Greater Dandenong area bus route productivity vs 7 day service

As I noted in How Dandenong got short-changed on buses, Greater Dandenong has some of Melbourne's most productive bus routes but the lowest proportion with 7 day service. 

Dandenong got less than its fair share when metropolitan buses were last majorly upgraded 15 years ago. And, despite high usage of the routes that do run, service stagnation remains today. Possibly due to the area having no politically marginal seats and/or the current government favouring infrastructure over service in its transport spending. 

This approach rewarded state Labor in 2018 and 2022 but is not sustainable long term. Even ignoring infrastructure's rising construction costs and interest bills, a neglect of basic services (not just in transport) bodes poorly for Labor long term as its eroding primary vote causes more of its traditional safe seats to be decided on preferences. 

Politics aside, let's talk in more detail about the productivity of Springvale/Dandenong area bus routes. I'm using passenger boardings per live service hour statistics for Spring 2022 as discussed here. One of the big trends was the relative (and also often) absolute rise in the importance of weekend travel despite timetables remaining stagnant, or in Dandenong's case, service sometimes not existing at all.

The numbers are below: 

I've excluded very long routes with the majority of their sections outside Springvale/Dandenong (eg 811/812, 828, 901) to keep the focus regional.

This leaves us with 12 routes. All listed happen to be in the top 50% of weekday boardings per hour for buses in Melbourne, with the first four in the top 20%. On weekdays all do as well if not better than the average bus in Melbourne. Most are above average on weekends too. 

Let's discuss them one by one. 

Route 800 tops the list on weekday and Saturday productivity. This is really not surprising - the 800 has all the ingredients of a top performing bus route including directness along a major highway, good residential catchment and lots of jobs including it serving or passing near SE Melbourne's biggest employment hubs at Chadstone, Monash University Clayton and Dandenong. Whether you use weekday or Saturday productivity figures, Route 800 is Melbourne's busiest bus route without Sunday service with only a two hour frequency on Saturday afternoons. Hence boosting its weekend service is top priority for the #Fix800Bus campaign. 

Route 814 is second ranked on weekdays. If you look at it on a map you wouldn't think it had much hope as it's incredibly indirect. It starts in the back blocks of Springvale South, runs into Springvale, then east across to Waverley Gardens and then south to Dandenong via Noble Park North. No one would ride it end to end. But its the sort of catchment that you could put any sort of bus in (even if only hourly) and large numbers would jump on board. Its weekend service is even sparser than the 800 with only a few trips on Saturday morning operating. 

Route 813 ranks third on weekdays. It's another route that you wouldn't ride end to end. However like 814 it serves key destinations including Dandenong, Springvale and Waverley Gardens. Weekend productivity is higher than weekdays. This is attributable to both its strong catchment demographics and that people will walk longer to it on evenings and weekends because other routes like 814 and 885 are barely operating then. 813 is the area's most productive weekday route to have got 7 day service about 15 years ago. 

Route 885 between Glen Waverley and Springvale is another strongly performing route, especially on Saturdays. Its Saturday patronage performance is so good that it's the third most productive Saturday route lacking Sunday service in all of Melbourne. That's important because Sunday usage is almost 1:1 correlated with Saturday usage meaning that if Sunday service is added there's a high chance of it being a top patronage performer then as well.  Parts overlap the 902 on busy Springvale Rd. Both termini are active on weekends. And it has some unique coverage in parts of Valewood. On paper this might not look enough to matter but the pedestrian hostileness of Springvale Rd would encourage those east of it to walk to the 885 if service is running when they need to travel. 

Route 850 connects the important centres of Glen Waverley and Dandenong via Dandenong North. The catchment includes significant low income housing in the Gladstone Rd area. It is the second most productive (on weekdays) route to have got minimum standards upgrades. The catchment demographics and the absence of 7 day service on the nearby 802 and 804 help to explain why its weekend service is more productive than weekday service (though all are above average). Route 850 has enough ingredients (including strong termini, directness and catchment) to be a more frequent cross-regional route operating (say) every 20 minutes or better 7 days. 

Route 802, 804, 862 are three roughly parallel routes between Chadstone and Dandenong via Oakleigh, Monash and Mulgrave. They are unnecessarily complex with varying timetables across the week. For instance 802 (despite significant unique coverage) is 5 days per week, 804 is 6 days per week (dropping to 2 hourly on Saturday afternoons) while 862 is the trio's only 'minimum standards' 7 day route. The latter contributes to 862's high Sunday productivity. Scope exists for some network reform but the highest priority should be 7 day service (even if only hourly) on all routes. The 804 ranks as No 4 (in all of Melbourne) as a high productivity Saturday route lacking Sunday service. Like the story about it being wrong to estimate demand for a bridge by the number of people swimming across, we can't use this metric to assess 802's likely Sunday usage because it doesn't run on Saturday either. However 802's weekday patronage productivity is only a little below 804's and the 802 arguably has more unique catchment that would benefit from 7 day service. 

