It’s for the frail
I was having a look at the new timetable for bus route 706 in Melbourne (PDF), which is not really a new service but rather a new route numbering given to the former route 700 extension.
Two things are immediately obvious about this route. It is clearly not intended for commuters, with three trips per day between Mordialloc and Chelsea, all during the off-peak. And that almost all of the route runs along Station St, parallel to the Frankston Line which gets trains every 15 minutes during the day.
So what is the point of this service? There is a gap of around 2.7km between Mordialloc and Aspendale stations, as well as smaller gaps south of there. Route 706 (back to the future!) used to provide a half hourly service until the late 1990s, when it was cut back to three trips per day, as a ’shoppers service’ for a few, mostly frail residents who are unable to walk a kilometre or more to the train.
Servicing this traffic
OK, route 706 with it’s three trips per day is a bit of an extreme example, but this goes for many of the instances where a bus runs infrequently through areas where a full time, frequent service could not be justified, generally to provide a basic service for such passengers. Is this the best way to cater to this sort of demand?
Eliminating this service would make little sense, as there are people reliant on this service to reach their local shops, who may be too elderly or frail to walk to either railway station. But how are such services provided overseas?
Particularly in North America, there are Paratransit services provided for those unable to use regular services, available as an on-demand van service that provides a door-to-door service. From the passengers’ point of view, I could see this as providing a better service than an hourly or 3x daily bus; having more flexible timetables and going deeper into residential areas.
But the taxi system could also potentially cater for these kind of journeys. Although fares in Australian cities are expensive, would it be cheaper for the taxpayers to offer a discount fare to ‘needy’ users rather than try to provide an infrequent and wandering bus?
How could it work
My general view is that the ‘core’ public transport system should not take on the welfare role of providing a service into every nook & cranny of suburbia to provide a transport safety net. It should focus on providing a frequent service along the main roads with some feeder routes along smaller roads where it is needed to provide a nearby service.
Hence the ideas on how the service for such needs could be provided.
I would like to hear readers’ comments on this post, particularly on how you think these services should be provided! 
“My general view is that the ‘core’ public transport system should not take on the welfare role of providing a service into every nook & cranny of suburbia to provide a transport safety net.”
I agree. In Brisbane, a lot of minor routes (such as the 112-114, 232, 372, and especially the 193 with its two services each way!) could be scrapped, with minibuses providing paratransit from shopping centres. As for Toowoomba’s system, it would pay to redesign the entire system from scratch, as currently all six routes have a purely welfare role. Using full-size buses for trips like these is no more fuel-efficient than single-occupant cars!
I wouldn’t consider this in isolation as parts of the area are near other bus routes as well as the train.
Plus there are changes next year that need to be considered. Eg 888/889 will become 902 and run via Station St and Edithvale Rd. There will need to be local services doing the job of the existing 888/889 in Edithvale/Chelsea/Chelsea Hts. This presents a lot of opportunities including better services on Station St and (hopefully) a better 857 (another limited service ‘cinderella route’).
Detailed points:
(i) the 700 extension provided a direct service to Chadstone but misses the much closer Southland. It is more successful in giving local access to Chelsea and Mordialloc – both bigger than Edithvale and Aspendale. Various RSL and senior citizens places are along the route.
(ii) The question of where does one stop. Mentone and especially Southland are significant trip generators. But extending 706 there duplicates services. 708 and 903 could potentially provide connecting services, but unfortunately Mordialloc lacks a proper bus interchange. Bonbeach and Patterson Lakes SC are possible southward terminii and the latter in particular is growing.
(iii) The Chelsea/Edithvale area has a lot of pensioners on quite low incomes. It has an unusually high housing density (many units in area) comprising many small households. The majority of these are east of Station St and extend up to maybe 1km inland. So Station St is off-centre to its catchment but it is near the local shops and stations etc.
