369 Northern Crosstown - what's going on?

[#Metro]

I've read the TL website and comments about the 369. What's going on with that route? It's only been 6 months though. Any ideas?

[techblitz]

i use it at least 3 times per week during peak and each time never past 10 pax heading into/ out from toombul.....toombul to dfo obviously it gets the most pax which includes a few coming from /going to the airport and people connectingfrom chermside.I ask most bus drivers what they think of the route and they agree it should be cut to 30 minutes at the least as they are sick of carrying few passengers.I think its more a case that the drivers feel that for such a long trip through loads of road traffic it simply does not seem viable running it at 15 minutes.

I came to this conclusion on my first 5 trips on the service but didnt want to kick up too much stink on the forum.
Lets remember that this pretty much mirrors the old 358 route which had terrible patronage.

Cant give you ideas on a plan of attack TT except cutting it back to 30 mins which will save a decent amount of resources.Perhaps shortening the route as well but then that cuts out the cross-town factor.

[Andrew]

The running times suck balls too.  No way you can keep up if you hit even the slightest hint of traffic apparently.

[#Metro]

Had a ride on this yesterday. The FG line was closed and people were being bussed, it was a sat and late evening so can't say much about patronage yet - I'd really need to see weekday patronage. Funnily I thought 'Oh yay, 15 min frequency on FG line!' but when I turned up at Roma Street, I realised it was still half hourly on weekends (darn).

There were about four or five of us who caught the bus, two who got on at Stafford and connected to the N Busway. So it does work to some extent.

Anyway, Some suggestions:

1. Marketing - needs to be positioned as part of the GCL set of routes. Just add stickers to overlay on the current signs, add the route to GCL maps. This can be done together with the break up of the GCL into discrete 'component' routes. Letterbox the area as well spruiking easy connections to DFO, Chermside, Toombul.

2. Frequency: If patronage doesn't pick up, the earliest morning services should go along with frequency reductions on Saturday and Sunday. We can always go back and add services on weekends if weekday patronage shows pickup.

3. Route design: Part of me thinks that the lack of a BUZ along South Pine/Old Northern Road and Sandgate road is contributing to this situation - an incomplete grid. These main arterials should be BUZzed (359/350/357; one of these) and 310 Sandgate. I'm not sure if Stafford City should be considered for deviating this bus into. It will lose speed but I'm sure that there are many people that wait for the bus at the main Stafford City Shopping Centre bus stop who can't wait at both bus stops... so deviation into the shopping centre might be worth trying.

I also noticed that trips heading west do not stop properly at Brookside main bus stop. They stop around the corner (like P88 did at Indooroopilly) so the stops are not integrated. There is a roundabout that could be used to turn the buses around at brookside.

[#Metro]

Photos

This is the main bus stop at Brookside (click to enlarge)



But when heading towards brookside, the bus stops around the corner, here (labelled 'set down only')
The bus then goes directly to the station, missing the main bus stop at Brookside



Which is interesting because there seems a good roundabout where it could simply turn around. Maybe they don't want to confuse passengers??



Towards DFO services use the main bus stop


369 Should really be packaged as part of the GCL- doesn't appear on GCL maps despite performing the same function.

[SurfRail]

^ The maps used by Brisbane Transport at their stops are awful generally, as are those used in the TransLink timetables.

(On a related note, I still don't understand why the Brisbane Transport timetables are presented differently to everybody elses.  TransLink designs them for heavens' sake.)

[Golliwog]

The 369 isn't the only route that uses that stop around the corner. Pretty sure the 397 does as well. There's no need for them to deviate into Brookside though, demand for a bus trip from Brookside to Mitchelton station is low, considering how close they are: an easy walk.

[#Metro]

I took another trip on 369 during the early afternoon again today.

People are using this route. Departing Brookside there were three pax, but all got off before stafford.  As the bus headed to Toombul where one person got on, before the bus entered Toombul shops and a whole heap of people got on (presumbaly bus and train transfers) to head to DFO. On the reverse journey, the bus is packed from DFO up until Toombul, some pax stay on to Kedron brook busway.  I saw other people get on at Eagle Junction and Kedron Brook. This is encouraging for a Sunday.

