Frequent routes are are also more marketable - something important for cities that wish to grow bus usage. Marketability is one reason transit agencies may differentiate frequent routes from the others. Examples of differentiation may include special bus livery, better bus stops, greater prominence on network maps, and/or distinctive route numbering.
Route number memorability and frequency
High frequency routes included the high frequency university shuttles (mostly x01 numbers), Smartbuses (900-908), inner urban routes (mostly 200s). Distinctive patterns were noted for 20 minute headways (some middle northern, middle south-eastern and outer suburbs), 30 minute intervals (north, east and south-east) and 40 minute gaps (outer suburbs).
My video here talks you through this in more detail.
The frequency of frequencies
As I mention here fairer metrics to give a high level idea of the network's usefulness include annual service kilometres and the proportion of people near frequent service. Dividing annual service kilometres by metropolitan population tells you about service intensity provided while patronage (and especially patronage productivity) data reveals something about whether the service provided is being used.
Last week I looked at the patronage productivity of various bus routes in Melbourne. Amongst the most productive bus routes were often those that were more frequent. From this you could deduce a non-linear relationship between service levels and patronage. Not only do frequent routes carry more passengers as they are frequent but because they are also more productive the number of passengers is disproportionately higher.
That causes you to get a pattern where a small proportion of bus routes (say 20% - I haven't crunched the numbers) account for say half or more of bus passengers. And in Melbourne's case it's helped but not entirely due to our three very long orbitals. (Those who study tax systems would likely find a similar pattern with income taxes - in a progressive system most taxes come from the top 10 or 20% of regular wage earners, not only due to their higher incomes but also because they pay a higher proportion).
Jarrett Walker often mentions that under conditions of constrained resources a bus network optimised for coverage has a high number of infrequent routes while one optimised for frequency might sacrifice coverage for frequency. Most cities would have bus networks that sit somewhere in between these extremes with a mix of frequent and infrequent routes.
One (admittedly imperfect) way of analysing a bus network is to examine the number of routes in each frequency band. That helps you understand the character of a network, ie one that's simple, direct, frequent (and possibly more widely spaced) versus one that is complex, indirect, infrequent but with short walking distances to the nearest (sometimes poorly used) route.
The big picture is that Melbourne has very few all day frequent bus routes. The network is characterised by a large number of infrequent routes, a feature which marginalises buses compared to trains and trams despite the bus network's extensive coverage.
Most notable is the dominance of routes operating in the 31 to 60 minute frequency range. The vast majority of these are either 40 or 60 minutes with 40 minutes far more common than 60 minutes. Melbourne (and Victoria's) love of 40 minute bus frequencies is notable compared to Brisbane and Perth which have a lot of weekday 60 minute frequencies.
Frequent routes running every 15 minutes or better are uncommon in Melbourne, accounting for just 7% of the total on weekdays. On weekends this slumps to under 2% of routes with only the 234, 246, 732 (part), 905 and 907 complying.
While it is common for cities to have more infrequent routes than they do frequent routes, Melbourne's fall-off is particularly extreme. This can be put down to:
(a) Some skewing of data due to the use of trams on corridors that in other cities would be frequent buses and our long orbital bus routes.
(b) Our weaker political and institutional support for bus reform than Auckland and Perth who prioritised the creation of frequent routes from multiple less frequent routes. This reluctance has caused us to have fewer 10 minute frequency routes than is otherwise possible within existing budgets.
(c) A tendency to favour 20 over 15 minute frequencies, largely due to our base 10/20/40 minute headway hierarchy on most railway lines. 20 minute service is a big improvement over 30 or 40 minute service but does not generally qualify as turn-up-and-go frequent service like 15 min might and 10 min probably will.
On weekends this is the most influential of the lot:
(d) legacy of a 'small city' bus funding culture that like Adelaide (but not Sydney, Brisbane or Perth) schedules even main routes at half frequency on Saturdays and (even moreso) Sundays.
The graph's numbers are tabulated below (with routes every 20 min or better indentified):
Every 61 min or worse: 34
Every 31 - 60 min: 167
Every 21 - 30 min: 72
Every 16 - 20 min: 56
153 154 170 180 190 200 207 232 250 251 270 390 406 408 420 460 465 467 471 475 477 501 503 505 506 508 510 512 517 527 528 529 533 537 540 541 546 561 570 582 603 604 605 630 732 733 767 791 798 800 825 828 831 893 897 898
Every 11 - 15 min: 18
201 216 220 223 234 305 472 552 670 703 900 901 902 903 905 906 907 908
Every 1 - 10 min: 7
235 237 241 246 301 402 601
Note: 695F excluded, 745 counted as 1, 900 series night network excluded
The number of routes that are better than every 15 minutes or better seven days is so low as to be counted on one hand (234, 246, 905, 907 and part of 732).
