However if your job is to efficiently get people from A to
B, like public transport’s is, then your service should be as direct as
possible consistent with maximising access from a wide catchment. That
typically involves simple routes with an origin and a destination that don’t
deviate too far away from the quickest path between them. And your network design should minimise the risk of passengers taking the wrong bus.
Large circular routes don’t do that. Many just confuse
people. You might tolerate them to provide cheap coverage from a sparsely
populated area to one major centre or railhead but they should never comprise an
area’s main routes. And even if road layouts and settlement patterns make loop
running operationally efficient, there are ways to split them into two simpler
routes that present as being fairly direct. Such as done in 2013 with the
well-used Route 494 and 495 at Point Cook.
This principle was not followed when Route 380 was designed.
It runs one way from Ringwood to Croydon then via another way back to Ringwood.
There are both clockwise and anti-clockwise directions, both displaying the
same route number. This means that unless you are very familiar with the area a
ten minute trip could become a forty minute trip if you board the bus on the
wrong side of the road. The only advantage I can see is that it allows a one
seat ride to Maroondah Hospital from parts of Ringwood North that might not
otherwise have it. Route 380’s map is below.
Most of Melbourne’s confusing bus routes are a product of
gradual accretion over many years. Route
380 is different. It only started in 2014 as part of substantial changes toTransdev routes. It is basically a merger between two simpler bidirectional Ringwood to
Croydon routes – 366 and 367 – north and south of Maroondah Hwy respectively. Whereas most of the 2014 Transdev changes made the network simpler the
380 arguably added complexity. You can compare the 380 with the previous routes below. Further information including historic timetables is available via Krustylink.
Getting back to 2020, the area map shows the 380 in relation to other routes and
stations. Key areas served include Ringwood, Ringwood North, Croydon and
Ringwood East. The route operates in the marginal Labor seat of Ringwood (held by Dustin Halse MP) and Liberal-held Croydon (David Hodgett MP).
Patronage
Route 380 is very close to the average for Melbourne buses,
attracting 23 passenger boardings per bus operating hour on a regular weekday. However, it depends heavily on school
students for its numbers. School holiday usage is much less with productivity
dropping to a below-average 15 passengers per operating hour on school holidays.
This indicates that the service is comparatively unattractive for other
passenger segments including commuters and shoppers.
This mediocre performance is common amongst bus routes in
Melbourne’s outer east. This is due to low population density (the outer east
typically has blocks twice the size of new growth areas), demographics (parts
of the outer east have an older population skew that makes fewer trips), and
higher car ownership rates here than elsewhere. These factors are the inverse
of the demographics that lead to high bus patronage in suburbs like Tarneit,
Craigieburn, Sunshine, Box Hill, Clayton and Springvale.
Aspects of the service offered, such as operating hours, may
also affect patronage. For example, especially in an unfavourable catchment, a
route with many night trips (which tend to be quieter) may have a lower average
patronage performance than a route that only operates during busier parts of
the day. On the other hand short operating hours make the service useless for
many leisure, shopping and even work trips. As the good patronage results from
the (not fully implemented) minimum service standards program of ten years ago
show, extending service until 9pm also boosted usage earlier in the day since
trips that you not previously return home from became possible.
Timetable
Route 380 operates seven days per week. As common in areas
served by Met Bus its timetable never got minimum service standards upgrades,
despite being a new route.
The weekday timetable provides a 20 minute peak, 30 minute
interpeak service, with the latter meshing with the 15 and 30 minute train
service at Ringwood and Croydon respectively. Late evening frequency drops to
45 to 60 minutes with clockwise service continuing until almost 11pm. This is a
late finish for a local bus in Melbourne and well exceeds the 9pm minimum
standard.
On weekends Route 380 runs every 60 minutes. Its Saturday
operating hours are slightly earlier than the minimum standard. Sunday
operating hours are much shorter with service finishing by 7pm.
The late weeknight finish and early Sunday
finish is a remnant of 1980s-90s Met Bus planning practice. This continued
through to National Bus and Transdev and survived the Minimum Standards program
that standardised bus operating hours elsewhere in Melbourne. The survival of
decades-old quirks like these demonstrate that past practice is often a bigger
influence of bus timetables than patronage patterns or modern needs.
