10 Feb 2011: SEQ: Metro-style frequency Darra to CBD?

[ozbob]

Media release 10 February 2011

SEQ: Metro-style frequency Darra to CBD?

RAIL Back On Track (http://backontrack.org) a web based community support group for rail and public transport and an advocate for public transport passengers applauds the extension of the 15 minute frequency between Darra and the CBD. We believe the successful BUZ approach can be adapted for rail. (1) We shall term this package of improvements to service characteristics 'Rail Rapid Transit' (RRT), and particular stations which are upgraded to RRT standards as 'Train Upgrade Zones' (TUZ).

Robert Dow, Spokesman for RAIL Back On Track said:

"High frequency services are very easy-to-market, simple, legible, distinctively-branded, high quality, turn-up-and-go services allowing people to throw their timetable in the bin."

"The proposed draft timetable (2) has off-peak frequencies at Ipswich and Richlands at a lengthy 30 minutes though. We feel the draft timetable should upgrade frequency for the passengers of the Ipswich and Richlands lines. Our members have developed two proposals for TransLink's consideration."

"The first proposal is to extend Train Upgrade Zones (TUZ) to all rail stations on the Ipswich line by having a train every 15 minutes to Richlands, and every 15 minutes to Ipswich in the off-peak. All day express operation for the Ipswich trains would meet the 2-tier ExpressLink/UrbanLink goals as per the Connecting SEQ 2031 plan and a 'metro style' RRT standard of a train every 7.5 minutes between Darra-CBD."

"The second, alternative, proposal is to add one extra Richlands train, and one extra all-stops Ipswich train to each hour in the off-peak; guaranteeing a wait of no longer than 20 minutes at Ipswich and at Richlands at any time of day. Frequencies would combine at Darra to give a 'metro style' RRT standard of a train every 10 minutes between Darra-CBD."

"The Perth experience has shown that dedicated feeder buses are critical for collecting passengers and gaining patronage, (3,4,5). A 'think bus, fill train' approach may be better though, as it's the only way that a person can access RRT via a single transfer. The alternative- transferring from a direct bus, to a rail feeder bus and then to the train imposes two transfers, so bus network re-organisation to permit the opportunity to transfer is actually the superior option in this case over simply providing a new, dedicated feeder bus. Indooroopilly rail station may be one station to benefit from this idea."

"Rail lines offer the same exclusive Class A right of way that dedicated busways offer, indeed we could call them 'busways on steel wheels'. The Perth experience shows that bus access to the station from suburban bus stops, rather than the transfer-free direct trip, is critical for extending the catchment area and maximising patronage. In the same way that buses pick up passengers from outside their homes and take them to the busway, we think that buses can pick up passengers in suburbs along the Ipswich line and take them to the train station. After all, there is no western busway, one has to make do with current infrastructure."

"RAIL Back on Track asks the Queensland Government and TransLink to very seriously consider the merits of this proposal. If surplus rolling stock left over from peak hour is used, it could also mean that it could be done with no new trains!"

"RAIL Back on Track would also like to see a standard weekend timetable rather than saturday-only or sunday-only services. Now is the hour to offer a rail rapid transit alternative to 'Congestion' (Coronation) Drive, Moggill and Milton Roads!"

"For an instant metro system just add trains!"

References and notes:

1. BUZ: Frequency and Reliability - The winning formula
http://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/bitstream/2123/6058/1/thredbo10-themeA-Warren.pdf

2. Ipswich Line Draft Timetable
http://www.translink.com.au/resources/travel-information/service-updates/rosewood-ipswich-line-draft-timetable.pdf

3. Conceptual bus network and proposed service levels
http://www.transperth.wa.gov.au/SiteManagement/ArchivedContent/ProposedSouthernSuburbsRailwayBusNetwork/ConceptualBusNetworkandProposedServiceLevels/tabid/205/Default.aspx

4. Think bus, fill train
http://railbotforum.org/mbs/index.php?topic=5339.0

5. 'Transferring' can be good for you, and good for your city, Jarrett Walker, Public Transport Consultant
http://www.humantransit.org/2009/04/why-transferring-is-good-for-you-and-good-for-your-city.html

6. Environmental and Safety Impact of Brisbane's Airtrain Operations-
Impact of passengers using rail rather than cars to reach Brisbane Airport
http://www.airtrain.com.au/pdf/Airtrain_Impacts_Apr06.pdf
page 16 contains a discussion about time penalties ('congestion penalties' cf. 'transfer penalties') for congestion and unexpected delay, not unlike the situation on Coronation Drive.

