News & Discussion: Adelaide Metro Buses

[1NEEDS2POST]

The trick to getting timetables sychronised is to forget about timetables. Trains should come every five minutes on the Gawler, Seaford and Outer Harbor lines. Then the bus timetable won't matter, the trains will always be frequent enough to connect.

To do that would either require building and managing overtaking lanes for trains or eliminating the express services. I also wonder if there is anywhere near enough patronage to support 24 trains running on the line at one any time.

In my opinion, all trains should be all stops, including North Adelaide. Let's see why.

All stops trains, including North Adelaide, take 56 minutes to travel from Gawler to Adelaide. During the day, most trains follow one of two stopping patterns. Pattern A trains will stop at half of the small stations, pattern B will stop at the other half. Travel times from Gawler to Adelaide are:
Pattern A: 52 minutes
Pattern B: 50 minutes

At 7:51 on Weekdays, there is a non-stop train from Adelaide to Salisbury. It takes 21 minutes. Compare to all-stops at 29 minutes. This a larger saving, but there are other big stations in between that this train skips.

My point is that there is not much time saving with skipping small stations. For people at the small stations, during the day, their frequency gets cut to once every half an hour. At the big stations, the frequency is once every 15 minutes.

So the average wait is 15 minutes at the small stations and 7.5 minutes at the big stations. Average journey time from Gawler to Adelaide during the day is:
(Pattern A + Pattern B)/2 + Average wait
(52 + 50)/2 + 7.5 = 58.5 minutes

If we make all trains all stops and increase frequency to every five minutes, the average journey time from Gawler to Adelaide during the day is:
All stops + Average wait
56 + 2.5 = 58.5 minutes

So by making all trains all stops, but increasing the frequency to every five minutes, the journey time between Gawler and Adelaide is unchanged. However, those passengers now have the option of getting off at more stations and the journey time for everyone else is faster, especially for people at the small stations.

The other big benefit as I pointed out earlier, is that bus timetables are always synchronised with the trains, because the trains are always coming!

[PeFe]

This discussion should be in the Metro trains thread.

[gnrc_louis]

State Government on the hunt for Uber-style on-demand bus operators
Matt Smith, The Advertiser
April 30, 2019 9:00pm
Subscriber only
E-scooters are changing commuter culture across Adelaide
Get on board with electric, driverless cars or fall behind
Passengers would transfer between trains, trams and buses
Uber-style buses, that would link passengers in low patronage areas to public transport could soon be roaming Adelaide.

The State Government will on Wednesday release a tender asking for an operator to offer an on-demand bus service.

It is a further push to a public transport model that would encourage passengers to jump on and off multiple forms of public transport to get to their destination.

The government are also hopeful the on-demand service could also plugs gaps in the system where traditional buses, trains or trams are not practical for cross-city trips or other points of interest like shopping centres.

The system is based on a New South Wales trial being undertaken in 24 urban and regional locations, that allows passengers to book a vehicle for pick up from either home or a nearby location, and take them to a local transport hub or point of interest.


On Demand shuttle bus services are being trialled in NSW, and the SA Government is seeking an operator for a similar service here.
Transport Minister Stephan Knoll told The Advertiser people are continually wanting greater flexibility and mobility to get them where they need to go.

“We’ve seen that through the emergence of ride sharing services and recently with the injection of electric scooters in our CBD,” Mr Knoll said.

“Demand responsive transport trials provide an opportunity to better integrate our different modes of public transport.

“Demand responsive services are more flexible and could pick up passengers from locations that may not be well serviced by the existing network – effectively like Uber for buses.”

The tender is a further step in the State Government’s overhaul of public transport in South Australia in a bid to address declining patronage across the state.


The State Government intends to overhaul public transport, cutting less frequented bus routes and introducing on demand services.
But it will also reignite concerns from the State Opposition.

Earlier this month Opposition leader Peter Malinauskas questioned whether the State Government’s strategy would work in Adelaide.

