TT #154: Narre Warren's loopy 834 & 835 buses

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.  

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