A tram service (#74) used to operate down Stafford Road, and indeed the suburb grew around the line extension. That and all the shopping centres/connection opportunities leads me to doubt that density is the reason. Also, north of Stafford Road services seem to get decent patronage (think 345, 359, etc) which supports this idea.

Basically, there seems to be two things happening here, and they're opposite.

East of Kedron Brook Busway the route is fine and has good patronage. People have shown that they are more than happy to do interchange on this section of the 369 route. This service should continue from DFO and terminate at Kedron Brook busway turnaround (perry street) for connections. The connective option seems to be totally fine for this section and no frequency reduction should be applied to this part.

West of Kedron Brook Busway station, things are totally different and I am really starting to think that a direct service to the CBD (possibly deviating into Stafford Shopping Centre) via Stafford Rd & via Nth Busway to King George Square turnaround should be seriously considered. CBD extension could be funded by deleting every 2nd 369 bus west of Kedron Brook Busway so that it would be overall cost neutral to do. Services should continue to go all the way to Mitchelton Rail. Ideally services would still be 15 minutes as a trial, but I just don't know how much money there is around. Weekends could be retained but at lower frequency. The direct service option might be worth trying for this section as connections don't seem to be working for this section.

So that's my answer - it's a pragmatic one, split the route and treat the different parts differently. Half connective, half direct.

[longboi]

The stop on Osborne Rd was installed during an upgrade due to stops A & B being quite busy during weekdays.

[#Metro]

So I have done a little back of envelope mini-investigation of route 369 because I thought that it was very strange that the route east of Kedron Brook busway behaves very differently to the section west of Kedron Brook busway in terms of patronage. I think there is a very good case for no change to the high frequency service East of Kedron Brook busway - it seems to be well used.

So, we have the basics for doing a very rough calculation based on the Martinovich slides here http://railbotforum.org/mbs/index.php?topic=9400.msg115368#msg115368

I used demographic data from profile.id to inform... none of this is specialist or scientific and there could be errors, but I wanted to see nonetheless.

There are 14 bus stops (inclusive) beginning at Mitchelton Rail and ending at Kedron Brook busway station. If we know the area of a circle, assume a 500metre walk up catchment, know the population density of the suburbs, a value for the trip making rate, we should be able to figure out rough values for trips in a rough model.

This is how I went from population density ----> bus trips

# stops x area bounded by 500m circle around bus stops = hectares

hectares x average population density = number of people around bus stop

number of people x trip making rate = number of trips made overall

trip making rate x PT rate (I assumed 7% by PT: 93% by Car, 0% walking or cycling, Jonno will probably be scathing of this, LOL) = trips by PT

PT trips x % of trips by bus (as opposed to by rail) = bus trips

Now we get some number out at the end as "bus trips". But we need to compare it to something. Let's say a decent BUZ gets 1 million trips per year on it. From there we can figure out how much % of a BUZ it is.

[#Metro]

Using Profile.ID website, I was able to get density data for the suburbs.
http://profile.id.com.au/brisbane/dwellings?WebID=830

The first clue is here; You can see a pattern. One hectare = 10, 000 square metres.
http://profile.id.com.au/brisbane/about?WebID=980

Density in people per hectare (rounded)

West
Mitchelton - 18 per hectare
Everton Park - 20 per hectare
Stafford - 18 per hectare

Kedron - 24 per hectare

East
Wooloowin - 26 per hectare
Clayfield - 34 per hectare
Nundah (contains Toombul) - 29 per hectare

East of Kedron Brook busway, the densities are much higher. There is hardly any medium density (around 10%) and almost no high density housing (~ 1%) in Mitchelton (10%), Everton Pk (21%) and Stafford (13%). The story is very different for Kedron (28% medium density), Wooloowin (18% medium, 10% high), Clayfield (32% medium, 30% high density), and Nundah/Toombul (45% medium, 20%).