Contact:

Robert Dow
Administration
admin@backontrack.org

[ozbob]

TUZ discussion thread --> http://railbotforum.org/mbs/index.php?topic=5385.0

[somebody]

"The Perth experience has shown that dedicated feeder buses are critical for collecting passengers and gaining patronage, (3,4,5). A 'think bus, fill train' approach may be better though, as it's the only way that a person can access RRT via a single transfer. The alternative- transferring from a direct bus, to a rail feeder bus and then to the train imposes two transfers, so bus network re-organisation to permit the opportunity to transfer is actually the superior option in this case over simply providing a new, dedicated feeder bus. Indooroopilly rail station may be one station to benefit from this idea."

"Rail lines offer the same exclusive Class A right of way that dedicated busways offer, indeed we could call them 'busways on steel wheels'. The Perth experience shows that bus access to the station from suburban bus stops, rather than the transfer-free direct trip, is critical for extending the catchment area and maximising patronage. In the same way that buses pick up passengers from outside their homes and take them to the busway, we think that buses can pick up passengers in suburbs along the Ipswich line and take them to the train station. After all, there is no western busway, one has to make do with current infrastructure."

Whatever you may think about the merits of feeder buses, is it a good idea to include it in this release?  It can be seen as a "poison pill" by many and IMO reduce the effectiveness of the release.  Even including a non-controversial idea, such as 4tph to Manly or Ferny Grove, would have been wrong IMO.  Far better to focus on one topic.

That's what I think anyway.

[#Metro]

IMHO it will only be a poison pill for those who insist on running the train services like buses- condemning the system to scrounging patronage only from areas around 400-800m around stations (the walk up zone). There is no logical difference between a bus approaching a busway and a bus approaching a rail station, in both cases the passengers are being transferred into a Class A right of way, as it says above.

The busways have been built in "complimentary" places where there are gaps in the rail system, which means that we still have an access problem where there are all rail lines all over the city.

The success of the trains cannot be separated from the buses, they are one and whole. Many people said that it couldn't be done, that it won't work "Australians don't like to transfer" and all sorts of other things. We now have a real-world system that operates this way on Australian soil, and it works.

Other excuses such as "the rail lines are at capacity" or "there is no room in peak hour" have been shown to be false too- the draft timetable will add 5 new train services to peak hour on the Ipswich line, blowing that theory out of the water.

The buses are seamless, integrated, extension of the rail service on the roads and surface streets. You cannot have one without the other.

The spirit of avoiding transfers is to save passengers time from waiting, that's why such rules of thumb are created. But it is not logical to save passengers 10 minutes waiting time from a transfer and then get them to spend 15 minutes to one hour plus on Coronation Drive in delays. It goes against the very idea that created the rule of thumb in the first place. It would be like running all the buses parallel to the busways!!!

There will always be a need to run some buses direct to the city along arterial roads, but there is also a need for buses to run to these "metro" stations the above talks about. The first need is more than adequately met, the second need has yet to be fulfilled. What is the purpose of having a metro station if you can't get to it?

This is not about Bus vs Train, this is about Bus PLUS Train.
Train Loves Bus!!!

[ozbob]

Little point in having high frequency rail services if pax cannot get to the station ...

Park and ride is in melt down ...  time we got with it!

[Gazza]

The first proposal is to extend Train Upgrade Zones (TUZ) to all rail stations on the Ipswich line by having a train every 15 minutes to Richlands, and every 15 minutes to Ipswich in the off-peak. All day express operation for the Ipswich trains would meet the 2-tier ExpressLink/UrbanLink goals as per the Connecting SEQ 2031 plan and a 'metro style' RRT standard of a train every 7.5 minutes between Darra-CBD.

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, but if Ipswich had a full time express service then there wouldn't be a train every 7.5 minutes Darra-CBD  (Except at Indro or whatever) because it would skip most of them. They'd just have a train every 15 minutes originating from Richlands.
Or does 7.5 minutes just refer to a 'train movement' every 7.5 minutes?

