Tourists like travelling in circles. They want to see as much as they can before they return to base. Those wishing to get from A to B prefer going straight, as close as possible to how the crow flies. But if you miss your stop on the 834 / 835 pair you will be going the scenic way, ending up where you started about 80 minutes later.
834 and 835 are pretty much identical routes. Both are single directional starting at Berwick. Thus if you get an 834 to your destination you need the 835 coming back. And vice versa. 834 is the anti-clockwise version while 835 runs clockwise. Having differently numbered loop routes means that there are two route numbers to memorise. Also buses are less able to display destinations useful for passengers.
Both routes connect the Pakenham line stations of Berwick and Narre Warren with homes several kilometres north and south of the line. As well both serve the massive Fountain Gate Shopping Centre and its adjacent civic hub. This is just before Narre Warren Station on the 834 and just after on the 835.
No ordinary passenger would ride the full or even half a loop. Unless they were going to Fountain Gate most would ride a quarter or less of it. This is because as soon as it gets a quarter way around another station is closer. The main exception are where a bus has just been missed but a sooner bus is available if you alight at Berwick instead of Narre Warren (or vice versa) and get the bus the long way around in the opposite direction.
PTV’s single route/single mode map is below:
Area profile
Narre Warren is a lower middle class suburbs popular with those with trade qualifications. Berwick is more ‘middle class’ with ‘Old Berwick’ highly sought after. Housing is predominantly detached, ranging from modest project homes to ‘McMansions’. Car ownership is higher than lower income closer in suburbs like Doveton and Dandenong. Local MPs include Luke Donnellan (Narre Warren North) and Gary Maas (Narre Warren South). Both are Labor with Donnellan retiring later this year.
Narre Warren and Berwick form twin hubs with different purposes. Narre Warren is the shopping and local government hub (being the seat of the City of Casey) while Berwick has sought after health and education facilities (including private schools and a university campus). It also has historic buildings and ‘main street’ shopping and dining. One of the strengths of the 834/835 is that everyone in its large catchment has single bus (albeit indirect) access to both centres.
Berwick started as a village on the highway, serving passing traffic and the surrounding rural area. Both it and Narre saw most residential growth during the 1980s and 1990s when planning street layouts for efficient bus routes was not much of a design consideration. Instead the aim was for heavy traffic to be on freeways and main arterials across which walkers were (often physically) barred from crossing. Walkers were to remain strictly within neighbourhoods whose curvy and disconnected streets would restrain driving speeds. Buses sometimes ran for those without cars. However they weren’t always there when people moved in and services often remained infrequent and indirect decades afterwards.
If you were lucky main roads would get relatively frequent SmartBuses running long hours. However they rarely penetrated outer suburbs. In Narre Warren and Berwick’s case the nearest SmartBus route is at Dandenong, about 10 kilometres to the west. Melbourne added its last SmartBus route in 2010 and we’ve grown by about a million people since.
There have been subsequent bus upgrades but they have tended to be more modest. More recent of these have involved local networks serving Hallam, Cranbourne and Endeavour Hills, still well to the west of Narre Warren and Berwick. Significant reforms happened about 10 or 15 years ago but its pace has slowed in the more established areas, with recent emphasis shifting to newer areas like Clyde North. Hence there’s like a leapfrog effect with areas like Narre Warren being ‘passed over’ despite these too also needing reformed buses.
You can see where the 834 and 835 fit in relative to the broader network below.
834 & 835 largely serve areas between the main north-south roads. Although the main roads themselves don’t necessarily have strong serving offerings, with the exception being 893 on Hallam Rd (which got simplified and upgraded with 2016’s Cranbourne changes). Narre Warren – Cranbourne Rd has the 841, a direct route at lesser frequency, while Clyde Rd has many buses but none individually frequent.
Timetable & service levels
Route 834 and 835 almost but not quite operates to minimum service standards. This includes 7 day service at least hourly to 9pm or later. Weekday interpeak and Saturday daytime frequency is 40 minutes on each route while an hourly service operates on Saturday evenings and all day Sunday.
