These are rapidly growing residential areas. They are leafier, higher income, lower density and more car-owning than some other growth areas in Melbourne's north such as around Craigieburn. Local bus services in the Mernda area tend not to be as well used as similar services in Craigieburn and Tarneit. The area is in the district of Yan Yean, held by Labor's Danielle Green MP.
389 operates to similar frequencies on weekdays. However there is a 31 minute gap in the am peak followed by some 9 minute headways around 8am. This lumpiness would be inconvenient for commuters.
The most distinctive thing about the 389 though is that it has no weekend service. At these times passengers only have the anticlockwise 388 to use. That makes travel highly indirect, adding an extra 20 or more minutes to some trips.
In contrast, other routes in the area, such as the 381 and 385, which have large poorly patronised semi-rural sections, do operate 7 days.
Conclusion
What would you do with the 388 and 389? Would you give the 389 seven day service? Does it need a more even peak service? Or does Mernda/Doreen area need a network rethink with simpler bidirectional routes? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.
PS: An index to all Timetable Tuesday items is here.
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1 comment:
I've looked at the tangle of routes out of Mernda station for a while and tried to work out what you'd do with them.
382 looks good, it's an arterial bus on main roads.
386/387 pair seems to duplicate it a lot but try to serve as local feeders for Mernda, Hawkstowe and South Morang stations as well as the lakes shopping centre before adding frequency to Plenty Rd. It could be split into 3 different shorter routes and probably still serve the same purpose.
385 and 381 are station feeders that then go wandering off through paddocks to connect to distant lands where they become station feeders again at the other end of their route.
And then you have the 388/389 pair: I'm not sure you'd get much patronage in the middle of the route between the Laurimar town centre and Mernda (two local shopping villages with the same amenities basically) but there's plenty to and from the station and the town centres. What makes it 'work' is the 37min overall route time allowing it to dovetail to the trains easily and use buses efficiently.
So what to do? It feels like 381, 385 and 388/389 (East) should be able to be rolled into two station-town loops (381 into Laurimar and 385 into Orchard: North and South of Bridge Inn Rd), with maybe a 3rd route heading direct to Diamond Creek or Greensborough if the connection was still desired. The problem is either of these type of routes has a runtime between 20 and 30mins, meaning poor utilisation or harmonisation.
386, 387 and 388/389 (West) could also just become two routes: 388 through the North and West of Mernda and then 387 through Central and Hawkstowe. 386 gets straightened to just use Plenty Rd and then head through the lakes to South Morang.
Much less complicated but the timings would need some work to make them align nicely. Although if Mernda gets 10min train frequencies all day then a 30min off peak bus is totally fine.
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