“Forcing bus passengers to transfer to another service will not reverse declining

patronage and get commuters to their destination faster,” he said,

“It will only make travel times longer and disproportionately affect people with a disability and elderly South Australians.”

In NSW the passengers using the trial can book through an app, online or by phone.

The State Government announced $46 million in cuts for the public transport system in last year’s State Budget.

About 1170 bus services are to be axed or shortened as part of the State Government’s bid to claw back about $46 million in efficiencies by 2022.

Reductions to bus routes are set to save the Budget $3.5 million, a fraction of the overall cuts.

Today’s tender follows the first of two tenders for operation of the metropolitan bus system released a few weeks ago.

A key part of the lucrative contracts – expected to cost taxpayers $1.5 billion over eight years – would be that operators work within a system whereby commuters could be forced to hop between buses, trains and trams to speed-up travel times.

At the time Mr Knoll said only “incremental” changes had been made to the public transport network over the past 20 years.

Mr Knoll said at around eight per cent, Adelaide has one of the lowest rates of public transport usage in the country and the highest percentage of people who choose to drive to work of any capital city.

“We also have the worst level of integration between the different modes of public transport,” he said.

[Eurostar]

Gawler already has Dial A Ride Service (495). Towns like Mount Barker should trial a Dial A Ride Service to replace the 838 and 839 services.

[Nort]

Urgh.

[1NEEDS2POST]

When you call an on demand bus, it takes a while to arrive at your doorstep. Then it needs to go to everyone else's doorstep. In that time, you could have walked to a main road, got a fixed route bus and got to your destination.

[SBD]

Someone called the radio this morning and said the Gawler on-demand bus was really good when it was new, but it became popular and responsiveness declined. It seems to me like this might be a good way to discover where the actual public transport users live, rather than servicing the streets/suburbs that someone things they ought to live on.

Tom Koutsantonis sounded like he didn't like the idea and was quite critical of the government proposing it. Was his party in government when the Gawler service started?

I have lived for almost seven years in the last stage of a housing estate (the first stage was perhaps five years older). There are no bus routes through the estate at all (yet?). Google says it's a 15-minute walk to the nearest bus stop, which has 30-minute frequency buses to a railway station. Koutsantonis griped about expecting passengers to have to change modes, but that service has been in place for decades (although used to be less-frequent I think), yet he never provided a bus from near my home, and certainly not direct to where I might want to go.

I'm not sure if an on-demand service would be helpful or used much for commuting (or school runs), but it might be viable for people to use for shopping and other activities that require transport but are not quite so regimented to timetabling. The question for me is what is the alternative? No service at all, or empty buses running at 15-minute frequencies in case someone wants to catch them. I think on-demand could be a great way to introduce new services and fringes where otherwise no service would be available, with a plan to establish permanent routes once demand is established. If this introduces a new operator with a fleet of smaller-sized buses, it might become economic for that operator to provide timetabled services along its most popular routes, without the demand needed to justify the cost of the larger buses used on busier routes.

[SRW]

I'm not sure if an on-demand service would be helpful or used much for commuting (or school runs), but it might be viable for people to use for shopping and other activities that require transport but are not quite so regimented to timetabling. The question for me is what is the alternative? No service at all, or empty buses running at 15-minute frequencies in case someone wants to catch them. I think on-demand could be a great way to introduce new services and fringes where otherwise no service would be available, with a plan to establish permanent routes once demand is established. If this introduces a new operator with a fleet of smaller-sized buses, it might become economic for that operator to provide timetabled services along its most popular routes, without the demand needed to justify the cost of the larger buses used on busier routes.

I guess that's the question, isn't it? Whether the service is in addition to rather than instead of other services. I'm fine with it in principle, so long as it doesn't replace or prevent fully integrated and scheduled services for primarily cost-cutting purposes.