For comparison, let's look at West End and New Farm where PT is very easy to supply and has huge loads.
West End - 42 persons/hectare
New Farm - 55 persons/hectare

and in outer suburbs for comparison

Chermside - 24 persons/hectare
Carindale - 14 persons/hectare

(So as a side story, if we want to live in Jonno's world, our middle and outer suburbs have to double at least in terms of population density; None of this is to say that service quality doesn't play a role - it does of course).

[#Metro]

Calculation

(there may be errors, so feedback is encouraged)

1 hectare = 10,000 square metres
Area of circle = pi x r^2

3.14 x 500 meters x 500 meters = 785 000 m^2 divided by 10,000 m2 = 78.5 ha per bus stop

78.5 ha per bus stop x 14 bus stops = 1099 ha # Some bus stops overlap, assume 15% overlap, so maybe take 85% of this figure

0.85 x 1099 ha = 934.15 hectares #Now calculate how many people live in this area on average. I used 18 persons per hectare.

934.15 hectares x 18 = 16,814 people (seems a bit high)

Assume that everyone makes on average 3 trips per day (Perth uses 3.3)

3 trips x 16,814 people in catchment = 50, 442 trips per day

Now assume that just 7% of these people will use public transport (Jonno, look away !!). I use a slightly higher value because we aren't at Mandurah distances from the CBD.

PT Mode Share
0.07 x 50,442 = 3530.94 public transport trips per day. Because there are rail stations, some PT trips that people make will go to bus, some will go to train. Assume that 30% catch the train at Mitchelton, Clayfield, Eagle Junction etc and shun the bus.

3530.04 x 0.3 = 1059 trips (30%)

3530 - 1059 trips = 2471 trips per day latent PT demand for BUS in the catchment area.


Now, to compare this to BUZ levels:

52 weeks in a year x 5.5 days a week (the 0.5 is to catch weekend patronage) x 2471 trips per day = 706, 706 trips per annum.

If a BUZ has 1 million passengers per year, this is 70% of a BUZ service.

So in conclusion, it does look like there is demand, at least latent demand in theory on the Western Section. In practice the western section isn't doing so well but the eastern section east of Kedron Brook is doing well - this may be due to much higher density on the Eastern Section plus Toombul being a much bigger interchange than Brookside, and having a much denser population around Toombul interchange (so more people travel to Toombul to do the change).

I would be very very very eager to see what would happen if the bus left Mitchelton/Brookside, went straight down Stafford Road and then down the busway to the RBWH and the CBD. Because at least in theory, the latent demand should be there.

Assuming 16 hours of service and four buses per hour, this works out to be about (on average) 15 people on the bus (had to half as there are buses TO CBD and FROM CBD),  which seems reasonable compared to others in the area that run to the CBD. The 375 and 345 runs every 15 minutes and have about 1 million pax per year... so it does seem to be in the ballpark.

[Golliwog]

Not going to check too hard, but for a rough calculation what you've done looks ok. All I'd suggest is that seeing as the site you've used is just using Census data and making it look pretty, try having a look at Census because some of the figures (like high vs. medium density houses) are based on the 2006 Census, not the more recent one. Census data I think is also available at a more fine detail so you could potentially select the parts of Kedron along Stafford Rd rather than the suburb as a whole, but that's more detail than you'd want for what you're doing. Also, where you make assumptions about trips via bus vs train, why not use the data in the Method of Travel to Work section? EG, for Kedron, in 2006, 5% used the train and 12.4% used the bus. http://profile.id.com.au/brisbane/travel-to-work?WebID=830

How accurate your calculations are in actually predicting latent demand for the 369 are though, I'm not going to go into, as you've really only come up with a figure for the demand for a bus trip in the area served by the 369, which we know is served by other bus routes (the 375 and 345 that you mentioned, and others).

[#Metro]

Saw a full load go into Toombul at around 6 pm tonight. My was I surprised!