(iiv) This density of units extends towards Bonbeach. Until recently the 700ext went within 400 metres of some of these streets (and served the southern part of the Chelsea Shopping Strip), but the route was shortened to make room for enlarged parking at Chelsea Station (which is part of the plan). This has reduced the route’s reach.
(v) When 902 starts a much superior service will operate along Station St between Edithvale And Chelsea. So it will only be the Mordialloc – Aspendale – Edithvale portion that is dependent on the 706.
(vi) Parts of the area, although some distance from the railway station are served by routes 888 and 889. These offer service to Chelsea but not Mordialloc or Aspendale. The 888 in particular is well used for local senior trips between Edithvale and Chelsea, while the Chelsea Heights has different demographics so is less popular. These routes will need to be redrawn.
(vii) One possibility is to combine 706 with the existing 888 between Edithvale and Chelsea and boosting its frequency to (say) 30 min to reflect the existing 888 portion. This should make it quite a well used route (in both directions) as it would take the existing 888 local passengers and give tham a much better local northern terminus than either Edithvale or Springvale.
(viii) Southward it could go to Bonbeach, as there are significant units towards there. However it encroaches on the pedshed of the 857. Change here would need to be the context of 857 changes and whether you want to seperate major intersuburban and local routes.
If you want to do that one could run 857 more directly to Dandenong via Thames Prom and Patterson Lakes SC and then to Dandenong. The 706 could then run southward to replace 857 through Bonbeach and then run to Carrum and Patterson Lakes. This would justify a full-service regular route as it would serve far more local generators than 706, 888 or 857. It wouldn’t be fast but still isn’t too indirect.
can’t comment about this sepecific area as I’m unfamiliar with the bayside suburbs
BUT> I am aware that DOT and Local Councils are looking at ‘paratransit’ on demand van services as a way of providing start up PT services mainly into growth area suburbs before it is viable to implement full scale local bus services with say 30 min frequency between 9 and 9. I think there might be one route operating somewhere in the western suburbs already and talk of others in the sprawl around Cranbourne.
also I think people on the Disability Support Pension (who have a specially designated health care card) do get 50% of taxi fares in Melbourne. I know my dad was getting discounts for a while, but the scheme might have been scrapped a couple of years ago as I seem to remember controversy over it.
It would be very easy to implement a discount taxi service. Do it by showing pension card/health care card/war veterans card etc. and you could even make it free trips under 2km or similar. I suppose the problem is making sure that taxi drivers take the ‘fare’ rather than waiting for a paying passenger.
Somebody, what are your thoughts on other services, such as 409occ to Sunshine?
Thanks for the comments – should be noted that the 706 was mainly provided as an example of such services rather than the entire focus of this post!
Peter – I don’t know how good the pedestrian links are, but could parts of Aspendale be within walking distance of the 708 at Aspendale Gardens? We’ve discussed on your blog how the areas seem very separated – so close yet so far away.
I wouldn’t support introducing a new route running every 30 or 60 minutes along this section although one half-baked idea I have had before was a single bus could shuttle between Mordi and Aspy stations to provide a fairly frequent service for commuters that bit too far from the train.
Pax would need to get off at alternating stations depending on where their train’s bus connection is at – a card timetable would show what times past each hour the shuttle goes from each stop.
Lachie – do you mean something like the existing route 490 into Gowanbrae? Something like that could be replaced with paratransit.
There’s also the Telebus service in the outer east which is a somewhat more commuter oriented version of a demand service.
Damo – don’t know, haven’t riden it. The one time I tried two (over two years ago), the clueless driver told me that I didn’t look like a factory worker and therefore couldn’t get on, despite it being listed in printed timetables.
Says something about how awfully planned the bus system is. I think the Fishermens Bend routes (well used in peak) are Melbourne’s best example of ‘industrial buses’ – these get close to full seated loadings in peak.
Not sure how many places are in the area 409ext services – part would have 903, and otherwise 3 trips a day isn’t much use unless everybody starts and finishes at the same time.