[ml69]

I'm not sure if an on-demand service would be helpful or used much for commuting (or school runs), but it might be viable for people to use for shopping and other activities that require transport but are not quite so regimented to timetabling. The question for me is what is the alternative? No service at all, or empty buses running at 15-minute frequencies in case someone wants to catch them. I think on-demand could be a great way to introduce new services and fringes where otherwise no service would be available, with a plan to establish permanent routes once demand is established. If this introduces a new operator with a fleet of smaller-sized buses, it might become economic for that operator to provide timetabled services along its most popular routes, without the demand needed to justify the cost of the larger buses used on busier routes.

I guess that's the question, isn't it? Whether the service is in addition to rather than instead of other services. I'm fine with it in principle, so long as it doesn't replace or prevent fully integrated and scheduled services for primarily cost-cutting purposes.

I think the primary basis for Knoll’s uber-buses and bus-to-rail agenda IS cost cutting, with the aim being a substantial cut in bus services.

[ChillyPhilly]

I feel like the only form of an 'Uber bus' that would be successful is a late-night one operating in the outer suburbs.

[claybro]

I'm not sure if an on-demand service would be helpful or used much for commuting (or school runs), but it might be viable for people to use for shopping and other activities that require transport but are not quite so regimented to timetabling. The question for me is what is the alternative? No service at all, or empty buses running at 15-minute frequencies in case someone wants to catch them. I think on-demand could be a great way to introduce new services and fringes where otherwise no service would be available, with a plan to establish permanent routes once demand is established. If this introduces a new operator with a fleet of smaller-sized buses, it might become economic for that operator to provide timetabled services along its most popular routes, without the demand needed to justify the cost of the larger buses used on busier routes.

I guess that's the question, isn't it? Whether the service is in addition to rather than instead of other services. I'm fine with it in principle, so long as it doesn't replace or prevent fully integrated and scheduled services for primarily cost-cutting purposes.

I think the primary basis for Knoll’s uber-buses and bus-to-rail agenda IS cost cutting, with the aim being a substantial cut in bus services.

Curious to know what you base this on. The current setup of duplicated bus and rail services from the outer suburbs is unviable. There has been under all state governments limited finance for upgrades to the current system. The number of stations for the population served is overkill, and those stations desperately need upgrading even to make them compliant. Every other capital uses extensive bus to rail interchange, and is developing major rail precincts. Driverless PT tech is being developed all over the world. Why do you imply this is some kind of Liberal plot?!

[Eurostar]

Remove the 222 services. Change the 224 to run to and from the city via Port Wakefield Road. Restore the 224 (city). Change the 228F to 228. Extend 225M to Gepps Cross via Mawson Lakes Boulevard, extend 229 (feeder) to Gepps Cross (25). Maintain the 224X and 228X but change 225F/X, 229F/X to 225 and 229 to maintain the Main North Road Go Zone.

[Norman]

Remove the 222 services. Change the 224 to run to and from the city via Port Wakefield Road. Restore the 224 (city). Change the 228F to 228. Extend 225M to Gepps Cross via Mawson Lakes Boulevard, extend 229 (feeder) to Gepps Cross (25). Maintain the 224X and 228X but change 225F/X, 229F/X to 225 and 229 to maintain the Main North Road Go Zone.

It's nice to know that you have opinions and an imagination, but can you explain why you would want to see these changes?

[Spotto]

Never noticed this before because I’m rarely on North Terrace at night, but last week Monday night I noticed the 174 bus to Paradise do a hook turn at the KWS/North Tce intersection turning right onto North Tce.

It makes sense with the tram tracks there, but it’s an odd thing for Adelaide. Are there any other routes that do hook turns?

[Eurostar]

Never noticed this before because I’m rarely on North Terrace at night, but last week Monday night I noticed the 174 bus to Paradise do a hook turn at the KWS/North Tce intersection turning right onto North Tce.

It makes sense with the tram tracks there, but it’s an odd thing for Adelaide. Are there any other routes that do hook turns?

The 99A does a hook turn from Currie Street into King William Street.