SEQ Bus Network Review

[Otto]

No increase in frequency, but cutbacks instead.....
They are kidding, right ?

[HappyTrainGuy]

328/329: Reductions to the frequency of this route are being considered to make better use of resources.
I could see that coming from a mile away.

338: Changes to where this route travels are being considered in the Aspley area to provide better access to Chermside.
One step closer to fixing that mess of a route.

[somebody]

137 to stop at Holland Park West and Greenslopes    What is this in aid of?

153 to keep the Nemies Rd loop? 

151 to go, which is good.

Good thought re sunnybank hills shops, but some issues include:
- the hypothetical extended 117 would stop on the wrong side of the road for connections to/from browns Plains (unless it runs via hellawell road, which would reduce the time saving from cutting the route)
- passengers south of browns Plains would need to transfer twice 540-140-117. This is ameliorated somewhat due to the frequency of the 140, but having to then cross calam road to transfer makes things significantly more difficult.

I think running via Hellawell Rd is a reasonable solution to the issues you raise, and it also connects Hellawell Rd with the shops directly.

Anyone reckon we should do a formal response to each proposal, maximum of a sentence or two?

I wouldn't want to participate in that.

[Gazza]

Why not?

[HappyTrainGuy]

698/699: To provide residents of Newport better access to the TransLink greater network, this new route is proposed to travel along Newport Drive and cover some of the areas in Scarborough previously serviced by the 680. Residents in the north Scarborough area may have access to the modified 698/699 service, providing a connection between Redcliffe Jetty and Kippa Ring. Refer to route 698/699 links to view suggested changes.

Really liking the soubds of this. With the railway line to be established there soon Kippa Ring is on the path to being one hell of a interchange setup with the 693/694,696/697 loop routes. Extending the operating hours of these services would go a very long way.

[Mr X]

"High" value for money is too broad - 30% to 100%.

And how do they define "average patronage"?

[ozbob]

We will put out a broad release, but I think everyone should give their own feedback on the routes/issues they understand direct to TransLink by the process, provide feedback link.

[Gazza]

136

Removal of this route is being considered to make better use of resources. Resources may be reallocated to busier areas of the network. Passengers may be able to use routes 129, 130, 131, upgrade 132 or 137 depending on where they are travelling.

YesYesYesYesYesYesYes!!!!!!!

I must admit there is some good stuff in this review, lets hope it happens.

[pangwen]

137 to stop at Holland Park West and Greenslopes    What is this in aid of?

153 to keep the Nemies Rd loop? 

151 to go, which is good.

Good thought re sunnybank hills shops, but some issues include:
- the hypothetical extended 117 would stop on the wrong side of the road for connections to/from browns Plains (unless it runs via hellawell road, which would reduce the time saving from cutting the route)
- passengers south of browns Plains would need to transfer twice 540-140-117. This is ameliorated somewhat due to the frequency of the 140, but having to then cross calam road to transfer makes things significantly more difficult.

I think running via Hellawell Rd is a reasonable solution to the issues you raise, and it also connects Hellawell Rd with the shops directly.

Re 137 - if you look at the 133 comments, it looks like they may merge the two routes and call it 137.

Re Hellawell Rd - I'll have to ponder further

[pangwen]

136

Removal of this route is being considered to make better use of resources. Resources may be reallocated to busier areas of the network. Passengers may be able to use routes 129, 130, 131, upgrade 132 or 137 depending on where they are travelling.

YesYesYesYesYesYesYes!!!!!!!

Could have seen this coming, I guess. They should also have added some route alternatives for those people catching the 136 to get to City Precincts stops (particularly Cathedral Square and The Ridge), which aren't serviced by any(?) routes from the southside.

[STB]

Hi all,

I've wandered back in from oblivion just for this after only becoming aware of it this morning when I was planning a trip out to Springfield for a study session at USQ, there has been some massive changes underway in my life outside of transport, new career, new things in my personal life, university starting to wrap up to the final year  .  In a nutshell been focusing purely on re-establishing my new life beyond public transport.

So lets get to it...

No increase in frequency, but cutbacks instead.....
They are kidding, right ?

