No light/heavy rail coverage map

[fabricator]

Sort of the opposite way of looking at thing, the coloured areas are where there is no tram/train line within walking distance.
Read the info on the left for what the colours means.

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF&m ... 0e8d7453aa

Still work in progress as far as the northern country areas go.

Of note:
* The Belair line has blanket coverage to the areas around Belair.
* The Semaphore/Port Adelaide tram adds practically nothing as far as coverage go, read my comments on that.
* Outer Harbour has 100% coverage too, so much for lets make it light rail.

[monotonehell]

Nice view.

You should probably add the bus collector areas around distant major hubs like Elizabeth, Marion, etc. To be fair to how distance heavy rail works.

[fabricator]

Next task is to make another map, only for Melbourne. Then we can compare the two.

[fabricator]

Nice view.

You should probably add the bus collector areas around distant major hubs like Elizabeth, Marion, etc. To be fair to how distance heavy rail works.

The point I'm trying to make, is the reason Adelaide's train/tram network costs so much to run is that it doesn't cover enough of the city.

The bus terminal at Elizabeth is a complete joke, buses either leave before or after the train arrives. The extra waiting time (wait for bus, change to and wait for train) is what puts off many. Some people go stuff it, and drive to the station. Things were better when TA ran the buses too.

No luck so far with the Melbourne map, having trouble finding finding areas without overlapping tram and train coverage.

[peas_and_corn]

At least for me your colours seem to extend out into the ocean (including some light blue... not sure how that rail extension would work ).

[Aidan]

Sort of the opposite way of looking at thing, the coloured areas are where there is no tram/train line within walking distance.

The thing is, coverage doesn't have much to do with the distance from the line - 'tis the distance from the stations that's important.

Of note:
* The Belair line has blanket coverage to the areas around Belair.
* The Semaphore/Port Adelaide tram adds practically nothing as far as coverage go, read my comments on that.
* Outer Harbour has 100% coverage too, so much for lets make it light rail.

I did a rough (i.e. as the crow flies distances) comparison of service areas for those lines as heavy rail and light rail as part of my undergraduate investigation project last year, and there's quite a big difference. I did an online version of the report, but it stopped working the excellent Google Pages web hosting service was replaced by the lame Google Sites. However a pdf version of my report is still online.

The point I'm trying to make, is the reason Adelaide's train/tram network costs so much to run is that it doesn't cover enough of the city.

That's a complete non sequiter - covering more of the city wouldn't make it cheaper to run. I think the main reason why it costs so much to run is that it's not electrified yet.

[monotonehell]

The reason is because heavy rail is only economical to run when it's packed to the gills. Most of the time rail cars run with only a few people in them, only being used to capacity during peak time. So the operational costs to provide off-peak services claw back any economical savings made during peak. Not to mention that trains cost much more per passenger mile to run than buses anyway. A lot of rail advocates speak of peak capacity and how rail can carry far more people than buses, but the reality is unless you're living in the middle of Manhattan you'll never see that capacity utilised.

"OMG Moar trainz" is probably not the answer. Smarter use of rail in the appropriate places, as well as light rail, buses, and other forms of transport is.

Your map needs a lot of adjustment before it communicates anything useful. Keep at it.

[fabricator]

Actually the amount of use a rail network gets is dependant on whether it can take you from your departure point to your destination. Say from your home to your workplace. The basic problem is the rail network doesn't cover very much, well more to the point there are large parts of the city it doesn't go anywhere near.

If you live in an area served by buses only, your more likely to drive the car than use public transport. Say you live in Morphett Vale and work at Wingfield, well there is no real rail coverage to either area, so its the slow buses or nothing, as there is no connecting bus at Dry Creek or other stations in that area.

From http://www.parliament.sa.gov.au/Committ ... nsport.htm

Code: Select all

Mode              All Adelaide|Outer North|Outer South|Inner Regions
Car Trips (Driver)    67.5%      62.9%         67.0%        68.3%
Car Trips (Passenger) 28.0%      33.7%         29.9%        27.0%
Bus Trips             3.4%       2.1%          2.3%          3.7%
Rail Trips            1.1%       1.3%          0.8%          1.0%

This proves what my map shows, which is the rail coverage for the Outer South is grossly inadequate. The Transport Department traffic maps show way more vehicles use South Road alone, compared to Lonsdale Highway. Add the other main roads around Darlington and its 3x more traffic.

Also note that bus trips go down in outer suburbs, its consistent too.

Obviously something has to give, we can't keep using articulated buses as long distance pseudo train networks. One day traffic, pollution and

[monotonehell]

Actually the amount of use a rail network gets is dependant on whether it can take you from your departure point to your destination. Say from your home to your workplace. The basic problem is the rail network doesn't cover very much, well more to the point there are large parts of the city it doesn't go anywhere near.