Route 844 is the shortest route of the lot, connecting parts of Doveton with Dandenong. It is a coverage style route with a weak eastern terminus. Operating hours are short because, like nearly half of Dandenong's buses it missed out on minimum service upgrades. Usage is somewhat above average as part of its catchment is unique and demographics are favourable for buses. Again it justifies Sunday service given its reasonable Saturday productivity (ranking 14th in all of Melbourne out of residential area routes that lack Sunday service). 

Route 857 a longish route but is included as it provides important Dandenong South industrial area coverage. Very low Saturday usage due to both its catchment and its short (3 hour) span on Saturday mornings. Unless your stay is very brief you are battling to make a return trip due to this. Its usage and even productivity is likely to improve if its operating span was improved on Saturdays. And there's some residential area catchment that justifies a basic Sunday service. 

Route 816 the newest route introduced to extend coverage to Keysborough South. Runs minimum standard service. Part of its catchment is in an area with many parallel routes, reducing its productivity somewhat. 

Route 848 Dandenong to Brandon Park Shopping Centre. Serves parts of Noble Park North but other parts overlap other routes. Just falls in top 50% of routes but the lowest on the list with its weak northern terminus (Brandon Park instead of Glen Waverley) not helping. However it does provide minimum standards 7 day service with a flat hourly frequency. Much of it parallels Route 814, providing a 30 minute weekday frequency on the overlap. This would extend to 7 days if the 814 was was given extra Saturday hours and new Sunday service.

7 day gaps mapped 

The first starting point for a basic legible 'always there' bus network is that every stop should have a 7 day service with service at least hourly until say 9pm. While not a high threshold, this was the 'safety net' criteria behind 2006's MOTC minimum service standards. This got implemented on roughly 70% of bus routes across Melbourne (more if you exclude specialist peak, industrial and university routes) but only 53% of routes feeding Dandenong station. 

How does the lack of 7 day service in the Greater Dandenong area look like on a map? Below I've plotted only the unique coverage portions of non-seven day routes. That is if another route that runs 7 days serves the same stops then the the non-seven day route's line is interrupted. 

Most graphic is the Princes Hwy corridor due to the limited service on Route 800. The gap between Blackburn and Springvale roads is due to the 631 which runs 7 days (but to destinations different from the 800). 

802 and 804's part-week service create similarly large gaps in large parts of Wheelers Hill, Mulgrave and Dandenong North. The latter's low income Gladstone Rd corridor gets only the hourly 850 on Sundays due to 804 not running then. Also a substantial area east of there lacks any weekend service due to 802's 5 day timetable. 802 and 804's sparse timetables also mean that Dandenong Hospital gets a far inferior weekend service to what it should have. 

814 also ranks due to its second-ranked weekday patronage productivity and significant unique coverage. While the route itself is roughly 400m away from the parallel 7 day 848 in the Noble Park north area, a significant catchment west of Jacksons Rd is significantly further.

Other smaller (but still productive) weekend coverage gaps would be filled if 844, 857 and 885 gained 7 day service. 

I should point out that just because there's a gap in the line does not mean that it should be ignored. Eg 800's gap on Princes Hwy is near the dense high-rise M-City which also has the 631 on a section of Princes Hwy. However this is only every 40 - 60 min on weekends and goes to different destinations. So a boosted 7 day Route 800 on this section is in no way duplicative despite sharing some stops.

Similarly the strong propensity of people in the Dandenong area to use buses (driven by demographics) means that notwithstanding some overlapping coverage catchments all routes are likely to have above average  patronage productivity even if they all got 7 day service. On local routes like 802, 804 and 814 you might start with 40 to 60 min weekend frequencies on the existing alignments with potential future network reform boosting this to 20 to 30 min on reformed routes in areas like Dandenong North and Noble Park/Keysborough for little extra cost. The latter would lead to a simpler overall network but has a more complex implementation process than getting everything to a basic 7 day service first.   

Summary

All the Dandenong area routes listed are above average productivity. They should all have 7 day service but only half of them do. However this data could help inform priorities for campaigns such as #Fix800Bus which directs effort to routes whose improvement would benefit the most people. 800 is right at the top but cases exist for the rest with 814 and 802/804 ranking highly on usage and catchment grounds.