I've seen first hand route 250 having a full sardine standing load on the weekend outbound of the city, and most of them going to Alexandra Hills.  Mind you though, Carindale is the more popular destination overall in general on route 250, my only concern though is that if route 250 has a bus load of passengers and they have to transfer onto route 200/222, would this cause angst with those trying to board further towards the city (and vice versa) as those routes are full of route 250 passengers?  Also the frequency would need to be upped to make things easier for passengers to remember which route to take out of the city to make a nice connection with route 250.

460 - Changes to where this route travels are being considered as part of a review of all services operating through the Indooroopilly area....yeah, that doesn't surprise me, although I think it should at least go as far as Indooroopilly, and not Richlands, to at least service Mt Ommaney, which could consolidate route 450/453/454 at the same time, which IMO is a complete mess the way it is right now, too many routes trying to cater for every single different market, which in the end just confuses the network and passengers alike (except probably the locals).

255 -    This route may be extended to service Birkdale station and Wellington Point shops to provide better access for local residents and attract more passengers.
This route provides an important link for residents of Wellington Point to Cleveland. The extended route will provide vital links to schools, retirement villages and the large elderly demographic to the local shopping centre at Wellington Point.

Big win there, that's something I've been pushing for a while now, and not a moment too soon.  The oldies (and even the bus drivers) will be pleased.

254 -    Additional weekend trips are being considered to improve weekend connections to local train services.

They need Sunday services, at the very least between Birkdale and Capalaba, with some decent advertising to entice drivers out of their cars and onto route 254.  On another note, there is also confusion happening with passengers coming off the train intending on going to Capalaba only to find out that it's actually the train after that connects with the 254 going to Capalaba.  Some end up just jumping on the bus to Wellington Point for a round trip back to Capalaba.

Obviously there are too many routes for me to comment on right now, but I'll get around to it in time (if I get the time).

[Gazza]

They should also have added some route alternatives for those people catching the 136 to get to City Precincts stops (particularly Cathedral Square and The Ridge), which aren't serviced by any(?) routes from the southside.

City Loop bus?

[ozbob]

Welcome back STB!

Some good moves overall ..

[Golliwog]

Simon, I'm a bit surprised by the 109 not paying for itself either, though I suspect this is more to do with out of uni semester times. Same with 209, 139 and 169.

I would be supportive of a better setup between during semester and out of semester times, though I think cutting back isn't necessarily the right thing to do. Perhaps a re-organisation of the routes would be a better idea. Outside of semester, I doubt all three of the 139, 169 and 209 need to run given the other high frequency routes in those corridors. Perhaps keep one of them out of semester at a high frequency and encourage interchange at Buranda?

The idea of making no changes to route 390 though does however just go to show that they're really only looking at duplication of other bus services and not worrying about mirroring the train line.

[ozbob]

From the Brisbane mX 3rd December 2012 page 1

No timetables

[HappyTrainGuy]

I didn't know the 130 went to Chermside.

[Stillwater]

Route 649 is the Caboolture-Nambour railbus -- the bus that goes 'whoo whoo', acts like a train, but takes an even slower journey than the train over the same distance, making people wait for the train unless they have to use the bus.  It has low affordability and low patronage.  Translink says 'demand responsive alternatives may be considered'.  Are more train shuttles a 'demand responsive alternative'?

[Arnz]

I've got a lot of comments on many routes on the SC network, but I'll briefly comment on the ones on my corridor for now.

600          Additional services may be provided to improve frequency across the day, over weekdays.
This route will also provide better connections to other bus services and reduce duplication on the network. However, it will no longer service Cotton Tree. Passengers will be able to use route 610.

Good idea to remove the Cotton Tree diversion, and leaving that to Route 610, unfortunately for Cotton Tree folks it's a service reduction from 4bph to 2bph.  I'd be interested to see the boarding/alighting figures in the Cotton Tree area if the move is justified or not.

I'm not too sure about increasing Route 600 from 4bph to 5bph/6bph (I'm assuming those buses are from the cancellation of the 601), I would think it would be better used to increase Route 620 from 2bph to 4ph.

601          This route may be removed because often less than seven people use each service. Passengers will be able to use routes 600 or 602 to reach their destination.

Thank You, somebody's been listening.  As per my comment to the 600 above, it seems those buses are used into extra Route 600 runs

605          There may be additional trips added during the week and some minor timetable changes to provide better connections to train services. Little Mountain residents will need to catch route 603 to Caloundra and change to route 605 to connect to Landsborough.