[#Metro]

It depends on what QR would (hypothetically) do IMHO with the express stopping pattern. Darra, Indooroopilly Toowong Milton- if the trains stop there then 7.5 min frequency, 15 minutes max at the skipped stations I would think... so actually the 6tph option would give 10 minutes all along...

[somebody]

The first proposal is to extend Train Upgrade Zones (TUZ) to all rail stations on the Ipswich line by having a train every 15 minutes to Richlands, and every 15 minutes to Ipswich in the off-peak. All day express operation for the Ipswich trains would meet the 2-tier ExpressLink/UrbanLink goals as per the Connecting SEQ 2031 plan and a 'metro style' RRT standard of a train every 7.5 minutes between Darra-CBD.

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, but if Ipswich had a full time express service then there wouldn't be a train every 7.5 minutes Darra-CBD  (Except at Indro or whatever) because it would skip most of them. They'd just have a train every 15 minutes originating from Richlands.
Or does 7.5 minutes just refer to a 'train movement' every 7.5 minutes?

Yes.  Perhaps at Indooroopilly, but it would still almost certainly be staggered.

Little point in having high frequency rail services if pax cannot get to the station ...

Park and ride is in melt down ...  time we got with it!

Plenty of point.  There is still walk up patronage.

[ozbob]

Ipswich line out from  Indroo most pax do not walk up .. fact.  You only have to observe the parking mess at Corinda, Oxley, Darra, Dinmore etc.  This becomes pax limiting.  It is an idiocy not to have proper feeder buses.  Walk up pax are important but many more do not live within walk up distances.  In a non-CRR world I have little doubt that the busways themselves will in many cases become trunk routes with feeder buses. 

The lack of buses to get and to and from railway stations is a constant feedback complaint, along with the restricted hours of operation frequency etc. of those that do exist!  More park and rides is not the solution, besides we are running out of space for car parks ...

[#Metro]

I will back this up with real-world evidence:

http://www.ceiid.wa.gov.au/Docs/KNF_200805/MAY08-NewMetroRailProject.pdf

In low urban densities the "masses" must be brought, or come to the
railway in their own way – the stations become the concentration
points of population density

- This is straight out of the mouths of TransPerth officials, not something made up.

Take a look at slides 22 and 23 from TransPerth. This is not some "theoretician" stuff, this is from a working system:

Slide 22 shows the train catchment has been extended from 400-800m to about 5km-(10km?) from the station.
That is a huge extension, imagine if people can catch the train from the top of Chapel Hill this way, by using a bus to the train station.

Slide 23 shows that 91% of station patronage came from outside the walk up catchment zone. By definition, these people must be doing transfer, the very thing
that people are supposedly to hate doing.

No wonder train in Brisbane is having trouble pulling in patronage!
It apparently has been designed not to be easily accessible!!!

[#Metro]

Earlier this week I caught a train to Coopers Plains. They have a car park that, when full, would probably struggle to get enough passengers to fill a single carriage. And yet there are buses on the road if you walk 900m or so. They do not connect to the train, they don't pull into the station. In fact, there isn't even signage or a map or anything. The train is supposed to act just like a bus- gaining patronage from the walk up zone. That doesn't seem like an efficient way to fill up a 900 space for pax train. Unbelievable!

When I took my return journey, there were 3 people in my carriage. How is this efficient? Why has the system been designed like this? How much is this inefficiency costing?
That carpark should be converted to a busway style bus-rail interchange. It would pull more passengers and fill that train (trains every 15 minutes, half are Gold Coast express too!) than that carpark could ever hope to.

[colinw]

My local station at Kuraby is a park & ride combined with a token attempt at a bus service that mostly fails to connect, plus a limited walk up catchment.

The car park will hold maybe 120 cars, and the nearmap images I've seen all show around 90 cars sitting in the park & ride.  So park & ride will fill a fraction of a 3 car train.
http://www.nearmap.com/?ll=-27.604646,153.092012&z=19&t=h&nmd=20100511

Walk up patronage is moderate, but even between 5:30PM and 6:00PM when the trains that leave Central around 5 are arriving, you don't see more than 15 or 20 people get off any one service, and in offpeak times it is not unusual to see nobody on the station at all.

