rewritting and alteration to the scheduling of the Grafton Melbourne and Casino Xpts (would also effect the servicing of the sets between runs). Doing this would also impact on freight operations into and out of Brisbane on the Standard Guage (they have a curfew impossed during the week in the morning and evening peaks.).

Bob
If Brisbane does not have one maybe a freight curfew like the one imposed on freight into and out of Sydney might be worth considering that way it could free up paths. It may or may not help or be useful but its something to look at or consider.

Scott





 

[Stillwater]

Re above post, some of the issues discussed in this QR submission:

http://www.infrastructureaustralia.gov.au/public_submissions/published/files/86_qr_limited_SUB.pdf

[#Metro]

Floods' economic pain is greatly exaggerated

If this is the most expensive natural disaster in Australian history, all it proves is the cost of earlier disasters was negligible. If you can ''rebuild Queensland'' for just $5.6 billion, it must be a pretty tin-pot place.

If $5.6 billion seems a lot, consider some ''relative magnitudes'': the economy's annual production of goods and services (gross domestic product) totals $1400 billion, and the budget's annual revenue collections total $314 billion.

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/business/floods-economic-pain-is-greatly-exaggerated-20110130-1a9op.html