This states the case for improved buses well. You can read the report and media release here.
They put the cost at $200m pa plus extra for neighbourhood type routes to serve local needs that the main frequent grid wouldn't always. This represents an uplift of approximately 30% compared to what is now paid to metropolitan bus operators (my 2023 budget discussion and links to documents is here). And there's a case for it to go further as its emphasis is on fully using the existing fleet with expansion costs, such as especially desirable for new routes in growth areas, not included (Footnote 69).
Course Connection is what you might call a high level document without a lot of detail on what a new network might look like. For example it doesn't have a specific network map, though it cites ideas from here and elsewhere. It would likely be something between a metropolitan expansion of the more theoretical UoM Western Bus Plan concept and my more pragmatic Future Frequent Network.
All up it would be a big step forward for buses in Melbourne. Having said that the authors are aware of pitfalls of bus reform, including examples of failures eg Adelaide whose post-mortem I wrote here.
ABC Radio Melbourne phoned me for an interview on the day of the launch. It starts 6:32 in or hear it here.
The CfM funding ask is substantial. But then so are the benefits. A reformed bus network across Melbourne will increase passenger numbers by more than projects we think of as being big like the Metro Tunnel or the full Cheltenham to Werribee Suburban Rail Loop. Sooner and for less cost too.
It's not a matter of bus versus rail. The latter can only justify its investment if mass numbers can reach its stations. Which from most directions means space-efficient access modes including excellent intersecting bus routes. These need efficient through rather than terminating style of operations to adequately support the denser 1.6km radius sized centres envisaged by the Suburban Rail Loop project. Also the short travel times projected for projects like the SRL can inspire people to consider how to speed buses on other important orbital corridors thought less suitable for rail, at least in the shorter term.
Progress in Melbourne's public transport in the last few years has been 99% infrastructure builds versus 1% service. While economic conditions like recent low interest rates favoured the former, our extreme skew is not inevitable. Sydney, which has the same interest rates as us, got a better balance with significant frequency upgrades across all modes (that in some cases like evening trains are now double ours).
Melbourne's service is now so behind Sydney's (especially evenings and weekends) that we're overdue for a catch-up. And inequalities within Melbourne are now acute with the most diverse and/or lowest income areas left with the least service despite having some of highest needs and most productive routes.
Bus network upgrade and reform, along with similar investments in off-peak Metro and inner V/Line train frequencies, should be the centrepiece of public transport investments in the next decade or more. This would help clear multi-decade suburban service backlogs that are holding Melburnians back from achieving their dreams and weakening Melbourne's economic competitiveness and liveability more generally.
The Committee for Melbourne's message on the importance of public transport service couldn't be clearer. The state government should heed it and start planning the 2024 and future budgets accordingly.
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SmartBus is apparently as good as it can get in Melbourne, labelled as tram-like in frequency and hours of operation. Would be nice if there was a complete bus reform before I turn my namesake's number.
Yet, SmartBus timetables are less frequent than the very worst of our tram timetables e.g. trams only drop back to (an unusable) half-hourly timetable on Sunday nights; even flagship route 96 can't escape the half-hourly wait (meanwhile trams running empty along the 58 on Toorak Road past all the Mercedes', Lamborghinis, Bentleys and multi-million-dollar mansions get 20-minute services, go figure). Naturally, Night Network is also inferior, with Night Trams running half-hourly with Night Buses (and trains) running hourly along with cutting the routes short (e.g. the 900 starting from Oakleigh instead of Caulfield, and the 901 only running along the old route 665 between Ringwood and Dandenong).
Unlike trams, SmartBuses are half-hourly in the mornings, at night, throughout the entire weekend, on public holidays, and stop running three hours short if the calendar happens to read Sunday, and the aforementioned hourly Night Bus timetable. Only the DART routes received a minor timetable shakeup, leaving the orbitals with a long-outdated timetable that wasn't even up to scratch when they first started over 15 years ago.
It might be an unpopular opinion, but to me route 902 is the perfect example of what the absolute *minimum* standard for a main road bus route should be in Melbourne, with the 902 having a useless half-hourly timetable in the early mornings, at night and all weekend, every 15 minutes during the day with no real peak increases, an untouched Sunday timetable since gaining its route number 15+ years ago (9PM finish unlike the DART SmartBuses and several other reformed ex-Transdev routes as shown below) and no Night Network services.
The 902 is seemingly a SmartBus only because it has electronic signage, not because of its timetable. If SmartBus meant frequent timetables, why aren't actual premium bus routes like the 200, 207, 216, 220 and 246 (among others) labelled as SmartBuses? Even the 402 meandering through the back streets of North Melbourne, past lonely Macaulay station, through Newmarket to the industrial side of Footscray has better services and longer operating hours than SmartBuses despite having a weak eastern terminus at St Vincent's Hospital and serving nothing of substance except the shops around Newmarket and Footscray stations.
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