Sunbury, the home of The Ashes, is a long-established settlement about 40km north-west of Melbourne. It was there when Melbourne suburbia stopped at Sunshine. Locals think of it as a town with its own history and civic pride. It, like Melton, was dubbed a satellite city in the 1970s. Residential growth for a while was substantial.
However growth in the last couple of decades lacked the explosiveness of areas in Melbourne's outer south-east, north and west. Neither has Sunbury yet merged with areas further in such as is fast happening now with Melton. Nevertheless its separate identity has still been challenged by local government amalgamations and commuting patterns which see many of its residents commute long distances outside the town.
Like how Keilor became part of Brimbank, 1990s council amalgamations lumped proud, insular and monocultural ‘old Australian’ Sunbury into a new big and multicultural City of Hume. This did not sit well with some Sunbury elders who sought to restore local control by seceding from Hume with their own council.
Much the same people were wary about (if not opposed to) rail electrification, preferring less frequent but more regionally-associated V/Line trains that they considered better suited Sunbury's self-image. Metro Trains were seen as slower, less staffed (no conductors), dirtier (a fact at the time) and less comfortable. The situation was resolved when (with minor exceptions) government plans to bar Sunbury people from boarding V/Line trains to and from Melbourne were scrapped.
Sunbury’s urban structure is simple. It comprises a single CBD near the train station. Residential areas surround it in a radius of about 3 or 4 kilometres. There are no major destinations like shopping centres away from its CBD. This is different to polycentric towns like Melton, Bacchus Marsh and Werribee where multiple rail and shopping hubs exist within 2 or 3 kilometres.
Sunbury’s monocentrism makes for a simple star-style radial local bus network. Six short feeder routes (481, 485, 486, 487, 488, 489) leave the station, go out to their termini then return to the station in time for the next train (typically 40 minutes later during the day). Routes are designed for coverage rather than directness with some having loops at the end. A network map is below.
The remaining two routes, and the only ones that leave Sunbury, are the 479 to Airport West via Melbourne Airport and the 483 to Moonee Ponds. These are infrequent daytime only services. The relative stand-aloneness of Sunbury’s bus network makes it quite isolated if train services are not running.
Service levels
Metro trains to Sunbury run every 40 minutes during the day, 30 minutes at night and as frequently as every 12 minutes during the peaks. Buses on all six routes harmonise with these, with a 40 minute minute daytime service and a 40 – 60 minute evening service. Route 485 and 486 run more frequently in the peaks (about every 15 to 20 minutes). The routes are each a similar length and their timetables are similar to one another.
No Sunbury route fully meets minimum service standards, that is hourly 7 day service to at least 9pm. But the six local routes come close. The main discrepancy is weekdays where the last buses leave Sunbury station at a little after 8:30pm. This compared to nearer to 9pm on Saturdays and Sundays. Sunday service commences a little late with the first trips arriving at Sunbury well after 9am.
History and service upgrades
Route 481 was Sunbury's original town route. It started in 1982, replacing an un-numbered service. There were north, south and Goonawarra routes. A feature (not unusual in the past) was that last buses for the day continued until the last passenger had alighted. Thus they could not be reliably caught for inbound trips.
On 4 September 2006 Routes 481, 485, 486 and 487 were part of the first tranche of routes to gain Sunday and later evening services under a comprehensive minimum service standards upgrade program (Peter Batchelor's Meeting our Transport Challenges).
Sunbury’s bus map has changed little in the last 10 or so years. Arguably network reform here is less urgent than in many other places due to Sunbury’s relatively low population growth and single centre. Any reformed network would likely look similar to now except for some minor coverage and directness improvements.
Timetables and service levels though have not been stagnant. In 2016 frequencies were made more consistent on all six town routes rather than have large gaps during school times. Route 485 and 486 also gained a peak frequency boost to every 15 - 20 minutes (quite good for a Melbourne outer area). This reform, that also involved changes to school bus routes, cost-effectively delivered a much improved service. It also more than delivers on a 2014 Labor promise just to upgrade Route 486. Later, extra trips were added in 2018.
Sunbury's success demonstrates how planning school and regular routes can interact. School routes that duplicate public routes may not deliver the best overall service, especially where high peak bus requirements can cause long gaps in timetables (particularly during peak times).
It can be counterproductive to separate the planning of school buses from regular routes as this may prevent synergies as were achieved in Sunbury. This is an opportunity cost the Department of Transport needs to consider in how it arranges planning. Inefficiencies here are particularly pernicious as they may contribute to poor bus vehicle utilisation, substandard service and even expensive purchases of new buses that are not strictly required. The lesson is that if you want the best possible network with the best possible frequencies you can't afford to ignore school buses, regardless of administrative 'silos'.
No comments:
Post a Comment