Peak frequency is about every 20 minutes with some gaps nearer to 30 minutes. This higher peak frequency runs over an unusually wide morning and afternoon spans (5 – 9am and 3 – 9pm). This aspect makes the 834 and 835 unusually good for outer suburban buses despite its off-peak frequency being the 40 – 60 minutes normally encountered.
Weekend mornings are the main areas that have been skimped on. Saturday morning frequencies are as poor as 80 minutes, with some 70 minute gaps on Sunday mornings. Part of this may be due to the inefficient length of the route which make it difficult to schedule an exact hourly service without wasteful layovers.
Weekend start times are also below par with the first Sunday trips on both routes arriving at Berwick after 10am. Early weekend mornings is one time of the week that transport planners have historically underestimated demand. The result has been that some local bus routes introduced in the last five or ten years commence their weekend service an hour or so earlier to reflect this.
As far as I can tell the 834 and 835 loop started in about 2007, replacing other routes. For a long time they operate at frequencies incompatible with trains. Where you had trains every 30 or 40 minutes trying to meet buses every 40 to 60 minutes the result was long and inconsistent waiting. Since then Pakenham and Cranbourne train line service upgrades has improved frequencies except for Sunday mornings and weekend evenings which remain infrequent. Also bus frequencies were adjusted to harmonise connectivity with trains.
The future
Loop routes are good at providing coverage and one-seat rides, often at the expense of directness and legibility. They may be a means to provide service to a new estate but as areas develop they need to be reviewed. We haven't had such a review to routes like the 834 and 835 in years.
Possibly the simplest approach could be to keep operations and timetables the same but renumber routes when they reach Berwick and Narre Warren so that the loop presents as two linear bidirectional routes. One could be 834 Narre Warren to Berwick (north side) while the other could be 835 Narre Warren to Berwick (south side). This would simplify the service with regards to information on destinations etc. However through-running could be preserved so that 835 trips arriving at Narre Warren from the South could continue as Route 834, thus maintaining a one seat ride to Fountain Gate, a locally important destination. Such through-running was part of the design of the successful 494 and 495 pair in Point Cook when these routes commenced in 2013.
Longer term a more comprehensive reappraisal of the network is needed, especially in the Narre Warren South area. This is to provide better east-west access to Lynbrook station and shopping centre as well as simplify services on Clyde Rd. Solutions may involve breaking up the 834/835 loop and/or amalgamating parts with other routes.
Main roads with development around them now exist that weren't there when these routes were introduced. This might strengthen the case for a Wyndham-style two tier network with more frequent service on them and local routes in between. Concepts for this were discussed here and here. Again this has implications for 834/835, designed when train frequencies were lower and frequent buses were inconceivable in the area.
What do you think should be done about the 834 and 835? Should it be left as it is or is reform needed? And what about its timetable? Comments are welcome and can be left below.
4 comments:
The 380 of the southeast, but without the bonus of an 11PM finish. Jack of all trades, master of none. At least the weekend timetable is slightly better than the 380 though.
The 380 parallel is very apt. But oddly, unlike the 834/835, it's got only a single route number for both directions. That must make its use even more confusing. And the 380 was a backward step in that it replaced two simple linear routes.
The "Berwick Circle" turns 20 this year - it was introduced as 840 on 5 August 2002.
The original 840 from Cranbourne to Berwick evolved over the '80s and '90s, and from December 1998 it ran as an irregular Fountain Gate - Timbarra - Berwick - Brentwood route - https://web.archive.org/web/20010628043915/http://www.buslines.com.au:80/cardinia/840.shtml
Hampton Park, Narre Warren & Berwick gained a new bus network in August 2002, as part of a large suite of modest upgrades across numerous south-east routes and suburbs, headlined by the Blackburn Rd & Springvale Rd SmartBus services.
The new network improved coverage to several estates built in the '90s along with noteworthy weekend span upgrades - instead of lunchtime Saturdays finishes, some routes now continued until 8pm-9pm Saturdays plus skeleton Sunday services were introduced on two key
routes - 840 (every 2 hours) & 841 Narre Warren North - Cranbourne (every 90 mins).