Good move to remove the Little Mountain diversion.  However, missing Connections to the affected express services should've been provided at the start instead of later  , but nonetheless a good move.  However, there are still weekend gaps (notably the Sunday morning gap) that needs to be filled

615          Additional trips may be provided to improve connections to train services on weekdays.

See Route 605 (sans Little Mountain comment)

[Arnz]

Route 649 is the Caboolture-Nambour railbus -- the bus that goes 'whoo whoo', acts like a train, but takes an even slower journey than the train over the same distance, making people wait for the train unless they have to use the bus.  It has low affordability and low patronage.  Translink says 'demand responsive alternatives may be considered'.  Are more train shuttles a 'demand responsive alternative'?

Notably the duplicated services (you know the buses that leave at 3:15pm and 5:52pm, with trains leaving at 3:23pm and 5:58pm) can be removed for starters. 

The 3:15pm and 5:52pm 649 buses are duplicated money wasters that carry air apart from the occasional local or bus nut.

[ozbob]

By viewing the source code, I have been able to generate a document with all the routes and comments.  It is not clean, there is still a lot of code but it does give a list of all the routes and their comments.

File (txt file) --> http://backontrack.org/docs/bus/busreview2notclean.txt

[Mr X]

By viewing the source code, I have been able to generate a document with all the routes and comments.  It is not clean, there is still a lot of code but it does give a list of all the routes and their comments.

File (txt file) --> http://backontrack.org/docs/bus/busreview2notclean.txt

Using MS word's "find and replace" I can delete all the annoying coding later on tonight if that's required

[ozbob]

If you have the time please do Mr X.  Very useful to have it all in a single file.

[SurfRail]

Can we just ask them for a PDF?

[pangwen]

They should also have added some route alternatives for those people catching the 136 to get to City Precincts stops (particularly Cathedral Square and The Ridge), which aren't serviced by any(?) routes from the southside.

City Loop bus?

Where would you transfer? By the time you walk from Queen St (or Elizabeth St if you're on a rocket) to a City Loop bus, wait for it to come, then get to Cathedral Square (plus another walk up to The Ridge), you've probably wasted a quarter of an hour.

Wonder what they'll suggest for passengers getting on at Avondale. Perhaps the 131 changes involve redirecting it down towards Avondale and Lakewood in lieu of the 136? ("131: Changes to where this route travels in the Parkinson/Algester areas are being considered to make better use of resources and reduce duplication on the network.")

[Gazza]

160,217 to stay the same.  Fail.

Arrgh I know, just amalgamate the 111 and 160, and spread the passenger loads evenly.

Where would you transfer? By the time you walk from Queen St (or Elizabeth St if you're on a rocket) to a City Loop bus, wait for it to come, then get to Cathedral Square (plus another walk up to The Ridge), you've probably wasted a quarter of an hour.

Or just walk the whole way, you know, like a rail passenger would do.
It's a bus service, not a taxi, little bit of exercise won't hurt you.

I manage to make do without an "Seventeen Mile Rocks to CBD city precincts".

[pangwen]

160,217 to stay the same.  Fail.

Arrgh I know, just amalgamate the 111 and 160, and spread the passenger loads evenly.

Where would you transfer? By the time you walk from Queen St (or Elizabeth St if you're on a rocket) to a City Loop bus, wait for it to come, then get to Cathedral Square (plus another walk up to The Ridge), you've probably wasted a quarter of an hour.

Or just walk the whole way, you know, like a rail passenger would do.
It's a bus service, not a taxi, little bit of exercise won't hurt you.

I manage to make do without an "Seventeen Mile Rocks to CBD city precincts".

Rail passengers have a shorter walk (plus they're already half way up the hill if they get off at Central). Bus passengers will be walking from Queen Street (or Queen @ Creek), approximately 250m further as the crow flies. The walk from Queen @ Creek to The Ridge is approx 800m (mostly uphill).

Not sure what your last comment is about - you don't need a City Precincts service? I don't need a bus to UQ via Green Bridge? Pretty sure someone needs them.

[somebody]

Why not?

