Achieving modal shift – some problems to be faced
No, I’m not talking about easy things like fixing bus-train connections, or even the capacity of the rail network to move any more people. It’s even harder than that. It’s the ingrained habits of the Australian public – a society which values convenience highly, resists change, and especially, resists learning new skills when there is no sharply felt need to learn them.
As some of you may know, I have been running an experiment for the last ten years – is it possible for a person to live a “normal” life without using a car? To this end I have deliberately not taken driving lessons (although I did obtain a learner’s permit, to be a form of ID because everyone asks for a driver’s licence when they just mean photo ID).
However, recently I have been forced to obtain private transport due to living where there is no public transport after 9pm – and needing to work five days a week until 10pm. Rest assured, this private transport is in the form of a bike with electric booster, I have not bowed under pressure and bought a car.
Even so, it has been very instructive for me. I have found that private transport gives options that public transport doesn’t. Everything I have learned will have to be learned by people who mode-shift from private to public transport – but they will have to learn it the opposite way, things will get harder instead of easier.
A few examples. Probably the most obvious is travel time. Travelling on the bike means I can get up five minutes later and still get to work on time. Actually my daily commute was a single bus with minimal walking at each end, the only reason the bike is faster is because Route 733 diverts into Monash Uni instead of barrelling straight along Clayton Road like I can on the bike. Most other commuters would have a much bigger time difference than five minutes. To achieve successful modal shift, people will have to accept that travel will take longer.
A related one is granularity of travel options. Previously, I knew that if I was to get to work on time I had to catch the 6:36am bus. If I didn’t walk out the front door at 6:34 I would miss it, and the next available bus would get me to work at least 15 minutes late. So I had to set the alarm on my phone – and if I hadn’t finished breakfast by Time To Go, bad luck, better get up on time tomorrow. Whereas with private transport, if I delay by one minute I can just pedal a bit harder, run a few red lights, and still get to work on time. Of course that encourages bad habits among private transport commuters (eg turning one minute into ten and being late despite running not just one red light but all of them) – but Australian society has never worried about creating bad habits if it makes things easier. To achieve successful modal shift, people will have to learn the concept of rigid time cutoffs.
A third aspect of public transport which I’ve had to un-learn is the importance of taking everything with you. This is more obvious with cars than bikes of course – you can just leave things in the car that you might need at work or might not. Park the car, go in. Damn, I need a bottle of dry lubricant. No problem, it’s in the tool box in the car. People who travel on public transport have to carry everything with them, so anything they didn’t plan to use at work they leave home. Even a large backpack won’t carry everything that “might be useful”. To achieve successful modal shift, people will have to learn to expect the unexpected.
Of course there are a large number of holes in our public transport system – areas not served, areas only served during limited hours, areas only served by badly designed routes that are a nightmare to use, etc. As I said above, it was the problem of insufficient service persistence that forced me to opt for private transport. To achieve successful modal shift, people will have to organize their travel needs around routes and timetables.
Some of those problems can be fixed. Others can’t. But together, they make public transport an unattractive option for people accustomed to the convenience of using their own car. If we can fix the problems that are fixable, either the budgetry or environmental advantages of commuting by public transport might balance the rest and bring on a modal shift.
I can sympathise with you MJJA. I take the Route 693 to Monash some days (I can walk to the Upwey station) and the frequencies in off peak are hopeless (every hour for what is I believe a very important route). For many people in outer Melbourne public transport doesn’t exist. Anyway I’m not sure public transport can attract more than say 20% of Melburnians, the car culture is entrenched (just look at how the Deer Park bypass and Eastlink were shown off to the public by the Brumby government).
This topic brings up some of the other issues of mass transport use.
One of Melbourne’s biggest problems is the lack of frequency on bus services and during off peak times on metro trains. Basically at peak times buses need to be at least every 10 minutes to even stand a real chance at being viable for private car users. Off Peak and Weekends this would need to be at least every 15 minutes until 11pm.
The other big problem in Melbourne is the lack of direct routes along major roads too many routes run short sections along main roads then end up in stupid small sois trying to get to a housing area that is remote from the main road.
These housing areas that are more than 500 meters from the main road or deep in long sois need to have there own Van like shuttle service to take passengers inside the housing areas from a number of bus stops along the main road.