The 840 Berwick Circle concept extended coverage to estates off Ernst Wanke Rd, introduced buses to parts of Narre Warren South and Berwick Springs, while continuing to service Timbarra. It also absorbed parts of 841 west of Narre Warren North Rd plus the Mansfield St section of 827 from Hampton.
2003 840 timetable - https://web.archive.org/web/20031215092224/http://www.buslines.com.au:80/cardinia/840.shtml
Note how the hourly interpeak timetable was stretched with after school loadings, with nasty gaps of 75 mins plus experienced nearing Berwick.
Loop services in outer areas were in vague in this period, with Werribee and Hoppers Crossing gaining the similarly numbered Route 440 in January 2002 - https://web.archive.org/web/20020803094009/http://www.kefford.com.au/440.shtml
840 service was renumbered as 834 & 835 in June 2007 when minimum standards span was introduced (840 was later recycled on the Pakenham - Gembrook run in 2010). Mentioned here - https://www.busaustralia.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=22883
Weekday frequencies were then upgraded in April 2008, but runtime changes resulted in lumpy weekend frequencies - https://www.busaustralia.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=30888
The most recent review of Narre Warren-Berwick bus network was implemented in December 2010, as part of a wider $4.8M package implemented across the outer south-east - https://www.busaustralia.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=52742 & https://www.busaustralia.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=56203
834/835 were altered to operate through Warrenwood, allowing 841 to travel direct along Narre Warren-Cranbourne Rd, but making the 834/835 more convoluted and slower. Introducing a separate Fountain Gate - Warrenwood feeder route would be an alternative, alas with a cost.
The last change of note occurred in July 2014, when the weekday interpeak was dropped from 30 min to 40 min headway, harmonising with 20 min trains being introduced to Pakenham. The daytime kilometres saved were spent extending the 20 min PM peak frequency from 7pm to 9pm. As noted here - https://www.busaustralia.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=78313&start=25
Timely to raise these routes for a Timetable Tuesday review - during the recent Clyde Rd level crossing grade separation works in January and February, both routes operated differently then usual.
834 ran in both directions north of the line to Fountain Gate, departing from the usual Berwick interchange
835 ran in both directions south of the line to Fountain Gate, departing from Kangan drive & Clyde Rd in Berwick
From my limited observations the 834 still formed an 835 at Fountain Gate (& vice versa) and still ran to the usual timetables. It seemed to me they took this approach instead of the less concise "835 departures and 834 arrivals would be relocated to Clyde Rd"
As a temporary measure, it only sought to cause additional and unnecessary confusion during the works and created issues with next departures in the PTV app.
While it's true trips were not able to continue in the same direction at Berwick, in reality few trips are actually scheduled as true circle through Berwick anyway. Narre Warren South residents are often forced to change buses in order to travel to/from Berwick Shops, while Timbarra residents can not rely on a one-seat ride down to the TAFE/uni stop or further south along Clyde Rd.
Varying runtimes and frequencies at different times of day probably means this issue will remain unresolved without reform (one simple idea below).
Splitting the route on the western circumference can occur at either Fountain Gate or Narre Warren Station and could cause new legibility issues if its not clear to passengers - for instance, someone at Fountain Gate looking for an 835 home to Narre Warren South might not realise they need to catch the "834 Narre Warren".
While stop flags and route index board could have a note "Continues as 835 to Berwick via Narre Warren South", passengers still have to judge two numbers in their head, so unclear if there are any benefits.
A better fix might be to completely split the routes and run independently as:
834 Beriwck - Narre Warren via Timbarra and Fountain Gate
835 Berwick - Fountain Gate via Casey Central and Narre Warren (potentially extended to Berwick Main St during shopping hours)
The duplication is only 1km and modest costs could be worn if it allows benefits such as improved train connectivity - at present a morning bus has to try to meet City trains at Narre Warren and then Berwick in the same long orbit.
Later on 835 would be reviewed in more detail along with changes to neighbouring routes in Narre Warren South and Berwick Springs. A further split into different routes at Casey Central would be likely.
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