Because I do not see what is required in the same way as many do.  e.g. many want to keep routes like the 66 & 88 which cherry pick passengers from other routes and a number don't think it is important to re-extend the 393 back to Roma St; while also wanting to truncate routes at Indooroopilly, Enoggera, Toombul, Zillmere, Altandi etc.

Is that enough of an answer?  I'll assume so.

And how do they define "average patronage"?

That's in the web page, collapsed.
Moderate 7-14
High 14+
VHigh - standing loads 5/wk OR 5% of services.

136

Removal of this route is being considered to make better use of resources. Resources may be reallocated to busier areas of the network. Passengers may be able to use routes 129, 130, 131, upgrade 132 or 137 depending on where they are travelling.

YesYesYesYesYesYesYes!!!!!!!

I must admit there is some good stuff in this review, lets hope it happens.

Did you notice that the 136 & 344 are the only City Precincts services which do not pay for themselves.  Could be reasons... (which I've posted before).

Re 137 - if you look at the 133 comments, it looks like they may merge the two routes and call it 137.

Saw that, but I think this change just means that the 137 will under achieve by a greater margin, particularly in the PM peak.  There is already the P88 via Capt Cook Bridge to those busway stations and a shortened possibly renumbered 133 leaving from KGSBS would cover those places better.

Simon, I'm a bit surprised by the 109 not paying for itself either, though I suspect this is more to do with out of uni semester times. Same with 209, 139 and 169.

139 only operates in semester last I checked.

I suspect that the 109 not paying for itself has a lot to do with the high proportion of people using it that are on concession fares.

Or just walk the whole way, you know, like a rail passenger would do.
It's a bus service, not a taxi, little bit of exercise won't hurt you.

I manage to make do without an "Seventeen Mile Rocks to CBD city precincts".

Yes, let's make the buses as inconvenient as we can.  That'll promote patronage. 

[Golliwog]

I'm just irritated by the lack of any improvement to the Ferny Grove feeders. In fact they're talking about finishing the services earlier in the evening, and reducing their evening frequency. They go hourly at the end, so I'd like to see how making it worse than that is meant to make these services more well used. Unless there is a separate bus package to go with finishing off the Ferny Grove upgrade (which I don't think there will be, seeing how there's been no mention anywhere and it's meant to be finished in a month) then this is a let down.

[somebody]

709 is profitable!  That Sunday hourly frequency and the lack of coordination with the trains away from the station is pretty unacceptable then.

[somebody]

765 not allowed to go back to Christine Ave?

761 Low patronage?  I thought 4000/wk were using it: http://statements.qld.gov.au/Statement/Id/73004

Did it tank?  Mistake?

[Gazza]

Yes, let's make the buses as inconvenient as we can.  That'll promote patronage. 

Whatever 
I've yet to hear an explanation as to how you determine what areas get a city precincts variant, and what ones don't.

Not sure what your last comment is about - you don't need a City Precincts service?

The point I'm trying to make is, for me to get to the CBD (as a whole) from my place, I have one option...The train, as would many other people throughout SEQ (It may not be a train, but they might have just the one bus option that gets them to the CBD as a whole, Eg a Fig Tree pocket resident winds up at QSBS and that's that )
We don't have the luxury of 2nd or 3rd choices of parallel routes that drop us off in slightly different part of the CBD to reduce walking.

So if the majority don't get it, why bother at all? Concentrate on spreading resources around so the maximum amount of the population get a good baseline service level, rather than gifting some corridors with special routes like this and ignoring others.

Plenty of other cites get on fine without needing such a mind boggling array of route variants.

[somebody]

I've yet to hear an explanation as to how you determine what areas get a city precincts variant, and what ones don't.

What?  I'd just refer you to this thread: http://railbotforum.org/mbs/index.php?topic=7419.0

I'll add that Mains Rd is the busiest corridor in Brisbane.

[Arnz]

Why do some people see walking 100-300m as a evil?  Besides people in general (all of us) could do with a little exercise, not be lazy, and should not expect a bus in front of their workplace door or house.

[HappyTrainGuy]

 

[Gazza]

I've yet to hear an explanation as to how you determine what areas get a city precincts variant, and what ones don't.

What?  I'd just refer you to this thread: http://railbotforum.org/mbs/index.php?topic=7419.0

I'll add that Mains Rd is the busiest corridor in Brisbane.