Bus passengers transferring to rail are the exception rather than the rule.  I use the bus quite a bit, and have counted maybe 5 passengers transferring in the time I've been using it, mainly because it is not a guaranteed connection.

Interestingly, the bus through Kuraby gets VERY busy going away from the station toward the busway at Eight Mile Plains.  Most peak hour bus runs I've been on are full by the time we leave Stiller Dr and go down Levington Rd past the RACQ.  When it reaches Eight Mile Plains, the vast majority of passengers get off, but VERY FEW of them exit the station to go to the tech park.  They are transferring to busway services to the city, preferring to change at Eight Mile Plains because it is a seamless transfer within the busway station, rather than Garden City where the Kuraby bus terminates at the above ground interchange.

So - people WILL transfer to a high quality busway service, because you can hop off and easily get a service to the city within a few minutes.  But people WILL NOT transfer to rail using this service, because the interchange is half baked and the transfer is not guaranteed, even though it is only a couple of minutes on the bus to Kuraby station, and more like 12 minutes to Eight Mile Plains busway.

The answer with feeder buses is that the interchange must be seamless - a well designed interchange with frequent and fast services for the onward journey.  The Eight Mile Plains busway station achieves this.  Most new Perth railway stations achieve this.  Most Brisbane railway stations and connecting bus timetables fail miserably - hence "Brisbane people won't transfer".

A lot of Brisbane railway stations are doing the job of a minor bus stop on a BUZ route. I'll wager that far more people are boarding the 150 BUZ along Warrigal Road than use Fruitgrove station.

[#Metro]

So - people WILL transfer to a high quality busway service, because you can hop off and easily get a service to the city within a few minutes.  But people WILL NOT transfer to rail using this service, because the interchange is half baked and the transfer is not guaranteed, even though it is only a couple of minutes on the bus to Kuraby station, and more like 12 minutes to Eight Mile Plains busway.

I have observed this too, at Buranda. People are getting off the bus, waiting, and then transferring to another bus. They get off the rocket buses and catch the all stops buses that go to Mater Hill/South Bank/Cultural Centre/Woolloongabba/UQ IMHO. The secret is the usual suspects: Frequency and not having to walk very far. An that's the thing. Conventional wisdom holds that "a walk of 400-800m is OK" actually its not, walking distances should be absolutely minimised to the bare minimum that is practically possible. It is not good enough for the bus to "skirt" the train by running on a road 900 m out of view of the station- at a few rare places, this actually works (Toowong). It must get very close or have some obvious walkway (Yeerongpilly overbridge is fantastic, and is busway-style).

There is a reason why people don't use the train often- it is the (walking) distance. Basing planning on "observed walking distances" is deeply flawed, because we are not interested in people who walk to the station and what distance they are willing to walk- we are interested in the people who don't walk to the station, because they represent new customers not yet gained by the system. And I would suspect, that the willingness to walk far for these people, would be much much less than those who currently use PT.

The answer with feeder buses is that the interchange must be seamless - a well designed interchange with frequent and fast services for the onward journey.  The Eight Mile Plains busway station achieves this.  Most new Perth railway stations achieve this.  Most Brisbane railway stations and connecting bus timetables fail miserably - hence "Brisbane people won't transfer".

Absolutely. A Self-fulfilling prophecy. I don't think though that we need Taj Mahal size interchanges. Legible, close by ones will work.

I sat at Michelton on a weekend, waiting for a train. There is a small interchange/bus stop. Guess what. There are buses on roads either side of the station. Is the bus stop close to the train- no. Do they come into the station bus stop- no. A train to the city came- no bus pulled up. My train came, no bus either. There needs to be a bus for every train, all days of the week, basically a Feeder BUZ service (though in Perth I don't think it is that frequent but it still works).

A lot of Brisbane railway stations are doing the job of a minor bus stop on a BUZ route.
I'll wager that far more people are boarding the 150 BUZ along Warrigal Road than use Fruitgrove station.

Absolutely-- the train services are being run like bus services- being left to "fend for themselves".

[somebody]

Ipswich line out from  Indroo most pax do not walk up .. fact. 

I would have thought that a sizeable portion, and probably the lions share, of the patronage at Chelmer, Graceville, Sherwood, and Riverview-East Ipswich.  Still a sizeable portion at Corinda, Oxley, Darra, Goodna and Redbank also.