Somebody – I appreciate we have some very knowledgeable posters on Melbourne’s bus routes but most appear to have missed your point – what to do when either supply (historic service patterns and routes) or demand (density) fall so low as to make a conventional bus service useless, what to do?
I’ll answer the question.
I do prefer the paratransit options and if subsidies are going to be given to the operator rather than the customer, then this is the model to go for.
I prefer ‘clouds’ a bit like subatomic particles buzzing around in clouds for those familiar with the analogy.
For nursing homes, I really believe the home themselves buying a minibus is about as much use as any other option. Local councils should have a community transport coordinator and they should work out when all these buses leave, where they are going and options for residents to do shops, medical appointments and so on.
As I’ve ranted elsewhere – there is a big leap up in costs, and down in service quality and fare, from taxi to conventional road bus. I don’t see why such a big leap. If you want a sedan car to yourself on a purely individually chosen route, then you pay. But there should be something in between, a fleet of minibuses where you don’t go to your exact destination by yourself but maybe to a selection of destinations, and maybe wait up to 10 minutes for this bus either side of when you want to travel. And the driver gets paid more than a cab, but less than a full size bus.
Riccardo: to answer your question, the 706 serves a short, fast and straight corridor. Hence it could be economically tacked onto an existing local route. After the 902 starts (which will serve Station St between Edithvale and Chelsea Stations) the only portion that is needed is Mordialloc-Edithvale. Hence I put it in the ‘regular route’ category.
In contrast a paratransit, demand responsive or Telebus-style model may be more suited to a residential area that (i) has low patronage potential but a need for some sort of transit coverage, (ii) is a dead-end area like Gowanbrae, and/or (iii) has unwalkable and disconnected streets that cannot efficiently be served by through services (or if the deviation would spoil train connections or delay existing passengers if attempted on an existing route).
Thanks PP. I realise the specific example being talked about is of some interest, and that part of the topic is what to do with suburban areas BETWEEN rail stations but too far (for some) to walk.
A Perth example might be pertinant, as it is stated policy in Perth to get rid of the 1-2km spacing stations and aim for 3-5km. Now Perth is having problems as the political pressure is for more car parks, even though connecting buses are a better option.
Generally the answer for a ‘good’ area parallel to a rail line is to provide a bus service just as you would to any area perpendicular to the line. The modes have different roles and are not in competition.
For station A to the midway point of the A-B journey, you are providing a feeder service to station A. Beyond the midway point you are running a feeder service to station B. A bus journey of say 15 minutes is not competing with a train that could do it in 3 minutes.
If the bus was likely to be crowded and/or a tight schedule, I would discourage stopping within the first 600 metres. People can and probably should walk.
Mordialloc to Aspendale is a relatively long section by Melbourne standards but the next batch (Edithvale, Chelsea, Bonbeach) are not long sections. So I would not run ANY competing buses against the Frankston line along the Nepean Hwy or the back street between Aspendale and Carrum. You probably don’t need all those stations but I guess we are stuck with them.
OT, but I’m thinking the cure for the Frankston line would be to run all trains all stations, except for a couple in the peak direction running express Moorabin to Caulfield, at least until more track can be added AND 2 Vline trains in each peak direction from Stony Point all to Frankston then Mordialloc, Moorabin and Caulfield then FSS.
The education we need to do with the Victorian public is:
-if you want these impossible to provide express services, then they are Vline, cost extra and running to an infrequent timetable
-otherwise catch an all stations
-and three tracks just don’t work.
It is better to provide TUAG CAPACITY first, then worry about treats like express running. The scenes I’ve seen at Parliament of people being stuffed into Frankstons till they don’t fit -this serves noone having discomfort and unreliability.
With regards to creating a better service for this area. A possiable way would be to have feeder Van that operate as an on demand basis to collect passengers from inside the sois east of Aspendale station.