Yes, and at the time there still wasn't a good answer given...I've been through the thread again, and this is what I've come up with.

Because you don't live on a corridor where it has any chance of being justified.

100% Agreed, but I'd go one step further and say they aren't justified anywhere. The gist of my argument. A city precincits from Oxley illustrates the silliness of the concept.

I think some services like the 136 or other City Precincts are definitely justified in peak hour. They are for a specific crowd - city office workers who work in that region.

And my response to that is using the same resources to plug gaps in a half hourly off peak timetable, or using the resources to fund a proper feeder route that meets every train (extending the convenience of peak frequency) would have its own 'crowd' that would be come attached to it.

It then provides relief to the other routes of people who might otherwise take the 130 or 150, and attracts some people who might not take the bus if the service didn't exist.

If those routes are popular and recovering costs well then just provide more of that. Trying to provide alternatives that "take pressure" off existing routes results in things like P88 (Or 66 for Simon )

I'd be reluctant to remove it.  It is annoying to have to use an overbridge/subway to effect an interchange.

Thought this was a weak argument too. The Busway is as frequent as a metro, and on a metro you often change lines via stairs/escalators and long passageways.

Most variations come about usually because noisy locals pester their local MPs and TL (or BCC or Qld Transport pre TL) until they get their way, even if they only wish to use it once a week.  There was one bus route out west that did a loop-de-loop-de-loop, because one elderly lady kept pestering the local MP and TL almost every day until she got what she wanted, a route that went past her front door all the time, even if she only used it occasionally.  She even made the local papers, calling success and sensibility at her little victory.

I think this was the best explanation give, in hindsight.

Put the question another way, if you were designing Brisbane's bus network from scratch, would you come up with idea like City precincts on your own? Doubt it.

[Golliwog]

139 does operate during uni breaks. See http://translink.com.au/resources/travel-information/network-information/timetables/120220-29,109,139,169,209.pdf there are some that are uni semester only runs though.

I think I found route 29 as well. Pretty sure it's the mysterious route 27 up the top.

[SurfRail]

I'm going to summarise my thoughts on these in Word and maybe load it up as an attachment.

Basically, there are some obvious things not being done here.  Still too many sacred cows.  They are throwing the low-hanging fruit away, but I think they are hiding behind the "poor pensioners and war widows" argument way too much for some services.  I think Labor salted the fields on that by cocking up Ipswich so badly, so there isn't much that can be done.

Way too many peak hour service variations still, and any notion of not running buses on public holidays (eg the Caboolture routes) is something I find abhorrent and strange.

The Gold Coast appears to have some genuine improvements coming.

[Arnz]

I'm mixed on TransLink's idea/suggestion of increasing the service frequency on the 600 from every 15 mins of current (to every 12 or 10 mins). 

Whilst it may be nice to brag about a 'BUZ' that's better than every 15 mins in the off-peak/weekends, the spare buses coming from the axing of the 601 and the merging of the 607/618 would be better used on increasing Route 620 to every 15 minutes instead.  Getting a CFN line from Noosa to Caloundra would be a better priority for my liking.

[Gazza]

^Agreed 100% on that...you've sent them feedback that says as much?

I just did...just got in the 500 character limit 

620 is a good route linking the coastal strip in a
nice and direct manner, much like what the 600 achieves at the southern end, only problem is the
620 is half hourly versus the 600 being every 15 min
(Note, I use the 620 when on holidays/long weekends on the Sunshine Coast)
600 is proposed to have "Additional services...provided to improve frequency across the day, over
weekdays", but if the resources were given to the 620 instead it means a 15 min frequency Noosa-
Caloundra corridor is born

Also, my feedback on the 77 right at the 500 word limit too
I actually travel from Buranda, but its missing from the suburb list :/
I Use this to get from UQ-Chermside shops.
-Shorten the 77 back to Buranda, and send via Airport Link,
-Would make the route cheaper to run due to the lower total distance.
-High speed of using Airport link maximises the benefit of this being a fast 'shortcut'.
-If the route was cheaper to run and faster it could improve its "Value for money" and "Average Patronage" scores.
-Can still Transfer to 111 to get to 8milepln

[Mr X]

I got rid of all the code, document has a lot of blank spaces but there isn't a whole lot I can do about that except manually deleting the gaps, which would take forever.