If you live in an area served by buses only, your more likely to drive the car than use public transport. Say you live in Morphett Vale and work at Wingfield, well there is no real rail coverage to either area, so its the slow buses or nothing, as there is no connecting bus at Dry Creek or other stations in that area.
...
Obviously something has to give, we can't keep using articulated buses as long distance pseudo train networks. One day traffic, pollution and

Your first point is flawed, the more departure and destination points the more the measure of 'passengers per vehicle' is diluted.

A private vehicle is the best at getting one passenger from a random point A to a random point B. Buses are the next best thing for many varied journeys. But by their nature must concentrate on where a reasonable amount of people want to go -- which may not be anywhere near points A and B. Rail is a step up from that again. By the same nature rail needs to be placed on transport corridors where there is a large amount of people who wish to travel between destinations -- which are probably not anywhere near points A or B again, nor any of the points that the buses go.

As I always say, you need a good mix of transport solutions. Each used where their strong points are best applied. "Trains everywhere" is a futile and expensive exercise. You need rail along major long distance corridors, short bus routes to concentrate passengers to distant rail destinations. Trams are good for inner city linkages, where trip times are far less than a half hour (eg Glenelg is probably just a little bit too far for light rail's strength). OBahns are good to funnel a lot of disparate services into a wide area via a narrow inner suburban route. Whereas rail works better serving a narrow corridor.

It's horses for courses.

(Nb I'm not disagreeing with you that the South would benefit from rail)

[Prince George]

On a related note, walkability advocates WalkScore are trialling using the transit mapping tool GraphServer to create maps that show how far you can travel by public transport in 45 minutes in various locations. They only support four cities at the moment - click on a location on the map and it plots out the regions that you can travel to over 15 minute increments. IE8 users - switch this to compatibility mode.

http://www.walkscore.com/transit-map.php

It would be very interesting to see what this would show us for Adelaide, but we'd need AdelaideMetro to publish their GTFS data before it can happen.

[fabricator]

Your first point is flawed, the more departure and destination points the more the measure of 'passengers per vehicle' is diluted.

So your saying that if more of the city has access to light/heavy rail, then their will be less people per vehicle.

When the tram was extended to the railway station a lot more passengers used it.
Why ? Because it actually connected with another form of transport (trains).

Lets say you have two points, A & B, you want to travel from one to the other.
A - train - train - B (30+30 min)
A - train - bus - B (30+45 min)
A - bus - bus - B (45+45 min)
The train only takes 1 hour, the bus + train 1 hour 15 min, the bus + bus 1 1/2 hours. Which do you choose ?

Now to use my earlier example, Morphett Vale and Wingfield only have buses, and its a long trip as no usable inner city train-bus interchanges. Are you going to live with an extra hour's travel just to use public transport, or are you going to drive instead which takes less time.


The ideal plan is to have reasonable coverage of the city by rail, and to run the buses between stations as loop services, as well as the current 'down main road' buses.

Imagine Noarlunga with two train lines, buses that service the suburbs run in a loop/shuttle between the two lines. Should one rail line be closed for whatever reason, then people can still get home via the other and a bus.

The holes around the inner city wouldn't exist if not for the wholesale closure of the tram network in the 1958. There are no coverage holes in inner city Melbourne. I found when I was over there I never needed to use buses to get to most places.

[Aidan]

The reason is because heavy rail is only economical to run when it's packed to the gills. Most of the time rail cars run with only a few people in them, only being used to capacity during peak time. So the operational costs to provide off-peak services claw back any economical savings made during peak. Not to mention that trains cost much more per passenger mile to run than buses anyway.

Figure 3.8 of the document Fabricator referenced contradicts that claim. And trains do have significant theoretical advantages - the staff to passenger ratio can be a lot higher, and there is far more scope for varying capacity to match demand. And with electric trains the fuel is cheaper, there are fewer moving parts kinetic energy can be recovered and reused fairly easily.

Actually the amount of use a rail network gets is dependant on whether it can take you from your departure point to your destination. Say from your home to your workplace. The basic problem is the rail network doesn't cover very much, well more to the point there are large parts of the city it doesn't go anywhere near.

Although that's the case to some extent, the real problem is the shortcomings of the entire public transport network, not just the rail network.

If you live in an area served by buses only, your more likely to drive the car than use public transport. Say you live in Morphett Vale and work at Wingfield, well there is no real rail coverage to either area, so its the slow buses or nothing, as there is no connecting bus at Dry Creek or other stations in that area.

Yes, not only do I agree it's a problem, but I've worked out the solution: a City subway linking the Gawler and Noarlunga lines. Plus connecting bus services to Wingfield and similar places. And much higher operating frequencies, extension of the railways in the southern suburbs, and possibly construction of a pedestrian route over or under Islington freight terminal from Kilburn station.