People in there apartments could call up the phone number of the Van service at least 15 mins before they want to travel and quote there building number and apartment number they require a pick up from. Eg Unit 4101 Tower 7 Station Street Soi 10 Aspendale.
Fixed time booking could also be made for regular travellers i.e. commuters or students.
With regards to the metro overcrowding issue. Until the Frankston line is converted to a “Full Metro” with new 6 car all walk though metro layout trains operating every 1 to 2 mins. The only real option is to introduce a number of City Direct buses that operate every 2 to 5 mins to take the overflow from the “Sardine Can” trains on the Frankston line.
This may require new artic buses operating via Eastlink Expressway from some parts of the Frankston line.
^ Yes, because a train with hard longitudinal seats is what a commuter from Frankston really wants for their hour-long journey. The Siemens are already bad enough!
I need to do another trip down that way to see all these apartment towers you’re referring to.
Ricc, I’d argue that there do need to be north-south buses between Aspendale and Carrum as the majority of Chelsea, Edithvale and Bonbeach are more than the normal 800m pedshed from stations.
There is a caveat though.
Just because somewhere is more than 800m away from the station does not necessarily make walking slower than buses unless transfer time and connecting service headways are short. As an example if you lived near the end of Glenhuntly Rd (Carnegie) but travelled on the Frankston line (getting off at Glenhuntly) according to the map you’d transfer to the 67 tram. However even in peak hour you can walk 1200 or more metres until you’re beaten by the tram. And walking has near enough to 100% reliability and zero variation in travel time (assuming no pedestrian-hostile roads or roundabouts). So the break-even point for a tram (where the tram is faster >50% of the time) would be 1200 metres (15 min walk) and for a less frequent randomly arriving feeder bus 2km or more.
The problem with that is that adding that 15-25 minutes walking time makes public transport 3 or 4 times slower than driving instead of maybe only twice as slow, especially for local and medium distance trips. Especially if you can be there in the car in about the time it takes to get to/from the station. For public transport to be marketable you will need buses to cover the pedshed more than 800m from a station even though it’s potentially slower for many but those who meticulously plans their journey (and only if the system designs proper connections).
Getting back to the Mordialloc-Chelsea portion, you mentioned Nepean Hwy, though the 706 goes via Station St. This is worth discussing further. The old 706 did serve Nepean Hwy Chelsea, so provided closer access to the shops. The current one along Station St is quicker but a bit further from the shops. Also Station St has a bigger pedshed than Nepean Hwy due to former being constrained to about 300m by the beach.
One issue though with a route running parallel to an at-grade train line is pedestrian access. Access to Station St is constrained by both the railway line (ie pedestrian mazes and crossings) and Nepean Hwy to the west. In this case it’s not so severe due to the smaller pedshed to the west but for a more inland area it could restrict patronage.
Also I don’t know if there’s a perception issue, but if people live right near a rail line (but not a station), I wonder if they’re more likely to walk a longer distance along it than if they are a similar distance away but at right angles to the line. Such people could also be easily served by cycleways if these are along the railway line. Good but it reduces the patronage base of the bus.
Further inland east of Station St are other parts of Edithvale, Chelsea and Bonbeach that are probably 20 min walk from the station. These clearly justify a bus service, and, unlike the 706, the route that runs there (888) gets good local patronage.
This is a very interesting topic, and I’d agree that providing this sort of transport safety net with buses seems like a poor allocation of resources. To my mind, the welfare system seems like the best way of providing this kind of assistance – allowing the needy to use taxis to get around. But with Australian states having no say on cash transfers and existing commonwealth transfers being inadequate for regular taxi use, I’d say the state does have a role.