Ie passenger gets down at a bus stop on the main road.
Then walks around into a soi and gets into a waiting Van shuttle that will drop him as close as possiable to his condo or townhouse. rather than making him walk 2 km as is the case now or wait 60 mins for an indirect bus from a shopping centre to get him there.
The shuttle has to operate to the same frequency as the main road bus. but the routes are only 2 to 10 km long and operate entirely as hail and ride style.
This would help to make Mass transport more attractive to car users and normal mass transport users in Melbourne.
“Then walks around into a soi and gets into a waiting Van shuttle that will drop him as close as possiable to his condo or townhouse”
What if he (or she!) lives in a detached house, like most of suburbia is?
Good to see this forum back
Meej, I sympathise and would suggest is very much about fitting into routes and so on, but very much NOT about the unpredictable.
The unpredictableness of things is the very worst aspect of South Eastern Australian public transport.
And it manifests as these three things:
-unpredictable timing
-unnavigable layout and orientation (and therefore unpredicatable for the casual user)
-unpredictable quality and safety
I did a post on RP on how ridiculous is is to keep the Belair service beyond the N-S chord but only one poster took the line and ran with it, the others ignored it.
If it takes 27 minutes for the train to get from Belair to Torrens Park, but only 54 minutes to walk the same distance, and the train frequency is 30 minutes, then if I arrive 1 or 2 minutes late for the train at Belair, I am literally no worse off to walk to Torrens Park, I will be arriving there about the same time as the train.
Obviously you couldn’t do this on a line with a more frequent service. And that’s the point – although the train is more convenient if you time your arrival correctly, but as the time passes since the last departure, the advantage declines, until, at the 27 minute mark, the train is only just able to catch up to someone who walked the journey!
I’ve used walking as the comparison. Normally it would be driving and the car wins hands down, with the bus probably not too far behind.
From Adelaide, however, rather than Torrens Park, even the slow Belair service will attract some patronage if it is predictable. In this case it is very slow, but fairly predictable.
another thing you’ve forgotten is money.
Almost the only way that using public transport saves you money is if it means you either don’t own a car or you own one less car then you otherwise would (i.e. two car family becomes one car family).
I have pretty much commuted most of the (inner and middle) suburbs south of the Eastern Freeway to the Princes Highway for various places of residence/school/uni/jobs/fun and clearly reliability and frequency are the two biggest issues. Why do trams in Melbourne run on 8 minute frequencies and about 12 minutes on weekends but buses run on 20-30 minute freugencies and are non existent on weekends?
The other thing that springs to mind as a forgotten aspect (although it is probably more an answer to your learnings than another learning in of itself) is the word COMPROMISE. When I finally got my act togethor and bought a property I was buying at hte bottom end of the market. choices were – small flat in Richmond, bigger flat/detached Unit in middle suburbs/house in Pakenham.
I chose the Richmond option as I have excellent public transport choices (800m walk to 4 trams, Richmond Station and two very good commuter buses 246 and 605) (and 15 pubs within 5 minute walk). The compromise was that I don’t have a back yard, a home theatre room, an alfresco dining area etc and I’ll need to move house when I have kids as I only have 1 bedroom.
on a personal level people need to pick their compromises if they want good access to public transport. AND probably more importantly at a government/policy level someone needs to make a hard decision and compromise for people by encouraging more dense development, limiting sprawl, limiting development to corridors where their is good Public Transport access (even if that is at the developers expense) etc.
Great post MJJA. I tried that experiment too and lived a life without driver’s licence or car until my late 20s. What made me crack was realising there were limited employment opportunities (outside retail or service industries) and career paths available if I didn’t at least get a driver’s licence.
Some other things to note about your experiment from my own personal experience:
1) Living beyond the family home forces you to make decisions about where you live. Since you don’t have a car or can’t drive, you try to stay close to reasonably good public transport that connects you to your workplace and shopping centres. The problem is, these areas are highly desirable for other reasons (proximity to the CBD or other activity centres) and therefore housing prices are high, or rather cheaper accommodation is substandard. So do you pay more to live in a PT-rich area, or do you live where it’s cheaper, but with fewer PT opportunities.
