UN 105: Done in the wrong order? FlexiRide buses coming to Lilydale

Many think of flexible route buses as new up-and-comers that could transform transit. They're not. They go back to at least the 1970s as 'dial a ride' services tried in many places. Most failed, with low ridership and high costs per passenger.

Despite their chequered record, 'demand responsive' buses are a recurring recommendation in various transport plans over the years, old and new. These include 1988's MetPlan and 2021's Victoria's Bus Plan. More on why flexible route buses often fail here. 

 Telebus in Lilydale

One of the 'dial a rides' that did survive is 'Telebus'. It's operated near Croydon - Lilydale in Melbourne's outer east since the late 1970s. Telebus was established to service sprawl and demographics that could not be more hostile to bus usage as subdivisions turned their back on highway and station access.  

High car ownership, high incomes, low density and, most critically, street layouts did not enable direct and efficient bus routes. That is even if governments were willing to fund them, which they weren't in much of the 1970s and 1990s. For Chirnside Park this was initially due to a golf course being in the middle of the estate. When this later got filled in with houses the neighbourhood remained bus-hostile with narrow, winding and disconnected internal streets. Telebus was thus an 'after the horse has bolted' attempt to minimally serve a bad layout that good planning should have prevented.     

Like a fixed bus route, Telebus has a defined origin and destination and some fixed intermediate stops that are always served. However the intermediate stops are fewer than for a regular bus route. With Telebus you could either wait at a fixed stop or phone the dispatcher before the bus leave the origin and order the bus to call nearer your home. A non-myki add-on fare is charged for that service. This early '90s Invicta bus timetable book explains it as follows: 

Telebuses are a daytime-only shopper, school and commuter-style service. There is sometimes Saturday service but never Sunday or public holiday service. While many local bus routes got 'minimum standards' upgrades including Sunday service about 10 - 15 years ago, Telebus timetables were left untouched. 

The 1992 Met network map below shows four shaded areas. Each has its own Telebus route. Chirnside Park is Area One. There remain four areas up to 2021 though boundaries are slightly different (for now you can see them on the PTV Yarra Ranges map).

The subsequent addition or extension of some fixed routes like 664, 670, 675, 676, 677 and 680 near or through some Telebus areas is notable. These would have sapped some Telebus patronage (see Knox Maroondah Yarra Ranges Bus Service Review, p45). Also Telebus' boardings per hour was higher in 1978  than it was forty years later, partly due to there then being fewer 'competing' routes with overlapping catchments. Nevertheless Telebus shares some characteristics of fixed route buses (eg some fixed stops) which probably made it a better performer than purely flexible route buses. 

Telebus has always been Invicta Bus Company's 'baby'. It has continued under subsequent owners, including Grenda and Ventura. A similar concept was introduced across the Yarra in Gowanbrae as Route 490 from Airport West.

Unusual for buses in Melbourne, Telebuses don't have conventional route numbers, making information on them hard to find on the PTV website. The same can be said for 'how to use' details, which requires effort to find the special page here. PTV's app has even less information with recourse to the full website item necessary to find the number for booking. 

As mentioned before, Telebus started around Lilydale in the 1970s. Rowville gained it maybe a decade or so later with services to Stud Park and Ferntree Gully. At the time both Ventura and Invicta (then different companies) had buses that ran to Rowville but neither ran what you'd call a full service. This remains an issue today with effectively two incomplete networks operating - one fixed route and one flexible route - with 'minimum standards' service on neither.  

Last year Rowville's Telebuses were replaced with FlexiRide, This removed Telebus' fixed times and stop. It also stripped both the PTV website and app of timetable information, with everything being shunted off to a separate app (although phone bookings were still taken). The area's fixed route network was not reformed and remains indirect and infrequent. My write-up on Rowville FlexiRide is here. 

John Usher of Invicta Bus Company presented Australasian Transport Research Forum papers about planning and operating Telebus in 1978 and 1994. I recommend reading these for detailed background on the Lilydale and Rowville Telebuses. 

FlexiRide in Lilydale

Following on from Rowville, now it's Lilydale's turn. From October 4, 2021 all their Telebus services (1, 2, 3, 4) will be replaced with FlexiRide. Buses will operate in three zones. Each zone will have two anchor destinations, typically a railway station and/or major shopping centre. An annotated version of the existing PTV area map (Telebus areas in orange) with guessed FlexiRide travel zone boundaries is below.  The FlexiRide app will likely have a fuller map, with the difference being the separate zones as opposed to just one as with Rowville. 

FlexiRide operating hours are 6am to 8pm weekdays and 8am to 6pm Saturdays. There will be no Sunday or public holiday service. The absence of the latter puts it out of kilter with the standard (but only partly implemented) pattern for Melbourne buses where routes with Saturday do run on most public holidays. Bookings can either be made via the FlexiRide app or telephone. The telephone number is the same as that used for the Rowville FlexiRide (8710 6377). 