But providing it through buses is clearly in no-ones interest. It takes resources away from where they could be used effectively (as mentioned – providing frequent bus services along main roads) but it also provides a service that is inadequate even to the grannies in many cases. Certainly, from my grandmother’s perspective after she stopped driving, she would either get a lift with us or catch a taxi because the welfare bus service that went past her front door simply wasn’t any good. People talk about the social inclusion element of providing a basic transport safety net, but doing so with poor quality bus services that even the grannies aren’t prepared to wait for doesn’t seem to be the way to do it. If it were up to me, I’d give the needy taxi vouchers and redesign the bus system to carry the maximum number of passengers rather than service the greatest area.
not to hurt a few peoples feelings
Interesting discussion. Although I can see the value in having para-transit, in this particular case I don’t see the problem as being how to provide for a low level of demand. Rather, to pick up a point both Riccardo and Somebody made, the issue is that the train service crowds out the market for a viable bus. I’m not sure if I can post images, but, represented graphically, the train (in red) serves (albeit badly) all but the very shortest distances, leaving only the “welfare” 706 bus service (in grey) for a small captured market:
Given the train service is there, the “gap” could easily be filled by another station. The problem being that the time losses to other passengers potentially outweigh the gains, depressing overall use:
The alternative, which Riccardo hinted at, but rejected, is to actively close stations to better define the market for both the train (making it faster and more direct) and a feeder bus running parallel to it:
The point being that, low-demand solutions are interesting and potentially useful in some instances, but that, for the vast majority of Melbourne, uneconomical lines area the product of poorly configured un-heirarchical network, rather than an actual instance of low demand. And the solution should reflect that.
Graphs didn’t post, I’ll try links:
Current situation
With extra stations
With fewer stations
also I think people on the Disability Support Pension (who have a specially designated health care card) do get 50% of taxi fares in Melbourne. I know my dad was getting discounts for a while, but the scheme might have been scrapped a couple of years ago as I seem to remember controversy over it.
It would be very easy to implement a discount taxi service. Do it by showing pension card/health care card/war veterans card etc. and you could even make it free trips under 2km or similar. I suppose the problem is making sure that taxi drivers take the ‘fare’ rather than waiting for a paying passenger.
They still get the 50% discount, my dad drives a maxi taxi with the wheelchair hoist. The real problem with this solution is your last sentence, the real money is taking groups in the taxi, preferably to the airport. Disabled people going to the local shops are seen as making so little money (and losing your place in the booking call queue) that they are to be avoided at all costs except for just enough to justify keeping your taxi van license. The dispute you refer to had something to do with the fact that the fixed payment to cover loading a wheelchair into the taxi (or something like that) hadn’t changed since the scheme started in the 80s ($2.40). Given it can take up to 20-30 minutes to do that, it was seen as being less than fair given a lot of disabled trips are short local ones and you then have longer to wait for the next fare from the taxi booking system. Maybe the real answer is not to include these sorts of short trips in the queue calculations so as to make it worth while to do them?
Anyway, I tend to agree with the idea that a full size bus is not the answer to these sorts of trips. A couple of ideas that hopefully don’t duplicate those already stated:
1. At the Banyule Bus Review workshop, some time was spent explaining another scheme where money is available to provide better services to regional and areas just past the outer suburban boundary at low cost. One example was similar to the nursing home minibus idea mentioned earlier where one scheme in (I think) Bright or somewhere round there provided trips to Wangaratta. The scenario was a once weekly shopping bus provided by one of the levels of government for seniors to do their shopping in Wangaratta. However, it was discovered that a volunteer drove another bus within an hour of the scheduled bus for a different group of people (possibly seniors from a particular home) along the same route! So it was organised for the two buses to run on different days and I think a third bus was funded for the volunteer to drive thus providing 3 buses a week for little extra cost. I may not have the details quite right, but you get the idea. I suspect that some of those nursing homes and whatnot already have access to transport and possibly provide their own trips. Doing something similar to what was mentioned above may well be a feasible way of providing low cost transport along the route simply by providing an incentive to offer the trip to others and coordinating any and all such trips through say the council.