If it is a fact that most pax don't walk up, do you have a link?  Or can you back that up in some other way?

Take a look at slides 22 and 23 from TransPerth. This is not some "theoretician" stuff, this is from a working system:

Slide 22 shows the train catchment has been extended from 400-800m to about 5km-(10km?) from the station.
That is a huge extension, imagine if people can catch the train from the top of Chapel Hill this way, by using a bus to the train station.

Slide 23 shows that 91% of station patronage came from outside the walk up catchment zone. By definition, these people must be doing transfer, the very thing
that people are supposedly to hate doing.

I think that is talking about potential patronage!

[Golliwog]

I was at Alderley station this afternoon, waiting for an outbound peak service (while I was waiting 1 outbound express went through, and 2 out of service inbound trains), but I'm assuming it was the BUZ 345 dropped about a dozen passengers off. Don't know if it was an inbound or outbound service but it just goes to show that a frequent connection makes a difference. What I also found surprising was about 2 thirds of those all headed over to the inbound platform.

TT, isn't it only the 396/397/398 that use the interchange at Mitchelton station? I know the buses that run down Blackwood St have a stop at the shops there which is easily walkable from the station, but I don't know how thats signed, if at all. What services run down Osbourne St past the station?

[ozbob]

If it is a fact that most pax don't walk up, do you have a link?  Or can you back that up in some other way?

I observe with my own eyes.  Go to some of these stations and observe what goes on, it is very informative. 

[somebody]

I was at Alderley station this afternoon, waiting for an outbound peak service (while I was waiting 1 outbound express went through, and 2 out of service inbound trains), but I'm assuming it was the BUZ 345 dropped about a dozen passengers off. Don't know if it was an inbound or outbound service but it just goes to show that a frequent connection makes a difference. What I also found surprising was about 2 thirds of those all headed over to the inbound platform.

TT, isn't it only the 396/397/398 that use the interchange at Mitchelton station? I know the buses that run down Blackwood St have a stop at the shops there which is easily walkable from the station, but I don't know how thats signed, if at all. What services run down Osbourne St past the station?

Not exactly a good interchange to have to walk from Mitchelton station to Brookside shops!  Perhaps you were thinking of something else there.

No bus routes use Osbourne Rd between the train line and Samford Rd according to a map I am looking at.

[somebody]

If it is a fact that most pax don't walk up, do you have a link?  Or can you back that up in some other way?

I observe with my own eyes.  Go to some of these stations and observe what goes on, it is very informative. 

Darra only has residential walk patronage potential on the NE, and the S between the Centenary Freeway, Ipswich Motorway and Harcourt Rd.

Oxley is a bit better, but the NW is blanked and also the bit E of Oxley Rd.

Both of these stations are restricted in their walk up potential.  Saying you see it doesn't make it a fact in my book, and especially given that your main stations are below average walk up stations.

Indro inbound nearly all the patronage is walk up, I would say, and I'd also expect that extends to Sherwood.  Although there is a reasonable car park at Taringa and doubtless some people use the car park in Toowong Village.

[#Metro]

I think that is talking about potential patronage!

What makes you think this? These stations are located in the middle of freeways.

Further in the presentation they compare their "projections" to what actually was observed:

Murdoch Station - 3240 (bus), 2280 (car), 480 (other) ---> 54% of patronage brought in by Bus
Mandurah Station - 1150 (bus), 1820 (car), 230 (other) ---> 36% of patronage brought in by Bus

These are not insignificant numbers.

Is there something in particular that irks you about bus-train integration?

[#Metro]

TT, isn't it only the 396/397/398 that use the interchange at Mitchelton station? I know the buses that run down Blackwood St have a stop at the shops there which is easily walkable from the station, but I don't know how thats signed, if at all. What services run down Osbourne St past the station?

I don't know. All I did is what any other passenger would do- turn up to the nearest station and then try and get a bus. I sat there, and in the half hour or so I did, not a single bus used that interchange. Not one. I saw a glimpse of a 599/598 and one other bus on the opposite side to that. It is not good enough to have multiple bus stops, hidden down the road where who knows where it might be, no map, nothing and expect to use it!

