The last round of metropolitan-wide reviews was done in 2007-2010 (review reports here). An embarrassingly large number of recommendations remain unacted on, though to be fair, not all were as direct, economical or efficient as I'd have liked. They should still however be used as a source for inspiration since some themes recur again and again.
Another round of bus reform was largely due to new and extended rail lines, most notably new stations at Williams Landing and Caroline Springs, Regional Rail Link for Wyndham Vale and Tarneit and the Mernda extension. Not built lines could also stimulate bus reform. Because if the cry for trains and trams was too loud to outright ignore, the government would improve buses instead. That led to upgrades for Burwood Hwy/Knox City, Monash Clayton/Rowville and Doncaster. Doncaster actually got two bites of the cherry, with the unsuccessful Manningham Mover being followed by the very successful DART SmartBuses just before 2010's state election.
The main cases of buses being reformed for their own sake happened on 27 July 2014 with significant reforms in Brimbank and on the Transdev network. These latter types of established area reforms are about the most cost-effective you can get.
Between about 2016 and 2021 the rate of bus network reform slowed. A new station in the middle of nowhere (like Caroline Springs) would still get a bus (as not having one would be politically embarrassing) but level crossing removals and new stations like Southland in established areas weren't enough to trigger reform. This is despite buses being the closest public transport to most Melburnians, some areas having a 30 year backlog in network reform and the low cost of many improvements. We stagnated while other cities (notably Auckland and Sydney) reformed their bus networks. Perth latest reforms will feed airport rail while while Brisbane may finally be stirring after an even longer sleep than us.
Network review areas
Back to 2022 Melbourne and consultation has started. 16 October is the deadline. Review areas in this pilot round include Melbourne's northern suburbs, Melbourne's north-eastern suburbs and Mildura. The Melbourne components would involve almost one-third of the metropolitan population so they're big chunks.
These are pretty wise choices. The northern suburbs has a huge reform backlog with a matted tangle of infrequent, dead-end and overlapping routes that rarely harmonise with trains. The north-east is also a logical inclusion. In between its popular direct SmartBuses are complex and infrequent local routes including the silly Manningham Mover that any good review would put out of its misery.
Other reasons why the north-east is an inspired choice include previous word of a network review with the north-east busway and it immediately abutting the northern area to the west. That should help with synergies as some routes that need reforming cross both areas. The Mernda rail line forms part of the border and the removal of level crossings may enable more east-west through routes, especially in the Reservoir area.
For regional Victoria Mildura is another good selection. While their networks are not without problems, other cities like Geelong, Ballarat, Bendigo, Warrnambool, Traralgon, Moe and Morwell all got network reviews all within the last 10-15 years so have relatively simple bus networks. Whereas Shepparton, Wodonga and Mildura badly missed out, with Wodonga also losing its CBD train station to a failed city centre redevelopment. Mildura is second only to Wodonga in having a messy bus network so is ripe for review. There may also be a political dimension since successive governments have said no to returning passenger trains to Victoria's most remote regional city.
Greater Dandenong is entitled to be disappointed that it wasn't chosen. With so many complex routes that don't run 7 days and high social needs, its bus reform needs are more compelling than other places. As an interim though it should get 7 day service, higher weekend frequencies and extended operating hours on existing routes. As a simple timetable upgrade possible by working the existing fleet harder it requires neither public consultation nor new buses. The increased service hours would then provide flexibility for a subsequent review to propose even higher frequencies on a simpler revised network.
Timing and consultation
Outlined here. Consultation finishes 16 October. Pilot consultation reports December. Then considering it in 2023.
Mildura has 5 in-person consultation events listed in September/October. No in-person consultations are yet listed for the Melbourne reviews.
An email address is given for questions; it's busreform@transport.vic.gov.au . That's a good feature. Too many organisations don't and just have a website form which doesn't always allow you to keep a copy of what you send.
You can do a survey online or by paper + post. What do they ask? There's 20 questions. Firstly they want your postcode and connection with the review area. For instance whether you live, work or visit there. And how often you currently use buses.
Following that are questions like whether you would use simple fast and reliable buses for what type of trip and destination. They also want to know times you'd be travelling, both for weekdays and weekends. You can tick as many boxes as you like here.
But you can't for the next question where you must select 5 out of 15 options dealing with things like walking distances, operating hours, frequency, connectivity and directness. This data could aid planning decisions such as to have a smaller number of direct and frequent routes versus a larger number of routes that are less direct but have shorter walking distances to them. That's reinforced by the following question that asks how long you are prepared to walk to a frequent service (longest option is 15 min or 1.2km).
To tease this out even further are questions that invite you to make trade-offs including walking distances versus frequency and a one-seat ride versus having to change. The latter is elaborated on further with a specific question about factors that would make changing more attractive (eg better frequency, information, shelter, etc).
All of these are general questions that ask about the approach to network redesign. They don't specifically ask whether you want a route between A and B or better coverage of C. But question 19 is a space where you can volunteer wishes if you want, with 20 being an opportunity to receive further information.
How will the information be used? DoT says that the information will help them understand peoples needs and preferences in their bus planning work. There is a clear preference by them (and it is hoped also by survey respondents) for simpler, more direct and more frequent bus services. Melbourne's north, north-east and Mildura are the pilot areas for this reform. A 'step change in how we can deliver improved buses' is also promised for the Doncaster busway opening in 2028.