Certain sections of the route are competing with the GCL/rockets/375/376. Saw two people at a bus stop but they waited for the 375 which runs every 15 mins so some competition there.

Had a few people jump on at Kedron Brook Busway ~ 6 on the trip in total.

[#Metro]

One idea might be to no longer send the 375 down stafford road and deviate the 369 into the shopping centre. Another idea might be to get a box of 1000 or however much 369 timetables from TL and a letter from railbot and letterbox the area.

[Golliwog]

One idea might be to no longer send the 375 down stafford road and deviate the 369 into the shopping centre. Another idea might be to get a box of 1000 or however much 369 timetables from TL and a letter from railbot and letterbox the area.

Don't like the idea of deviating the 369 into the shops. The stop the 369 currently serves isn't to bad as you can walk around the side to an entrance next to the Big W. The stop the 375 uses is only accessible if you do the loop the 375 does around the street south of the SC so would add to the trip time.

[techblitz]

Saw a full load go into Toombul at around 6 pm tonight. My was I surprised!

Certain sections of the route are competing with the GCL/rockets/375/376. Saw two people at a bus stop but they waited for the 375 which runs every 15 mins so some competition there.

Had a few people jump on at Kedron Brook Busway ~ 6 on the trip in total.

im not surprised at all.....the section from dfo - toombul has always been like that and has been the only reason for saving this bus route from the abyss.
and no surprise once again to see so few jump on at kedron brook. TT did you ask the bus drivers about the pax loads etc? I find they are the best ones to ask as most of the time they do several (boring *cough cough* )  trips in one shift.

[#Metro]

Cough cough, I just finished a trip on the 369 and am typing this post from inside a 375. Cough.

[#Metro]

Took a trip on 369 earlier today. Quiet. Got off at stafford city shopping centre where there was two 375s and a 379 awaiting. If you only ride 369s in this corridor you might think that there isn't much demand. But it became very clear that it is a different story when you ride the 375. By the time the bus got off stafford road and into thistle st, there were already 12 people on the bus and a lot were picked up from stops on stafford road. Which is not bad for a saturday morning and agrees well with the theoretical rough calculations earlier in this thread.

Think about it. passengers have a choice between a 15 minute bus plus connection Or a 15 minute bus straight to the cbd. The 369 is going to have problems if it has to compete along a large section of stafford road against a direct to the cbd pseudo BUZ that is the 375. The large loads on 375 confirm that there is decent demand for pt in this area.

It is quite clear what is going on here

[#Metro]

A deviation into stafford city shopping centre would add time but on the other hand, you can't wait at two differently located stops at the same time.

Potential solutions? one idea could be to make the 375 terminate at kedron brook busway by making it turn right rather than left when it pops out of thistle/richmond street. The 369 could be deviated into stafford shopping centre.

[#Metro]

There is another potential solution. Split the 369 into separate east and west lines meeting at kedron brook busway. Don't make changes to the eastern portion. On the western section extend the 375 out of stafford shops to mitchelton station by absorbing the 369. This would combine both city and crosstown functions on the western section.

[somebody]

There is another potential solution. Split the 369 into separate east and west lines meeting at kedron brook busway. Don't make changes to the eastern portion. On the western section extend the 375 out of stafford shops to mitchelton station by absorbing the 369. This would combine both city and crosstown functions on the western section.

I think it's better to have radial users on radial routes and cross town users on cross town routes.  Otherwise interchanges would always be required at places like Gympie Rd.

[Golliwog]

Yeah, looking at the timetables the 375 is usually scheduled to depart Stafford City a few minutes after the east bound 369 goes past on Saturdays, a minute before it on Sundays, and about 5-6 minutes before it on weekdays. I was on it around midday and noted about 8 people waiting along Stafford Rd between the shops and Gympie Rd, some of whom began to hail my bus (had me and 1 other on it) but then stopped, I couldn't see out the back but I'm all but certain they saw a 375 following.

West bound it's not so bad though.

