The new Victorian bus stop patronage map

I don't normally post on a Thursday but today's appearance of the Victorian bus stop patronage map, produced by Philip Mallis, deserves mention. 

Visit it here

You can see patronage at every single bus stop in Melbourne (and major regional centres) on weekdays, weekends and public holidays. You can compare school versus non school days. The data is 2015/2016 so it isn't right up to date. But it still gives an idea of where the busy and quiet stops are (bigger dots are busier stops). 

Not unexpectedly those near stations and on major routes are the busiest. There are clusters of them around universities and big shopping centres. Certain outer suburbs, like Tarneit and Craigieburn West, have some very busy stops. Quiet stops are found in areas with poor service (much of the City of Knox), low propensity to use public transport and where stops, for historical rather than rational reasons, are very close together (eg Forrest St, Ardeer). 

Many stories from the data can be told. That's for future posts here. 

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