Obviously something has to give, we can't keep using articulated buses as long distance pseudo train networks. One day traffic, pollution and

As long as we have good roads, we can keep using articulated buses as long distance pseudo trains. It makes a lot of sense for Mount Barker.

[Aidan]

Your first point is flawed, the more departure and destination points the more the measure of 'passengers per vehicle' is diluted.

So your saying that if more of the city has access to light/heavy rail, then their will be less people per vehicle.

A stupid claim like that deserves the pedantic response that you mean fewer rather than less, and there not their. Because while you may find your own lack of comprehension hilarious, everyone else finds it tiresome. Mono never claimed anything of the sort. All he claimed was that the number of passengers per vehicle wouldn't rise much, because the effect of the greater total number of passengers would be diluted by the greater number of vehicles running.

When the tram was extended to the railway station a lot more passengers used it.
Why ? Because it actually connected with another form of transport (trains).

That's only part of the reason. It also took a lot more passengers directly where they wanted to go.

Lets say you have two points, A & B, you want to travel from one to the other.
A - train - train - B (30+30 min)
A - train - bus - B (30+45 min)
A - bus - bus - B (45+45 min)
The train only takes 1 hour, the bus + train 1 hour 15 min, the bus + bus 1 1/2 hours. Which do you choose ?

Why do you bother asking?

Now to use my earlier example, Morphett Vale and Wingfield only have buses, and its a long trip as no usable inner city train-bus interchanges. Are you going to live with an extra hour's travel just to use public transport, or are you going to drive instead which takes less time.

I get your point, but there are two others to bear in mind: firstly the number of people commuting between Morphett Vale and Wingfield isn't that high. Secondly, even with good rail services it would be difficult to get a high market share on that sort of journey.

The ideal plan is to have reasonable coverage of the city by rail, and to run the buses between stations as loop services, as well as the current 'down main road' buses.

In some areas that would be ideal, but it's not ideal everywhere.

Imagine Noarlunga with two train lines, buses that service the suburbs run in a loop/shuttle between the two lines. Should one rail line be closed for whatever reason, then people can still get home via the other and a bus.

The value of double redundancy isn't that high, as the service is quick to recover (apart from when the line's closure is scheduled, in which case there are replacement buses)

The holes around the inner city wouldn't exist if not for the wholesale closure of the tram network in the 1958. There are no coverage holes in inner city Melbourne. I found when I was over there I never needed to use buses to get to most places.

Our tram network was never as comprehensive as Melbourne's, and our trams never ran everywhere.

[monotonehell]

With regard to the table fabricator quoted:

From http://www.parliament.sa.gov.au/Committ ... nsport.htm

Code: Select all

Mode              All Adelaide|Outer North|Outer South|Inner Regions
Car Trips (Driver)    67.5%      62.9%         67.0%        68.3%
Car Trips (Passenger) 28.0%      33.7%         29.9%        27.0%
Bus Trips             3.4%       2.1%          2.3%          3.7%
Rail Trips            1.1%       1.3%          0.8%          1.0%

It shows;
* 96.6% take a car from the North compared to 96.9% from the South. So around the same proportion of travellers take a car from either North or South.
* While 95.3% take a car from the inner regions. Around a 1.6% delta from the range of data.
* Note that 95.3 is very close to the All Adelaide figure.
* Around 3 times as many people take a bus than a train. That seems correct due to the vast difference between the number of bus service Km compared to train service Km. And that total is affected greatly by the Inner Region's percentage, due to the Inner Region having more opportunity to access a train service.

So it doesn't show that the South is gasping for trains at all. Even though I'd agree with you that it is. It might lend itself to suggesting that people in the Inner Regions catch a train more often than people in the Outer Regions because it's closer, quicker and more convenient. But that would be discounted by a later table in that report that shows that people prefer trains over buses and cars for longer trips. So go figure...

So your saying that if more of the city has access to light/heavy rail, then their will be less people per vehicle.

No, that's not what I said at all. Sorry if I was unclear. While examples like the tram extension are a success, they prove only that if you put a rail service where a lot of people want to go a lot of the time, patronage will increase. But if you run services everywhere individuals want to go at any time you end up with a lot of possibly well patronised mostly empty vehicles (think along the lines of cars).

Rail needs to be placed where it will be patronised in bulk. So it can better pay for itself. For Adelaide that means the rush time commutes between major centres. I'm sure that there is scope for more rail linking more centres, however.

The reason is because heavy rail is only economical to run when it's packed to the gills. Most of the time rail cars run with only a few people in them, only being used to capacity during peak time. So the operational costs to provide off-peak services claw back any economical savings made during peak. Not to mention that trains cost much more per passenger mile to run than buses anyway.