I think TL really needs to take a look at what they want to run, a cross town route or a CBD bound route. I don't think theres enough patronage for both, and my preferred outcome would be to scrap the CBD to Stafford leg of the 375, leave the 369 on Stafford Rd past the Stafford City and then go with SurfRail's idea.

[techblitz]

There is another potential solution. Split the 369 into separate east and west lines meeting at kedron brook busway. Don't make changes to the eastern portion. On the western section extend the 375 out of stafford shops to mitchelton station by absorbing the 369. This would combine both city and crosstown functions on the western section.

TT i like it........ 375 mitchelton or brookside via stafford city & northern busway
                        369 kedron - dfo via eagle junction rail & toombul

Isnt one of the main ideas for buliding busways its interchange abilities???

[#Metro]

Images

Main issue is competition from the BUZ-like 375 for pax.
This route is likely to be long so stopping it in the CBD and letting another route go to Ashgrove/Bardon might be a separate consideration. In all options, the 369 frequency and span remains unchanged as current between Kedron Brook and DFO (the Eastern Section that is actually doing well).

CLICK TO ENLARGE

Option A: Terminate 375s at Kedron Brook Busway



Option B: Extend 375s to Mitchelton

[Golliwog]

Or Option C, where you don't need to take 3 different buses to get from Stafford City to Toombul Shopping Center, because you take option B and run the 369 to Lutwyche rather than Kedron.

Or the option I still prefer, which is SurfRail's idea. Because you don't need another city bound route.

[#Metro]

Or Option C, where you don't need to take 3 different buses to get from Stafford City to Toombul Shopping Center, because you take option B and run the 369 to Lutwyche rather than Kedron.

Or the option I still prefer, which is SurfRail's idea. Because you don't need another city bound route.

Can you or someone please post images for these options? I don't quite understand the Lutwyche option as the exit portal is after the station and also there's no turnaround facility at Lutwyche.

[Golliwog]

For Option C, Google Maps doesn't show Norman St connecting to Lutwyche Rd east of Lutwyche Rd, but it does now. The idea would be run via Norman St, then loop around using Lamington Ave and Bradshaw St. So coming from Toombul you would be going along Park Rd, left into Kedron Park Rd, right into Norman St, cross straight over Lutwyche Rd, left into Lamington Ave, left into Bradshaw (have a bus stop either on Lamington or Bradshaw adjacent to the busway station). Return bus would start on Bradshaw, left onto Lutwyche Rd, right onto Norman St, left onto Kedron Park Rd then right onto Park Rd then as per existing route.

SurfRail's idea is similar except you give the have the 369 running along Stafford Rd turn right into Richmond St, then left into Thistle, have a stop on Bradshaw adjacent to the busway, left onto Lutwyche Rd, right into Norman St, left into Kedron Park Rd, then right into Park Rd and as per existing route to Toombul. Westbound is the same, but in reverse with the Lutwyche bus stop on Lutwyche Rd before turning right into Bradshaw.

[SurfRail]

Here's my "Lutwyche Solution" for the spatial navigators.  Current = red, mine = green.

The thing with this is that while there is something of a deviation (really not much when you see the doglegging the current route involves), it adds a new trip attractor.  Lutwyche shops would trump the Kedron Brook Hotel, I should think...

The only real disadvantage I can see is that it inflicts a transfer, but at the benefit of allowing the 375 and 376 to be removed and reinvested elsewhere. 

The surface stops would probably be on Bradshaw Street approaching the intersection as that appears to work better for the purpose of crossing the lanes on Lutwyche Rd in both directions to get from Bradshaw to Norman and vice versa.  Assuming some other rational decisions are made (eg running the 370 via the busway), there would be no on-surface bus stops in the area except for these 2.

[somebody]

Why doesn't the 369 just run along the street on Gympie and Kedron Park Rds?

And why would you remove the 376, even if you did remove the 375?

[SurfRail]

Why doesn't the 369 just run along the street on Gympie and Kedron Park Rds?

And why would you remove the 376, even if you did remove the 375?