2) The granularity of travel options also extends to discretionary travel in many cases. A case study was shopping. Back in Sydney during the early noughties, I was working full time on weekdays, so I’d do a big supermarket shop every fortnight at the local shopping centre (well served by rail and bus as Sydney’s tend to be) on a Saturday. The problem with this strategy was that without a car, you have to rely on the supermarket home delivery service which cut off at midday. So your travel plans now rely on doing all your shopping, getting to the supermarket before midday and getting home again before all the perishables melt or go off. You have a bit more granularity in your travel options, but you’re still constrained by the PT timetables and the unpredictable timetable of the home delivery contractor.
That being said, you raise some good points in your post, the most important of which to my mind is the value of the car to carry things with you (like shopping). There is no competition to the car for carrying parcels and shopping for people either with bikes or without cars. A shift to a less-mobile future where fuel and car travel will be rationed or constrained will require a totally redesign of how we carry our light freight. Public Transport and walking and cycling advocates tend to miss out on the need for people to carry things home with them after they’ve walked, ridden or taken PT to the shops and would like a coffee or a browse through a bookshop (for example) before going home again.
Once again great post.
LS
Many good points, but can I add two more?
1. The social status of having a drivers licence. This is related to how a drivers licence has morphed into a de-facto ID card for many purposes not related to driving. It would be fair to acknowledge that drivers licences are used as ID at least 10 times as much as their intended purpose, ie to demonstrate to traffic police that the holder is qualified to drive.
Whether it’s video rentals, property inspections, mobile phone forms or bank accounts a drivers licence is a quick way of allowing the retail or service industry to claim that they have checked a client’s details. Though a proof of age card exists, the status of this is lower.
The government is who issues drivers licences and I believe it would be within its powers to permit them only to be used for their intended purpose; ie as ID for traffic police.
Unfortunately the alternative of a national ID card is not palatable (one of Gareth Evans’ harebrained schemes was to introduce one in 1987, and the Howard Government was quietly plotting something before it lost office) so I can’t think of an alternative beyond a ‘basket of IDs’ similar to the severe 100 points test, but with the licence worth maybe 20 points instead of 60.
LS: A progression from your last point. Those walking need to time the order of things much more. Eg it’s a pain doing many things (or browsing) when carrying shopping (as opposed to putting it in the car). But hot cars aren’t much good either for storing groceries like ice cream!
The weight of the load might not even be an issue if you’re not too far from the station/bus stop and pedestrian links are good. But dragging the load around is. In an ideal world there would be a lot of places to leave luggage, although this would have the terrorism prevention people shuddering. The obvious place would be staffed railway stations (if these are near shops), although it’s desirable that major shopping centres and retail strips also provide this (possibly under contract to ‘The Met’). The idea here is that unburdened passengers will linger longer and hopefully spend more.
Access to this could possibly be linked to myki. This could be a free of charge perk given to those with myki cards. A fully refundable bond deducted off the myki balance could possibly be applicable. However it would be desirable for casual users as well – again with a bond but possibly a small charge to prevent frivilous or non-transit related use. The State Library has lockers and they could be approached for advice on how their system works. The sort of thing I envisage would be transparent lockers in the foyers of premium stations operated by myki card. They would be big enough to fit 2 or 3 shopping bags.
Why does Australia have no effective system of deliveries?
Japanese don’t need to carry their luggage to the airport – delivery companies do it. And the mail-order network is vast.
In HK, you wouldn’t dream of trying to get even small furniture home from the shop yourself – delivery is free. If you buy a TV, the guy comes to the house and installs it – free.
I can’t believe the sign I saw at Hardly Normal “Since you probably want to get the X home as quickly and start using it – bring a trailer” or words to that effect. Make the transport the customer’s problem.
This country is an f’ing disaster [/rant]
Riccardo, the reason is obvious enough, but it is the same reason I don’t think it is something to be especially concerned about. In a society where everyone drives (and psychologically attaches almost zero cost to driving), people’s primary transport mode automatically absorbs the cost of delivery. From a business perspective there is no market advantage in implementing a logistics program for deliveries. That clearly isn’t the case in Japan or Hong Kong, wasn’t the case in the not too distant past, and wouldn’t be the case if we had significant non-car mode share (inner urban areas tend to be better with deliveries).