Four bus route categories will guide reform.
* Rapid routes will be most direct and most frequent with on-road priority. Services could be turn-up-and-go with rapid running. Melbourne has very few of these types of routes with the weekend frequency of our high profile examples (the SmartBus orbitals) typically collapsing to 30 minutes.
* Connector routes will be the next level down. Still fairly direct and frequent. I would guess that reform will aim for most people to be within about 800m of these routes, and for them to carry the majority of bus passengers. In some areas reform could create more such routes by straightening or combining local routes.
* Thirdly there are less direct and less frequent local routes. Coverage is their main aim, though there might be cases where though they aren't strictly needed for coverage there is still demand for them to serve certain destinations eg local shops that rapid and connector routes don't. Most will be fixed, as now. But this category also includes FlexiRides, particularly in growth areas with incomplete road networks.
* Fourthly school routes would meet specific high school student needs the regular routes cannot. Note the specific wording 'high school'. This is either an observation that few metropolitan primary pupils actually do take the bus to school or that few should (as most have a state primary school within walking distance). If it's the latter there may be an unstated planner judgement that if it happens then parents should not expect the network to cater for small numbers making dispersed trips, especially if a one-seat ride is desired.
Specific frequencies are not given for the route categories. I said that they should when discussing Victoria's Bus Plan. Best practice (as articulated by the Network Development Plan - Metropolitan Rail) would be to have a multimodal network framework with trains and trams either very frequent or, failing that, operating to a 10 minute frequency pulse (maybe 20 min on branch lines or at quiet times).
Suitable harmonised bus frequencies would thus be 10 minutes for Rapid routes and 20 minutes for Connector routes. Local coverage routes would most often be every 30 to 60 minutes though there may be certain pockets of local high density or ridership propensity that justifies more.
It will be interesting to read the results of the review - hopefully there'll be some sort of published report like there was for the earlier reviews. For other things to compare against, or maybe to aid your own submissions/comments, I discuss many northern and north-east network reform opportunities in the Useful Network series that discusses opportunities for Connector and some Rapid routes. The Victorian Transport Action Group presented a more coherent set of ideas just for the north in 'Networking the North'. Or for an all of Melbourne perspective there is the Future Frequent Network whose interactive map includes not just Rapid Routes but also Connector Routes. All proposals can be compared with what we have now via the Frequent Network Maps or PTV's website local area network maps.
Making it work
Melbourne has had both successes and failures with bus reform. Point Cook, Brimbank and Wyndham in 2013, 2014 and 2015 clearly succeeded. Mernda, Cranbourne, Endeavour Hills and Cragieburn reforms can also be counted as successes. Transdev's 2014 reforms simplified services a lot. But partly due to weak consultation and its stand-alone single operator planning approach, their 2015 greenfields proposal had too many 'nasties' and was scrapped by the minister.
At an even bigger scale was the complete abandonment of Adelaide's radical reformed network in 2020. Read how Adelaide went wrong here. Perth treats bus review and reform as everyday business and has a better record of success.
Conclusion
These bus network reviews are welcome. Areas for the pilot networks have been well chosen. Bus reform is highly cost-effective that can deliver huge accessibility gains to the majority of Melburnians who live away from trains and trams.
While there are instances of overlapping bus routes where reforms can be done cheaply, there will still be some capital funding required to implement. When compared to big projects the amounts concerned are peanuts but without them upgrades can't happen.
There also needs more recurring operational funding - something that appears vastly harder than one-off capital funding to obtain. This is required to work our bus fleet harder all day and all week rather than current often restricted operating days and hours. Fleet expansion is also needed, especially in fringe areas.
Even in established areas I would expect the reviews to find instances where two or three extra buses here and there could have a transformative impact on the network. You might be able to squeeze 20 minute connector style routes out of reforming or straightening some 22, 24, 30 or 40 min local routes. But where you already have direct 15 minute frequency routes, getting them to rapid routes every 10 min where peak service isn't already at that level will require substantial new bus purchases (which will all be zero emissions from 2025).
There's also implementation capacity. When we compare the fast time it takes to remove a level crossing with the slow time it take to implement a single bus route (even a simple 'quick and dirty' layering over an existing unreformed network) it is clear that delivery capability within the Department of Transport needs to be beefed up massively (to be like the better resourced LXRP).
Otherwise little will happen and we risk a rerun of 15 years ago where only a small proportion of bus review recommendations ever got implemented. We have an enthusiastic minister now but reshuffles can change things. So there's a degree of political risk if bus reform and service expansion funding isn't locked in now.
Even though there's now a review process underway for Melbourne's north, I still think stakeholders and others should still be advocating specific service upgrades in this state election campaign. This is especially if they are (a) simple service upgrades to existing routes like Sunday service or boosted weekend frequency, or (b) frequency uplifts or new direct routes on grossly underserved corridors that a review would almost certainly endorse (think 508 east-west SmartBus, Coburg - Heidelberg MegaBus, frequent Chandler Hwy and Burke Rd links etc). I also wouldn't be waiting for a network review before boosting operating hours and frequency on existing routes where a strong social and patronage case exists, such as many in Greater Dandenong.
Comments are welcome below, especially if you've had experience of bus reform elsewhere working or not.
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