Timetable Tuesday #66: Clayton's unsung Route 821

Run almost any bus in the Clayton area and it’s almost guaranteed to fill up.

With its mixture of university students and low income earners there are few places better for bus patronage than Clayton.  Homes that previously held single families now accommodate students, either in crowded share-houses or purpose-built apartments. Clayton now has a grade-separated station and daytime trains every ten minutes thanks to Dandenong line upgrades.

Local bus routes and timetables have barely changed despite demonstrated demand. Examples we’ve covered before include the busy and useful 733 and the quieter and less useful 704 (though that's getting an extension soon). Today we’ll look at the 821, a little known back-roads route to Southland.

You can see 821’s map below. It’s basically a backwards L-shaped route. The Clayton Rd portion is residential on the west side and industrial on the right side. Then the route heads west, serving the large Kingston Centre amid a light industrial and bulky goods retail area. Then its catchment becomes residential before terminating at the Southland Shopping Centre Bus Interchange (which is quite distant from the new Southland Station). An occasional deviation serves the industrial area on Keys Rd.

The area map shows the 821 in relation to other routes. The route has very little unique coverage, with most being overlapped by parts of the 631, 705 and 824. Of these the 631 is most similar, with it also linking Clayton with Southland. The 705 from Springvale to Mordialloc (another L-shaped route) also has a large overlap but only operates during commuter peak times. 

Patronage

Despite the overlaps mentioned before, and the large industrial area catchment, Route 821’s patronage productivity is quite high at 32 boardings per bus service hour. Some of this is attributable to students but even on non school days patronage is still a respectable 25 boardings per bus service hour.

Timetable

Route 821 operates Monday to Friday only. Possibly due to its industrial area catchment it missed out on minimum standards upgrades that saw many other 5 or 6 day per week routes upgraded to 7 day operation 10 to 14 years ago.

The timetable features an almost perfectly clockface hourly service from 7am to 7pm. The first morning trip from Clayton is the only deviation trip. This runs via Keys Rd, presumably to drop off industrial workers.

What role does the 821 fill? It’s hourly service and overlaps with other routes mean it’s not much of a commuter train feeder route. It may benefit some industrial workers but the commencement time might be too late for some people’s starts. However it might be useful for some school and university students (there being frequent buses from Clayton to Monash). Also, in conjunction with 631, it provides a handy weekday shopper connection to Southland.

Conclusion

What would you do with the 821? Is its L-shaped route sensible? Or should it be swapped with the 705 to form two more direct straight routes? And should its hours be upgraded to minimum standards? Please leave your thoughts below if you have any ideas.

PS: An index to all Timetable Tuesday items is here.

Melbourne on Transit bookshop

Favourably reviewed books about transport and cities. Purchases via these links support this blog and its independent reporting (at no extra cost to you).