Conclusion
What would you do with the 380? Do you think its clockwise /
anticlockwise loop has been a success? Or should it go back to being two
bidirectional Ringwood – Croydon routes? And should its hours be upgraded to
minimum standards? Please leave your thoughts below if you have any ideas.
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5 comments:
This reminds me of when I was living in Box Hill South... if I stepped outside and walked a few metres I could get a bus all the way to Chadstone. But if I wanted to go to Doncaster, I needed two buses because the local bus wouldn't go past Box Hill Central.
Too many of Melbourne's bus routes are "sectional", based on old local operators. Anything east of Ringwood seems to concentrate on just getting to Ringwood, then you need to take a train if you want to head west (e.g. city). What if there was a way of getting people from Croydon to, say, Doncaster East where they could link up with the DART services? Or even to the City of Whitehorse's job hubs like Nunawading and Box Hill.
A simple thing like calling one direction 380C and 380A (clockwise and anti-clockwise) would make it much simpler to use. Similar to what NSW does with the free Wollongong Route 55A and 55C bus.
That would be slightly better but still confusing. It requires a knowledge of which way is the shortest way to Ringwood or Croydon as the sign will just say Ringwood. Concept of clockwise and anticlockwise is meaningless unless you have a good mental map of the route. Two route numbers, as it used to be, is far simpler!
The problem with two routes as in Point Cook is that through-travel is less visible. Short of this, a circular route could be made more legible by changing the destination displayed on signs and buses to the next major stop along that route, or even the next two. In this case, at least four of the 8-9 major destinations shown on the map could be used. For instance: "380: Maroondah Hospital and Ringwood Station". Passengers can then know that their option is certainly the fastest possible route to the first listed destination, and a faster or almost-as-fast route to the second.
Just going to add for clarity - the 366 (via Croydon Hills) and 367 (via Ringwood East/Maroondah Hospital) used to switch between services at the terminus e.g. a 366 from Croydon would become a 367 at Ringwood and vice versa (much like the 670 and 679 still do), so the 380 route structure hasn't actually changed aside from the number. The biggest change was improving the Sunday timetable from two-hourly (8:30AM-4:30PM) to hourly, although it is still well short of the minimum standards. The 366 section of the route actually had its timetable cut back, losing roughly 30 minutes off the last trip on weekdays when it became the 380, however the 367, which finished at around 7PM during the week, improved drastically to a 10/11PM finish due to the routes being merged. The 367's Saturday timetable was hourly and I think it finished around 5 or 6PM. I still have a NationalBus 366/367 pocket timetable from the 2010s somewhere but I can't find it at the moment.
The 380 via Ringwood East is useful during weekdays as it is a viable alternative to the half-hourly trains, although the 670 is slightly faster between the two stations - avoid the Croydon Hills route at all costs if you want the quickest way to either station. The Ringwood East route still provides useful coverage for the hospital and the Bedford Rd shops (an odd place for a Pizza Hut!), although the hourly frequency at night and all weekend is pretty ordinary. The Croydon Hills route mainly goes through residential areas, and its only attractions being Burnt Bridge Shopping Centre (which is basically Coles and a few small shops) and a Red Rooster are both shared with the much faster 670.
One major issue is with the destination signs on the 380. The buses have the destination as Ringwood throughout the entire trip, even when leaving Ringwood, since that's where the buses are deemed to both originate and terminate. Having Ringwood East, Croydon Station and Croydon Hills as the three via points would be infinitely better than just saying clockwise or anti-clockwise. Or simply reverting back to Ringwood and Croydon.
Long story short, if you need to get to/from Ringwood and Croydon and the train is 28 minutes away, get the 670. Failing that, get the 380 via Ringwood East (anti-clockwise from Ringwood; clockwise from Croydon) and avoid the Croydon Hills route like the plague, since it's probably faster to wait half an hour for the next train! I only wish it was this easy to get from Ringwood to Bayswater/Boronia!
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