And another thing- if it were a GCL bus, services are half hourly, die at 6pm or so and no service on a weekend. Sorry. I'm a bit more tolerant than most other people, but any normal person would simply jump in their car. And we wonder why people don't take PT more often. The answer is very simple: if you sell rotten apple product, don't expect many customers! To TransLink's credit, this situation is turning around and is one of the reasons why I think they are doing the best job they can under the circumstances. The interchange looks new too, so it must have been fairly recently built.

Public transport has to be made to cater for spontaneous trips. Cars certainly do this, as does walking and bicycling. BUZ does this.
I don't see why trains and connecting bus services should be exempt. Buses need to be at stations to meet each and every train.

I think there is a way forward- Rail Rapid Transit...

[Golliwog]

I was at Alderley station this afternoon, waiting for an outbound peak service (while I was waiting 1 outbound express went through, and 2 out of service inbound trains), but I'm assuming it was the BUZ 345 dropped about a dozen passengers off. Don't know if it was an inbound or outbound service but it just goes to show that a frequent connection makes a difference. What I also found surprising was about 2 thirds of those all headed over to the inbound platform.

TT, isn't it only the 396/397/398 that use the interchange at Mitchelton station? I know the buses that run down Blackwood St have a stop at the shops there which is easily walkable from the station, but I don't know how thats signed, if at all. What services run down Osbourne St past the station?

Not exactly a good interchange to have to walk from Mitchelton station to Brookside shops!  Perhaps you were thinking of something else there.

No bus routes use Osbourne Rd between the train line and Samford Rd according to a map I am looking at.

No, they built a little bus stop interchange thing at the train station and extended those 3 routes so they now terminate there. They do some loop to go via Brookside as well.  But none of the Stafford-way routes go to the station, which when they extended the other 3 there once it opened could easily be done as well.

[somebody]

I think that is talking about potential patronage!

What makes you think this? These stations are located in the middle of freeways.

Further in the presentation they compare their "projections" to what actually was observed:

Murdoch Station - 3240 (bus), 2280 (car), 480 (other) ---> 54% of patronage brought in by Bus
Mandurah Station - 1150 (bus), 1820 (car), 230 (other) ---> 36% of patronage brought in by Bus

These are not insignificant numbers.

Is there something in particular that irks you about bus-train integration?

Hmm, you could be right.  What made me think that is the caption: "91% of Total Catchment Area Beyond Walking Range", but countering that there is also the bit "~9% of station patronage comes from the blue area".

But it's not really the point.  Something does irk me about feeder bus solutions, when they are attempted to be applied in inappropriate places, or without the required infrastructure.  Enoggera has the infrastructure, but the train journey time is mediocre.  By the time you factor in interchange time, CBD trips are likely to be slower and less convenient even in peak hour.  Although it would be good for trips to Bowen Hills.  Indooroopilly could get a journey time benefit in peak, but doesn't have the infrastructure.  Altandi maybe, possibly, could get a benefit but there isn't a capacity shortage.  Virtually no advantage for an interchange version of the 330.  The Redlands region also can't use a feeder solution very well due to the poor journey time on the Cleveland line.

You don't hear me banging on about direct buses to Brisbane CBD from Ipswich Council region.  Or the Redcliffe/Petrie-Caboolture region.

The other point is that I think your assumption that more people using the trains would require them to increase the frequency is simply untrue.  If a train is now 1/8 full and goes to 3/4 full, they would argue that there is adequate capacity and they don't need to increase frequency!  (Note: I haven't identified who exactly the "they" is.)  All an interchange solution would achieve is a reduction in patronage.  We need to increase rail frequency first.  Doing it the other way around really is cart before the horse. 

No, they built a little bus stop interchange thing at the train station and extended those 3 routes so they now terminate there. They do some loop to go via Brookside as well.  But none of the Stafford-way routes go to the station, which when they extended the other 3 there once it opened could easily be done as well.

I thought it had always been that way. Not sure why the 398 doesn't run Brookside shops/Mitchelton station/Samford Rd AIUI.

[#Metro]

The other point is that I think your assumption that more people using the trains would require them to increase the frequency is simply untrue.  If a train is now 1/8 full and goes to 3/4 full, they would argue that there is adequate capacity and they don't need to increase frequency!  (Note: I haven't identified who exactly the "they" is.)  All an interchange solution would achieve is a reduction in patronage.  We need to increase rail frequency first.  Doing it the other way around really is cart before the horse.  protest

Is this the case in Perth? Where they have a low density city and happen to have Australia's best service frequency- 15 minutes off peak to all stations on all lines, and not just the high speed ones, but the normal ones as well?