2. Providing more incentives to provide cheap transport through the taxi system. Maybe a specific cheap restricted license for the area to tie the taxi semi-locally but also provide the flexibility of a normal taxi for others, along with subsidised transport for those who can’t otherwise get out. It strikes me as being more efficient than a paratransit bus as I’m sure someone will pay for the license and the taxi can still make money at other times when the paratransit bus would be doing nothing. The trick will be the restrictions on the license and what to do if someone wants to go outside the boundary.
It is better to provide TUAG CAPACITY first, then worry about treats like express running. The scenes I’ve seen at Parliament of people being stuffed into Frankstons till they don’t fit -this serves noone having discomfort and unreliability.
In many Melbourne examples, express running isn’t about saving time, it’s about demand management. Your example about Frankston trains being a prime example, if they stopped at all stations in the peak then it would be even harder to get on as fewer would use the trains running direct from Flinders St to an intermediate destination. The only real solution to that is to have all Frankston trains go round the loop and Dandenong/etc trains run direct or vice versa, but I doubt the interchange stations would be up to it, nor would the political will of kicking people out at Caulfield in the rain and cold of winter or 40 degree days of summer to wait for another train that in summer especially may or may not come. A train in the hand is worth 2 in the timetable and all that…
There’s some bigger fixes to achieve first before worrying about how to provide TUAG in peak hour, especially as we don’t have enough trains to provide the service currently offered.
Thanks Krustyklo
Not really sure I follow the logic of “people won’t catch trains from FSS to intermediate destination” as I see it, if trains are full people will catch whatever moves. And not sure how we can concentrate on ‘bigger fixes’ before TUAG – TUAG is the ‘bigger fix’. I agree people don’t like changing trains but they do it anyway.
They’ve just made the Werribee passengers changes at North Melbourne and the Clifton Hill pax go right round the loop in the morning – as if this wasn’t normal in 99% of the world where trains follow the same route all day, or people from some lines have to change for others. I get the sense that Melbourne is a place where politicians make small, silly promises about trivial aspects of rail transport – and then aren’t able to climb down from these silly positions. I know in the 60s and 70s all sorts of things were said about the City Loop that shouldn’t have been. You may not be aware, for example, Ringwood people were promised a 20 minute journey time! Ridiculous, but they say these things, then can’t back down. I see aspects of that in Myki saga too.
Re the buses, I am a big believer that the fine grain of bus services should be provided by minibuses, and specific services for nursing homes etc provided specially. A robust public transport service must meet the greatest need. Trains for the heavy backbone of the service, buses for the bits in between. I think we are clutching at straws wondering whether this particular bus service or that is too close or too far from its pedshed – the overall effectiveness of the system is what matters. Ideally, and in Australia it would be an ideal – this sort of thing should be firmly in the court of local government. Where to place stops, street architecture etc to meet the local need. The state government planning bus routes is ridiculous.
In my dictatorship, the higher tier of government would have a rail station, a defined rail service standard (eg a town of 10000 people, 1 hour from the largest city, is entitled to 4 trains an hour, etc) but then define a service standard that say 50% of the population in that town/suburb access the station within say 20 minutes TUAG.
Then, the local government tier can do the microplanning of mixing buses and minibuses to achieve the service standard. And for some communities, paratransit is the only realistic option.
I understand Mees frustration that produced Very Public Solution and his problems getting a Bell St bus on a Sunday night – but what should be happening in the neat grid pattern of the older Northern suburbs – is not going to work in the curved streets and cul-de-sacs of North Croydon or Narre Warren South. And overprovision of buses carrying air does steal funds from services with a better chance of working.
Not really sure I follow the logic of “people won’t catch trains from FSS to intermediate destination”
Because if I had the option of one trip from Parliament to Glenhuntly then I would catch that train. If the train ran express (as currently happens), I need to change to another train that DOES stop at Glenhuntly. Hence running trains express extracts those for intermediate stations from that train leaving space for others who are going further down the line. The alternative was as I stated after that comment and unlikely for the reasons stated.