It is a tipping point problem. The lack of market for home deliveries acts as a barrier to early adoption of non-car transport modes. But with a sufficient core, becomes an effective niche market for those consumers who want/need it. With an aging and increasingly immobile population, I’d be highly surprised if delivery services didn’t become more common.
Russ, thanks for your comment
I have wondered if there are several other problems at work:
-the commercial courier market is too focused on account customers. Trying ringing a courier without an existing account. More trouble than its worth
-lack of cheap labour. I’ve raised the paradox of Indian students taking $5 an hour to drive a taxi (a legal option) versus $10 an hour to drive a minibus (illegal). Why is this? Surely the Indian student would rather $10 than $5. A corrupt and broken political system.
-Lack of pride in self. I walk the streets of HK and see the following: people getting face from having elegant looking shopping bags from brand name shops. Even if they nick across the border for fakes, the image they want is the same. There is a strong desire to be see in the public realm, whereas here the public realm is discouraged or destroyed (or a fetished artifact of government intervention like Federation Square).
I’ll get hung for saying this, but I think there is merit in having a three-speed, rather than two-speed economy.
In HK for example, a minibus driver will not earn a lot of money. But he can have his lunch at a shop that sells bowls of noodle soup for $2-3. His apartment will be tiny, but paid for by the government. His house will be furnished with cheap Chinese crap but it does. His kids will be at the government school and if they work hard, might find a way out of that standard of living. But the economy IS perfectly circular, and he will cover his costs. He will never pay a cent of tax. He will never eat in the $20 a plate restaurants that the middle class can eat in, let alone the $100 a plate restaurants that the rich never baulk at choosing.
Do we have this low cost economy in Australia? A viable way to make the basic service functions, such as public transport, cost a reasonable amount. Is standing on a station platform and rubbing out the texta saying 8:23 City Loop, as happens at Murrumbeena, really orth $45K a year pro-rata? If it was worth $22K a year, we could double the number of stations that get this service.
Since I work at a shop that sells furniture, I think I can comment.
We do have a delivery service, but it costs $40 – which makes it fairly ridiculous when all you want is a $39 chair. And it takes two business days. And they can’t guarantee a timeslot, if you’re not home they take it back to Port Melbourne and you have to ring up and organize another day. The attitude is that delivery is an extra service we offer to the few people who need it because they don’t have a car – not a service we offer because we hope people will wean themselves off car usage.
I guess it’s a by-product of a car dependent society – where (as Peter said above) the assumption that everyone drives a car is so entrenched that you ask for a driver’s licence instead of asking for photo ID.
The HK model, where delivery is seen as a necessary part of doing business, would be a good service to have in Australia too – except that it would be incredibly expensive to pay a van driver to hang around the store doing nothing until someone needs a delivery.
The “online shopping” fad (I have to call it that, it really hasn’t taken hold yet) may bring back the idea of a delivery service. But unless there’s some big push to make people use it (and a service quality equivalent to HK and Japan), they’ll still be getting into their cars to drive 1.5km up the road for a carton of milk.
The question of wages is a big one. I’m sure I’ve told you the joke about the farmer’s employees. http://www.gcfl.net/archive.php?funny=3983 While we have unions and minimum wage laws (and the unscrupulous big companies that brought them about) there will always be a struggling small business owner. That makes the whole minimum wage thing fairly pointless – but if any government tried to change that they’d lose about 90% of their votes.
[...] catching up on some of the posts here that I’d missed. Reading MJJA’s most interesting post on achieving modal shift and the resulting discussion, I was brought back to the question of whether people in Melbourne are [...]
Firstly, I wish to say that the below post needs to be read with a sense of humor similar to mine. If you read it and find it not funny, then I am sorry.
Very sorry.
I think it is much simpler than all of the above.
Political will.
I think you will all agree that if we build what people want, they will use it (even if they don’t know that they want it!). If public transport is made the best option, then it will be a no brainer. Tie it in with a top rate cycle and walking network, and you will be the envy of cities the world over. Change the focus from motor travel to public travel by refusing to spend any more money on new freeways, highways, etc.
Don’t think it can be done? Look at Vancouver.
Here in Australia, we have a problem that many a good decision is made less than stellar through the efforts of lobbyists and a focus on headline grabbing sound bites. I am not saying that lobbyists are to blame, rather it is the politicians.