Frequency of frequencies with reform
Bus network reform such as required to massively increase bus usage would almost certainly change the mix of service frequencies. There would be fewer limited service routes with long gaps while more routes would run more frequently.
The chart below indicates potential directions of change.
Early priorities would likely concentrate on closing the longest waits, addressing operating hours issues such as early finishes or lack of weekend service and boosting weekend service on otherwise frequent routes.
Weekend services key
While that might not cause the above weekday-oriented graph to change much I would rate the creation of more 7 day frequent routes as being key to to boosting bus usage. Indeed going from 4 to say 40 all week frequent routes would transform the bus network with these routes driving patronage growth. The graph would likely still contain high numbers of less frequent routes but with the majority of bus trips being made on a more defined frequent network with an Auckland-style maximum wait service guarantee the passenger experience would be transformed.
Network reform and route consolidation
Further gains are possible (with even lower costs per route) with network reform. This would seek opportunities to consolidate routes with overlapping catchment into more direct and frequent routes. The biggest single shift here would likely be the creation of many more 20 minute frequency routes from existing 21 - 30 and 31 - 60 minute routes. Some of this would be straight service upgrades while in other cases network reform would reduce costs.
Going from every 30 to 20 min needs 1 extra bus per hour added. As does moving from 20 to 15 min. Whereas moving from 20 to 10 min needs 3 extra buses per hour. Expressed in another way, assuming you're starting at a 30 minute frequency you can have three times as much route upgraded to run every 20 minutes as every 10 minutes.
Still the travel experience of 10 min frequencies are so good (and rare for buses in Melbourne) that all opportunities to do it cost-effectively with network reform such as may be possible along corridors like Murray Rd and/or Bell St should be explored, while also reviving probably the single highest patronage potential element of the now sidelined northern and north-east bus reform.
The above would also be consistent with Victoria's Bus Plan whose priorities were local reform followed by buses being a mass transit option, ie more routes running every 10 minutes seven days. This would be a radical step compared to now where the current network has no seven day routes every 10 minutes or better and just four seven day routes every 15 minutes or better.
Interaction with train frequencies
Auckland opted to reform their buses before it reformed train frequencies. While some connections were messy (20 min trains to buses every 15 min) the bus reform was an overall greater good with patronage rises. Perth already had 15 minute train frequencies compatible with its 15/30/60 min bus hierarchy (though it now also has some 10 minute bus frequencies).
In Melbourne's eastern suburbs the potential pace of bus reform is constrained by weekday train timetables which remain on a 15/30 min off-peak pattern, contrary to the 10/20 minute pattern applicable elsewhere (including the Sandringham line from later this year). This is because if trains remain at current frequencies the case for improving their busier bus routes from 30 to 20 min is weaker than with harmonised 10/20 minute frequencies.
There is also a general fall-off in population density when you go more than 1km east of Stud Rd such that it is hard to argue for 10 or 15 minute frequencies but 30 minutes is inadequate. In this context 20 minute bus frequencies on main roads are justifiable especially if supported by similar train frequencies. Which in turn meshes well with the very strong case for stations like Box Hill and Ringwood to have 10 (rather than 15 minute) midday rail frequencies.
The older parts of Melton is a contrasting example. In their case trains got boosted to every 20 min on weekdays. Later its trains got boosted from every 60 to every 40 minutes. No bus upgrades accompanied its weekday train boosts. Thus some buses that had 2 trips per hour were a poor fit for the upgraded 3 trains per hour. The opportunity to upgrade these to 3 buses per hour (as well as simplify routes to run along main roads) was lost, unlike the case of Wyndham in 2015 that got a new bus network when Regional Rail Link commenced.
However much more recently when weekend Melton trains improved there was a genuine attempt at multimodal planning with many bus routes improving from every 60 to every 40 min to harmonise. Creating an interesting case where some bus routes are more frequent on weekends than they are on weekdays (where an hourly service still remains).
Overall Melbourne has been weak at this sort of multimodal thinking. There have been many cases of infrastructure upgrades (such as level crossing removals) that have not been followed by commensurate rail service boosts or a reappraisal of bus networks to take advantage of road improvements such as grade separations.
Summary
Melbourne has very few frequent bus routes. Operating more of them, whether through straight service boosts (particularly weekend) or bus network reform is key to unlocking the potential of buses to carry millions more passenger trips per month.
While it has limitations, analysing frequency data per route can help us quantify the network's extreme bias towards low frequency and less productive services and drive interest in getting more from our investment in bus services.