Maybe it doesn't matter where we get started, what matters is that we do get started. The patronage on the Perth system went through the roof, and that was replacing a direct bus system too. In fact, the people in Perth brought up the same arguments- people wont transfer, and review team including the Grandfather of Public Transport- Vukan Vuchic- rejected their arguments.

It makes little sense to force people to travel in congestion with huge delays when there is a busway on steel wheels right next to them. It only takes 15 minutes to travel between Indooroopilly and the CBD in peak hour, the wait with the draft timetable would add 4 minutes max to that. In contrast, all the delays on coronation drive have, as a minimum, 15 minute delays, ranging upwards to one hour. Doesn't make sense. Toowong has no special infrastructure and people walk across the road in horrendous conditions to access the station.

There will always be a need for direct bus services. But just because there is this need does not also mean that there isn't also a need for services to or past rail stations. That's what's missing. You can have dinner AND dessert afterwards. Why can't I get a bus from Coopers Plains to where I was going? Why can't I get a bus from Ennogera or Mitchelton? Why do I have to walk everywhere if I catch a train. It doesn't make any sense.

I have always been very supportive of the BUZ concept, I think there should be more, and I like it so much that I think it should be applied to rail operations as well.

[#Metro]

We have an access problem in Brisbane. There is a gap between the passenger and their front door. I call it the "last mile" problem. To ask people to walk that last mile is asking them to jump into their cars. We need to think cars (park and ride), bicycles and BUS.

Transit can compete with car travel not
by copying its door-to-door routing (which
it can never match) but by providing
opportunities for flexible travel throughout
an integrated network with convenient rapid
transfers.

Vukan Vuchic, 1999, pp 209-210

Trying to compete against the car using direct only mantra is a losing proposition. One can only afford to do this during peak hour, and at all other times provide low or no service. That is the recipe for a high cost, low quality system that requires ever increasing subsidy and fare increases IMHO.

[#Metro]

The other point is that I think your assumption that more people using the trains would require them to increase the frequency is simply untrue.  If a train is now 1/8 full and goes to 3/4 full, they would argue that there is adequate capacity and they don't need to increase frequency!  (Note: I haven't identified who exactly the "they" is.)  All an interchange solution would achieve is a reduction in patronage.  We need to increase rail frequency first.  Doing it the other way around really is cart before the horse.

Let's do a model:

Between Ipswich and Toowong there are 20 stations (in fact this will work for any 20 stations in a row)
Assume that the equivalent of just 2 full buses per hour (65 passengers x 2) are dumped into the rail system at each station along the line.
This is not to say that only 2 buses run to the station- there could be 4 buses carrying 17 people, or whatever.

Assume that after Toowong, there are no buses dumping passengers into the rail system.
Assume that park and ride passengers are zero.
Assume that walk-up patronage is zero.

These three assumptions will mean that we will grossly underestimate patronage under many, if not all circumstances.
Assume that a train carries about 800 people (we don't need to fill it to the brink for it to be viable, many QR services run
almost empty outside peak hour and are still run!)

20 stations x 2 bus loads per hour x 65 passengers = 2600 passengers
divide by 800 = 3.25 six-carriage trains, round up to four trains per hour.

This is more than enough to support a 15 minute all day train service. Just 2 full buses each hour of patronage. If we drop our assumptions about there being zero walk up patrons and zero car patrons, you can immediately see that a high frequency rail service
is absolutely and totally viable and would require off-peak frequency increases which would then feed back into the system and induce more people to use it (walk, bus, cycling, car) which would require a frequency upgrade.

Even if we cut that figure down to 1 full bus per hour to each station- and drop our three assumptions, we can still support maybe an extra 2 trains per hour.

I am more convinced than ever that the reason why our trains do so poorly is that they are not connected to buses. The system is being totally starved of patronage. Whether that means new routes or re-organizing existing ones I will leave open.

[#Metro]

I will agree- train frequency will need to be improved, preferably with Ipswich line stations with trains every 10 minutes off peak. And preferably timed as well.