For those that have been following the debacle of the Sydney Metro plans, when the idea/proposal was initially floated, no costing, studies or effort had been made in determining if this was the right thing to do. Not even the effected departments were aware of the proposal until after it had been made! Was the best option to build a new and completely separate transport network? If so, was a subway the best option?
To this day I am yet to be convinced that it was anything but a snap decision made by a government under severe pressure to be seen as ‘doing something’. Rather than using long range ‘evidence’ based planning, short term ‘headline/solution’ planning was used to determine an outcome. One which failed to look at the overall transport needs, and more importantly, the big picture.
For those living in any of Australia’s cities, think of how many major ‘trip generators’ are linked to proper (read high capacity rail/tram) networks? In Melbourne, places like the Airport and Chadstone are great examples. Yes it is possible to get there on public transport, but is it easy?
I think not my little pappadam!
This is where political will comes into it.
Rather than simply focusing on fixing a short term problem, step back and look at the big picture. There will be short term pain as you are seen as not doing anything, but in today’s age of political spin and ‘public relations’ this shouldn’t be much of a problem.
Focus on the actual needs. Todays needs. Now.
Look at what the data tells you. Where do people want to go. Where are they coming from?
Next, look at your desired outcome. Is it public transport for everyone within 800 meters of their home? Everyone within 30 mins of their place of work?
Finally, look at solutions, then start making the announcements…….
The recent Victorian Transport Plan is a great example of how this almost worked. If you look at the report in detail, you can see that there is a lot of research and data included. It is clear that the research has been done – no doubt there are a lot of very smart people working on it behind the scene. It discusses TOD’s (Transport Orientated Developments – It calls them Central Activities Districts) and the increasing need to link trip generators with transport, and talks about new public transport links focusing on the TOD’s.
All great so far.
But then it makes the same mistake the government has been making for the last 50 or so years. It mistakes private motor vehicle travel for public travel. Admittedly it does justify a lot of this spending on ‘freight task’, but at the end of the day, it speaks of many new freeways, overpasses, underpasses, bypasses and by this stage, as a Victorian, I am wanting to Pass on it!
I have no doubt that a very strong Vic Roads, as well as a number of lobbyists (wether they be union, industry or private) pushed for a considerable road component. You just have to look at the mentioned ‘community and industry consultation’ to imagine what sort of format these ‘consultation’s’ took.
For some strange reason, I can’t help but wondering if there was a baked apple pie and an envelope of cash, shawshank-redemption style!
People are sheep. They will always take the easiest quickest option. Even if it means possible death.
Lets give it to them. (the quickest and easiest option, that is!)
Politicians have for too long been getting an easy ride of it because they are seen as knowing everything. It is naturally expected that they are doing the right thing all the time. That they are planning for the expected new suburbs with transport links, new hospitals, schools, etc.
But in reality, they are reactionist.
I believe that various bodies such as the PTUA (Vic) and the PIA have a greater role to play not so much in direct lobbying, but by sitting down and actually doing the work for these transport networks. Link the work with universities to create the workforce needed for such a plan. Make it part of the planning courses to work on such a plan. Get the planners of tomorrow involved today.
Once these transport plans have been created, publish them. Make them widely read. Then lobby the hell out of the governments. Get the newspapers on board.
Make it so the government is so afraid of not implementing these plans that things get done.
Take the decisions out of the hands of the governments.
To misquote Churchill, “the government does the right thing, but only after all other options have been exhausted”.
PTUA and PIA are lightweight.
PTUA doesn’t understand that they should be trying to reach for the low hanging fruit first before they start demanding that hte government provide TUAG on every PT route across Melbourne with $150 billino in new spending on train lines/tram extensions to every suburb in Melbourne.
The road lobby is effective because they have a plan in place. I.E. the RACV has their ‘Red Spot’ program of sites that need to be ‘fixed’ and they have a known list of future projects they want built that hasn’t changed for 10 years, Frankston Bypass, East West Tunnel, Missing Link.