Not quite following the first point. 

As to the second - because people can transfer at Lutwyche?  It's one less route for people to remember.

Even if it were retained, the 375 would definitely be gone.

[somebody]

1st point: Why not run:
East: from Stafford Rd, R Lutwyche Rd, L Kedron Park Rd
West: From Kedron Park Rd, R Lutwyche Rd, L Stafford Rd

And not bother with the busway.

2nd point: I would say that is going way too far.  For a service which makes a profit, why remove it for some ideology?  It would only deter PT use.  I guess we might have to agree to disagree.

[Golliwog]

I'm not sure it would deter PT use though. When I was on the 369 on Saturday there were 8 or so people that didn't catch my 369 as it was being closely followed by a 375. There was at least one group who flagged us before looking into the distance behind and waving us on to keep going, and the others were all looking behind the bus as well. Clearly they know about the 369 and would use it, if the 375 wasn't so close behind. While interchange isn't always going to be popular, that was part of the reason for suggesting adding in a few extra 369's to keep the wait time down.

While running like you suggest would certainly be faster and more direct, you don't get a good interchange point.

[Gazza]

For a service which makes a profit, why remove it for some ideology?  It would only deter PT use.  I guess we might have to agree to disagree.

Who's to say the proposed arrangement wouldn't be profitable?

[somebody]

I'm not sure it would deter PT use though.

I'm 100% convinced there would be both a deterrent and increased operating cost if the 376 were removed.

For a service which makes a profit, why remove it for some ideology?  It would only deter PT use.  I guess we might have to agree to disagree.

Who's to say the proposed arrangement wouldn't be profitable?

(a) It would be less profitable than present.  Much air would need to be carried from Kedron to Chermside for this arrangement to work out.  There is also the bus and driver's time from additional boardings and alightings.
(b) I would think it is incumbent on those advocating the removal of the 376, a profitable service, to explain why it is not an absurd plan.

[Golliwog]

What's the free city loop bus for if not spreading people around the city? I'd be more concerned about the loss of the Fortitude Valley connection from the 375. That said, 369 allows use of Eagle Junction station, so not a big deal there.

You talk about air being carried from Kedron to Chermside, but what about the existing air being carried from the CBD to Stafford, and already on the Northern Busway BUZ routes? Sure it's close to full in peak, but what about off peak?

[SurfRail]

I'd be more concerned about the loss of the Fortitude Valley connection from the 375.

370.

[somebody]

what about the existing air being carried from the CBD to Stafford, and already on the Northern Busway BUZ routes? Sure it's close to full in peak, but what about off peak?

How much is there of that?  From: http://railbotforum.org/mbs/index.php?topic=3681.0

(Article from "On Board" spring 2009 flyer, BT buses):

Passengers (Millions)     Route
1.3                                   375 Bardon

Having used the 375 on the Bardon side a few times, I'm pretty sure that these 1.3million pax are not coming from there.

I'd be more concerned about the loss of the Fortitude Valley connection from the 375.

370.

That should go via QUT KG too, you've said that yourself.

I think the RBH-Valley link should be provided by:
RBH-PAH via Story Bridge
RBH-Carindale via Story Bridge & Logan Rd
EDIT: Also RBH-Valley-New Farm (along 199 route), at least in peak.  Oops, knew I left something out /EDIT
Maybe RBH-Wynnum Rd route, but I think the system is probably not mature/busy enough for that.
Maybe, possibly, 346,353,334.  335 shouldn't do it.  Any other stop 212 routes?

[achiruel]

Also RBH-Valley-New Farm (along 199 route), at least in peak.

Did I read this right, you want 199 to travel via RBH in peak? Seems better to go via Ivory St, via RBH/INB is a LONG way around.

[somebody]

Also RBH-Valley-New Farm (along 199 route), at least in peak.

Did I read this right, you want 199 to travel via RBH in peak? Seems better to go via Ivory St, via RBH/INB is a LONG way around.

No.

I'm saying there should be a different route from New Farm to RBH via Valley.