I was going to quote my favourite example of Hurstbridge trains taking pretty much the same amount of time to run express Clifton Hill to Ivanhoe to Heidelberg as those stopping during the 80s (and maybe before, changed in the 90s to the current times allowed) but I couldn’t find a copy of a relevant timetable to prove it wasn’t my imagination. Same deal only more extreme – clearly if my recollection is roughly correct, the trains weren’t running express to save time.
As for TUAG, Connex can’t even run the poor service provided on weekends let alone something like TUAG. The nearest they get to TUAG, peak hour, is often a shambles once something happens. There is no point running TUAG services on heavy rail until they can be made reasonably robust. It’s not a new problem, the PTC had the same issues although Connex seem to get paid twice as much to do half as much as the PTC did so there’s issues there too.
If TUAG is attempted on the present infrastructure with the present management (and I use the term generally, I doubt anyone else would be much better than Connex simply because the staff are mostly the same whatever the logo on the vehicles), it would simply magnify the existing problems. Fix whatever infrastructure issues are currently the problem, do something to incentivise staff who are worth keeping, weed out the lost causes and then we can think about buying extra trains and hiring extra staff to provide more services.
Whilst I use heavy rail as a worst case example, similar problems plague buses and trams. Again, whilst it takes 40 minutes to get form the CBD to the start of the Eastern Freeway when at other times it can take as little as 10-15, there is little point running more buses to sit in traffic or unenforced red coloured lanes. Again, the infrastructure needs to be fixed, in this case providing genuine bus priority lanes and traffic signal priority. Ditto trams. Bite the bullet and give trams first priority at traffic lights, including arrival prediction, and segregate the lanes full time, and make right turns hook turns at all intersections with trams.
That’s what I mean by fixing the bigger problems first. When we can’t even get the basics right to make public transport attractive, providing TUAG is a waste of resources.
Thanks Krustyklo
I worry we might be talking past each other so I’ll try to be clear.
TUAG isn’t more of the same. It is something very different to what currently exists. So it is not a case of ‘they can’t do X, so they defintely cna’t do X-plus’. Rather, they need to stop doing X, and start doing Y. From a zero base.
TUAG needs to be provided where it can be provided. It can be provided to Greensborough but not Eltham. It can be provided to Mooroolbark but not Lilydale. It can only be provided to Werribee via Galvin/Paisley, and at the expense of Willy and Altona. And Cranbourne can’t get it at all. They’ll just have to live with that fact, until extra track can be provided. That’ll be a long time, if the wasteful Footscray to Caulfield tunnel gets built.
As for ‘enough trains’ – tosh. Besides that they don’t need to run 6 car trains past Eltham, or to Alamein, or to Williamstown, or whatever, hence plenty of sets you could reform – the simple fact is that all the silly union rules etc result in so much wasted time. I do not see why each terminus doesn’t have 1 driver on relay, each train gets turned around at the terminus and stops at FSS and SXS are no different from any lineside station, maybe 2 minutes dwell at FSS then off you go.
Some of the nonsense I have heard:
-you can’t drive the City Loop twice in the same shift. Why the hell not? Not like some drivers on overseas systems don’t spend their entire shift going round in circles underground – we all know good examples
-the drivers have to change at FSS or SXS ‘becoz’ various irrelevant reasons
-they have to keep numerous trains sitting in sidings during peak hour ‘just in case’ when if you look at Sydney Monorail (or Paris Metro) they put them all on, and if one train has broken down, the service then becomes every 6 minutes rather than 5, or whatever. TUAG should always be quoted in terms of headway, and cancellations spread across time to even out the impact
Now I realise that ain’t gonna work on lines shared with Vline or freight, but it can work otherwise.
We have a government about to fork out $4b on a line that isn’t needed – but would not heed my call for $100m of really useful work that would prevent the need for the line, and provide a train system that actually work.
I worry we might be talking past each other so I’ll try to be clear.
I thought the same thing myself.