PTUA needs to start getting as organised and professional as RACV (and for that matter Bicycle Victoria). Instead of Daniel Bowen standing on his soap box with petty complaints and half baked plans why don’t they spend some money on a genuine costed plan. Why not say the Frankston Bypass would cost $750 million. here is what we would spend that money on to improve access to Frankston and the Mornington Peninsula. fully costed, fully timetabled, and then seek a partnership with Frankston Council, The Greens, Mornington Peninsula Shire, etc. (the Liberals would probably bite!)
and PIA are just too out of touch with public opinion and headline journalism. note todays Herald Sun article… ‘Bulldoze the burbs’
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25400503-2862,00.html
What a great way to win public support for higher density development. we’ll demolish every house in hte ‘leafy inner east’ and build 5-8 storey apartments. Lets ‘knock down your family homes voters and sh!t on all your happy memories!’
Crazy. as with PTUA PIA needs to grab the low hanging fruit. keep encouraging higher density at train stations and the inner, inner city (docklands, southbank, st kilda road, CBD) then in 5 years time once people are used to that start developing the tram routes and the city fringe suburbs like Richmond, Footscray, St Kilda, etc.
Smartgrowth is basically New Urbanism with a different name but the name has two meanings… we as planners/engineers/champions of density need to be smart in implementing it, and the communities are ’smart’ once built.
Brilliant comments Martin and lachie, much appreciated.
If you don’t mind me plugging my group for a bit, that’s EXACTLY the strategy we’re working on. We have a 2020 plan about 75% complete (ie we know which projects we want to keep and which to throw out from the Victorian Transport Plan, and what other projects we want done; also a full suburban train timetable is nearing completion; we need to have the new projects costed).
We also have a 2050 plan which is a transport system that can truly be called world-class. That’s a bit further off though.
And it’s true, there IS a reasonable amount of low-hanging fruit – probably the most obvious being train-bus coordination. Rehashing the bus timetable to hit a train instead of missing it by 5min doesn’t cost all that much compared to the billions needed for east-west tunnels.
I got hooked in by Riccardo’s comment about deliveries.
There is a potentially major synergy between grocery-delievry companies (greengrocer.com / wollworths homeshop) and PT use. if i am carless, i don’t want to take an weekly taxi trip to the supermarket, and i don’t want to take small amounts of shopping on the train every day.
One reason why people have cars is because grocery shopping is a major pain without it. both PT companies and grocery-delivery companies benefit if they could cooperate to free people from the need for a car.
what if a monthly metcard came with a code for one free delivery, or two half-price ones? I have no doubt that i’m preaching to the choir here, and that i should really be pitching this to some dot-com ceo, and demanding a job managing the project. but, (to quote the australian canon), i’m an ideas man.
BRILLIANT idea Jason. This is the modern version of Harold Clapp selling orange juice because of the synergies with freight transport.
Compare that with the idea they had a few years ago to discount petrol if you buy $30 or more. Shell don’t get anything from Coles to give them back that 4c. It just gives people an incentive to look for a Shell rather than just hitting the nearest servo.
Similarly, Coles Online wouldn’t get anything from Metlink but it’s a way of pushing the idea of an online shopping service plus delivery to people who currently don’t use it.
Great idea Jason, but I’ll go further. Why not have the PTUA actually earn some money, and steer these ideas themselves (or Meej, if you feel up to it). Take a commission on this stuff. After all, only what the RACV have been doing since Adam was a boy. Once a club and now a insurance company, lobby group, club and road service company in one.
BTW Mjja I do feel your assoc is following a better approach than PTUA, even though they obviously have a presence in the market you don’t yet have.
That news report on Perth the other night, Mees has learnt to get on message. Kept his soundbites short, sharp and biting. A skill Mr Bowen needs to learn.
Re deliveries, my idea has been a fleet of very small vehicles like Daewoo Matiz or similar, rear seats ripped out and electric in all probability. Also some motorbikes for the inner city. Sell prepaid coupons or have a ID card with most of the work done online. Simple zone style delivery costs.
You could even be doing your shopping at Myers, take your bags to my companies desk inside Myers, agree the time they will be delivered (when you’ll be home) and you can continue your shopping, go out for dinner whatever. In the mean time, my vehicles are delivering your stuff. Get the delivery times hyper-accurate using GPS tracking, fleet software, SMS to let you know where they are. Aim for something like $5 for basic delivery so that people really, really use it and it gets volume.
This is the problem in Australia. Costs are high not because of poor supply but because of low demand resulting in poorly developed markets.