Boarding points can include physical or 'virtual' bus stops (which are unmarked so may be harder to find). The PTV site says that FlexiRide is a 12 month trial, though I can't see the name going back to the original Telebus after then. Overall these changes move the service further away from a fixed route (albeit one with a variable path between some fixed intermediate stops) to a fully variable path. This is generally in the direction of less rather than more passengers per bus operating hour productivity. 

What about the door to door service for which Telebus imposed a fare surcharge? The surcharge has gone. There is still the closer service available but only for those with accessibility requirements. The ending of the surcharge removes the last vestige of 'pay the driver' cash bus fares in Melbourne, although prepaid ticket books were available.

Other network changes

As well as Lilydale Telebus becoming FlexiRider, two other changes are happening to local buses on October 4.   

Regular bus route 676 will disappear. This will be covered by one of the FlexiRides. There are fixed route buses on surrounding main roads but part of the area is hilly. 

Also Route 672 between Croydon and Chirnside Park will be simplified to become a fixed route bus at all times. Currently a section north of Croydon has off-peak Telebus running with it able to deviate in the Croydon Hills area. Now it will remain on Yarra Rd, simplifying the service and providing more predictable travel times. Some passengers will need to walk further but the general experience with Telebuses is that the fixed stops see the most usage. This makes the 672 a regular bus route rather than being 'neither fish nor fowl'.  

Both these changes are relatively minor. They don't much overhaul the network, despite local buses being amongst the least used in Melbourne. Not even the redundant and duplicative 673 is removed. And main roads that don't have buses don't get them. 

Is this the best we can do?  

The short answer is no. 

Just replacing Telebus with FlexiRide is replacing one low productivity bus service model with one even lower. All while neglecting the fixed route network with greater potential. The tendency to take the path of least resistance of rebranding an existing similar service, adding an app and calling it bus reform is a habit the Department of Transport needs to quit.  

This is because flexible route buses have low passenger boardings per hour. Most commonly this is around 5 to 10 boardings per hour (or less for operating models less successful than Telebus which is probably 'best of type'). Even quiet fixed routes in sparse suburban areas do about double that. And it's double again in areas with straighter streets, higher density and better demographics. 

Rowville does not have great demographics for buses. It also has a pitiful mix of a poor quality unreviewed fixed route network and a limited hours FlexiRide service grafted over it. Similar applies in the Mooroolbark and Chirnside Park areas where routes like 664, 675, and 677 operate near or through the Telebus area. The presence of both types of services may mean that neither thrive for the thin patronage market offering. 

A concept network

The order we plan various parts of the network is critical. Service planning is basically about providing the best service to the most number of people at an affordable cost. 'Best' typically means things like operating hours, frequency, directness and speed. This usually means running frequent service along main roads that are reasonably walkable to most. 

Such a network may have coverage gaps which routes on in between streets can cover. Planners may have to trade-off frequency and coverage depending on local needs and demands. They may have to insert local 'in between' routes, especially if neighbourhood walkability is poor. Both frequent and local bus services are fixed routes, with flexible routes a last resort due to their high costs per passenger carried and sharply reduced reliability if more than a few people start using the service. 

Their inability to efficiently serve passengers means that before you start fiddling with flexible routes a higher priority should be to reform fixed routes, as per the framework below. If flexible routes have a role it is a minor residual one serving certain special needs that justify the high cost per passenger. 

Just like in Rowville, the recipe in Lilydale is 'FlexiRide first'. 

It is being introduced while the local fixed route bus network is hardly changing.

Buses would become more useful and more reliable if the order of reform was reversed. 

Two concepts where regular routes were deviated or extended to throw coverage into areas currently served by Telebus (and would be served by FlexiRide) are mapped below: 

NETWORK 1

NETWORK 2

The pockets where any flexible route may be considered would get smaller if not vanish. This will result in a smaller and preferably zero proportion of buses being used for inherently indirect and inefficient operations. This should make it possible to deliver the most effective and economical bus networks to an area where service has long been substandard.  

Other network concepts worth exploring appear in 2010's bus service review for Knox Maroondah & Yarra Ranges. Only a few recommendations from that were implemented. 

Conclusion

On one level it is good that buses in the Lilydale area are getting attention. On another it's not the attention that would necessarily deliver the most efficient and economical service. 

This is because changes are being made in the wrong order, with flexible route services being adjusted without there being a review of fixed routes first.  Because the latter generally have higher boardings per bus hour (or potential for same) reforming fixed routes should be done first. 

Two concepts for fixed route networks that would lessen or remove the need for flexible routes have been outlined. Comments are appreciated and can be left below. 

See other Building Melbourne's Useful Network items here