Figure 3.8 of the document Fabricator referenced contradicts that claim. And trains do have significant theoretical advantages - the staff to passenger ratio can be a lot higher, and there is far more scope for varying capacity to match demand. And with electric trains the fuel is cheaper, there are fewer moving parts kinetic energy can be recovered and reused fairly easily.

Figure 3.8 shows the apx costs per passenger Km in 1999 were:
Bus: 30 to 60c
Glenelg Tram: 60c (nb this is 1999 who knows what the new trams cost per Km?)
Trains: 45 to 80c

That actually supports my claim. The lesser patronised rail lines are at the 80c end of the specta while the more patronised lines are at the 45c end.

The key term is "theoretical advantages." Staff to passenger ratio is only supported when the service is in peak period. Or when the frequency is lowered so that passengers are forced to wait (and I know we both dislike that). Capacity variations on rail are again only at the high end. You can run one high capacity carriage, or add more in peak.

Again these points support my claim, trains work better(cheaper) in peak periods.

At this point in time, electric power is about the same in terms of cost as diesel. That WILL change in the near future. But only relatively between diesel and electric. Electric trains in the future will cost around the same to run as diesel ones do now if energy prices trend the same way they are suggesting. While diesel power will cost more in the future. Unless electric buses are developed past the Tindo project, then rail may become cheaper to operate -- that's the point you should be arguing. It's pretty much the only point that stands up to objective scrutiny. That's without factoring in so called bio-diesels. I'm not 100% sold on those yet though. We may see the return of the trolley bus yet.

I favour electric, but it comes at a large capital cost now (overhead wires!$!). And if we don't fix the source of electricity, we will still have the pollution problems of diesel -- just concentrated at power stations instead of train stations. (lol you see what I did there )

[Aidan]

The reason is because heavy rail is only economical to run when it's packed to the gills. Most of the time rail cars run with only a few people in them, only being used to capacity during peak time. So the operational costs to provide off-peak services claw back any economical savings made during peak. Not to mention that trains cost much more per passenger mile to run than buses anyway.

Figure 3.8 of the document Fabricator referenced contradicts that claim. And trains do have significant theoretical advantages - the staff to passenger ratio can be a lot higher, and there is far more scope for varying capacity to match demand. And with electric trains the fuel is cheaper, there are fewer moving parts kinetic energy can be recovered and reused fairly easily.

Figure 3.8 shows the apx costs per passenger Km in 1999 were:
Bus: 30 to 60c
Glenelg Tram: 60c (nb this is 1999 who knows what the new trams cost per Km?)
Trains: 45 to 80c

That actually supports my claim.

Only the obvious claim that trains are more economical when they carry more passengers. But it refutes the claim that trains cost much more per passenger mile to run than buses anyway.

The lesser patronised rail lines are at the 80c end of the specta while the more patronised lines are at the 45c end.

Exactly - the lines most people use have a lower cost per passenger mile than the average bus. And that's with our diesel trains which have much higher running costs than electric ones.

The key term is "theoretical advantages." Staff to passenger ratio is only supported when the service is in peak period.

No, it usually favours trains off peak as well. Every bus needs a driver. Consider how many times as many passengers the train carries as the bus, and how many staff the train needs - it still works out as more efficient.

Or when the frequency is lowered so that passengers are forced to wait (and I know we both dislike that). Capacity variations on rail are again only at the high end. You can run one high capacity carriage, or add more in peak.

You seem to be implying that demand is only high in the peaks, but that's not always true.

Again these points support my claim, trains work better(cheaper) in peak periods.

Film at eleven

At this point in time, electric power is about the same in terms of cost as diesel. That WILL change in the near future. But only relatively between diesel and electric. Electric trains in the future will cost around the same to run as diesel ones do now if energy prices trend the same way they are suggesting. While diesel power will cost more in the future.

You're making the mistake of confusing the fuel cost with the total cost. Diesel trains are far more expensive to run because of mechanical wear - and that also translates into reliability issues. And I've already mentioned the efficiency issue.

Unless electric buses are developed past the Tindo project, then rail may become cheaper to operate -- that's the point you should be arguing.

It's not like Tindo's the only electric bus in the world, and there's plenty of more significant developments elsewhere, including hybrid buses that store energy in supercapacitors.

It's pretty much the only point that stands up to objective scrutiny.

No, it's merely the only point that you can't think of a superficial counterargument to.

That's without factoring in so called bio-diesels. I'm not 100% sold on those yet though. We may see the return of the trolley bus yet.

Adelaide doesn't have the combination of demand and terrain that would favour trolleybuses.

I favour electric, but it comes at a large capital cost now (overhead wires!$!). And if we don't fix the source of electricity, we will still have the pollution problems of diesel -- just concentrated at power stations instead of train stations. (lol you see what I did there )

Firstly electricity generation is more efficient. Secondly, fixing the source of electricity is something that's definitely going to be done, at least to some extent.