The only problem is with your exclusions, there’s not a lot of railway line that you can actually make TUAG. By the time you exclude single track sections and trackage shared with Vline, then that leaves Frankston, Sandringham, Glen Waverley, Ashburton, Upper Ferntree Gully, Mooroolbark, Greensborough, Keon Park, Upfield. If I threw a further spanner in your works and suggest that TUAG on only parts of a line is potentially an issue for similar reasons to Vline – certain trains need to be timetabled to run the rest of the route, or shuttles provided (only if the requisite facilities are already there to keep the shuttles seperate from the TUAG train ’stream’), then that leaves Sandringham, Frankston, Glen Waverley and Upfield.
Again, the infrastructure is not there to support TUAG, even from a clean slate.
You mention staff management issues, which I wholly agree is an issue. Another big problem to fix first.
As for ‘enough trains’ – tosh. Besides that they don’t need to run 6 car trains past Eltham, or to Alamein, or to Williamstown, or whatever, hence plenty of sets you could reform
Sure. Hurstbridge might save a 3 car set, ditto Alamein, ditto Williamstown and maybe another (spare?) to round out the figures. Heck, lets’ assume every 3 car set we save has an equivalent spare for maintenance, etc. So with your extra 3 6 car trains, you are suggesting we can run TUAG? OK, lets go one step further and bustitute all the lines you suggested and save 6 x 6 car trains for use elsewhere. Is that enough extra trains for TUAG?
Of course not. I suspect that if the savings in rollingstock are really there as you suggest, they would already be doing it at least partially to reduce the existing shambolic situation of timetabling more trains than are currently reliably available. Whilst there are many ways to save trains for use on a limited TUAG service by sacrificing this branch or that branch and running more empty contrapeak trains express to form an earlier peak outbound service, it’s a drop in the ocean for what you are suggesting.
And in reality, if one service is TUAG and most others aren’t you’re not going to get the full benefit. The closest current example was the 1992 Sandringham upgrades. Great for those using just the one train, poor for people like me who had to change in the later evening from a 20 minute service to a 30 minute service on a different line who someimes connected well – and sometimes had nearly a 30 minute wait.
Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to see TUAG. I think there is some opportunity in the Melbourne context to do this, the most recent example being the 7 min frequency provided between Heidelberg and Mentone on the 903 Smartbus in peak hour. But until other problems are fixed, it is going to be of limited benefit when there are other things that the money can be spent on that will provide a more attractive service and also be of use if TUAG is provided (eg bus lanes, tram lanes, line duplication, management issues, etc) as well as other things like the proposal to run Frankston trains direct and Dandenongs via the loop (although I still maintain there are station infrastructure issues to sort out there if this were to lead to a step change in service increases like TUAG, albeit it’s a good first step).
Hopefully that gives you a better idea of where I’m coming from.
The Upfield line is single between Gowrie and Upfield.
Some of the shuttled section of single line would need more than one 3-car set operating to achieve their maximum frequency in peak hour because of passing loops at stations.
Melbourne has some easy to duplicate sections of single track such as Mooroolbark-Lilydale, Gowrie-Upfield, Ferntree Gully-Upper Ferntree Gully and Keon Park-Epping (which is being done as part of the South Morang extension).
The Upfield line is single between Gowrie and Upfield.
Oops, good point! That leaves Sandringham, Frankston and Glen Waverley.
Melbourne has some easy to duplicate sections of single track
Quite possibly, but it still reinforces my issue that there is the need for infrastructure improvement before we can have TUAG in the context quoted.
To perhaps put another perspective on it, I don’t think Melbourne really needs an intensive service. As I’ve said before, anything 10 minutes or less is TUAG in the Melbourne context and that may well be possible without major upgrades. It’s the claim of needing frequencies of less than 5 minutes that is probably in my view over the top and if it is to be implemented than will need other things done first (hence the bigger fish to fry would be those mentioned earlier).