'Big service' upgrades turn 10

Ten years ago today the biggest single recent upgrade to public transport services across Melbourne happened.

A broad package of reform lifted service on Melbourne's busiest train line, restructured bus routes west, north and east of Melbourne, boosted bus connectivity to Melbourne Airport and simplified trams. 

Little was made of it at the time but nothing quite so widespread has happened to public transport services since. 2015's Regional Rail Link and bus reforms were huge in Geelong and Wyndham and Night Network revamps in 2016 and 2021 were significant at certain times, but the 2014 changes touched more passengers in more areas.    

Official memory of 27 July 2014 is likely limited for two reasons. Firstly, DTP is led by road engineers who undervalue even their own achievements in public transport and, secondly, the upgrades occurred under the previous government (whose party successors, now in opposition, rarely publicly refer to their time in government, even the achievements).      

However noting this date and events is essential to preserve memory of what can be achieved with the appropriate will and leadership. And to ask why we aren't doing anything on this network scale now. 

Background

First some historical context. These upgrades happened under Public Transport Victoria. This was set up a couple of years previously to be about public transport service. Not roads. Not infrastructure. Public transport service. Significantly, all its leaders (Dobbs, Wild and Weimar) had experience running public transport operations (all ex-UK, with Dobbs also previously here). 

Major 7 day bus service upgrades happened about five years previously but money for many more had slowed. Instead government interest was on getting rail failures off the front pages. Previous transport departments, preoccupied with franchise and ticketing issues, stood passively while reliability plummeted from 2003. Network organisation was fragmented and there seemed no accountability. The then Brumby government eventually acted on rail but was too late to benefit, with the reliability rebound happening in 2012-2013, well after their defeat in 2010.

An ABC report of the 27 July 2014 service upgrades is here. It was sold as 'nearly 4000' new services per week, of which 3260 were bus, 470 tram and 200 for metropolitan train. A news release from premier Napthine is preserved here . The PTUA's Daniel Bowen praised the changes, saying that if they gave us a package this significant every year, the government would be kicking goals. (spoiler: they didn't - but we did get a lot of infrastructure)

So what got done on this momentous day a decade ago? Here's a summary: 

V/Line trains

Ballarat and Bendigo trains started using the new track built as part of Regional Rail Link on their route between  Sunshine and Southern Cross. This meant separation from metropolitan services but them not stopping at North Melbourne. The bigger part of RRL, the new alignment from Geelong via Tarneit accompanied by transformed bus networks, commenced service the following year. 

Metropolitan trains

The big news here was the upgrade to interpeak Pakenham and Cranbourne line services. Services on the end of the lines went from every 30 to every 20 minutes with a 10 minute combined frequency inbound from Dandenong. As weekends had already been upgraded to this level in 2012, this gave Dandenong a daytime turn-up-and-go service, matching the Frankston line which had got this previously.

The timetable change also included some minor peak additions on the Dandenong and Frankston line as well as a simplified Frankston line pm shoulder peak pattern. Archives of PTV advice on that, including a downloadable brochure are here. 

Despite Melbourne adding nearly an Adelaide to its population in the last decade, nothing since has approached the Dandenong line's interpeak service upgrade on the Metro rail network. This is even though: 

(i) a similar Belgrave/Lilydale weekday interpeak service upgrade would be very cheap to do with political benefits for marginal outer-east seats

(ii) growth area lines like Craigieburn and Mernda are short-changed with double the waits of the frequent but non-growth area Frankston line despite higher patronage productivity 

(iii) there are no rolling stock or infrastructure barriers to cutting maximum waits at all but a few metropolitan stations from 30-40 to 10-20 minutes

(iv) Sydney has far outpaced Melbourne with a large suburban rail frequency boost in 2017 that cut their waiting times to half ours for important times that people travel. Perth has also improved its service.  Both cities' typical 15 minute frequencies are two to three times better than Melbourne's still widespread 30 to 40 minute gaps.   

Coinciding with the Regional Rail Link commencement, there was to be another transformative Metro train timetable change in 2015. This did not proceed, with the government worried about the reaction from Frankston line commuters and its infrastructure agenda taking centre stage. However it wasn't completely forgotten with worthwhile elements of it successfully introduced in January 2021. Anything else has had to wait for the (as yet unannounced) timetable associated with the Metro Tunnel.   

Metropolitan tram

This involved the splitting of the Route 112 tram into separate Route 11 and Route 12 services to add capacity to growth area CBD fringe areas including Docklands. 

There was also a simplification of the network with part-time routes like 24, 31, 79 and 95 being folded into full time routes. Background to this on the PTV website here.  

Transdev bus network reform

Global bus operator Transdev gained the right to operate the Melbourne Metropolitan Bus Franchise in 2012. Comprising Melbourne's longest and busiest bus routes, their network comprised routes from the previous Melbourne Bus Link franchise, the National Bus franchise and the three SmartBus orbitals. Admittedly these were made from positions of vested interest, but industry claims that this would lead to falling standards proved accurate, with skimping on vehicle upkeep culminating in a major fleet safety crisis in 2017.   

Having said that Transdev (who will soon be back running our trams) did do some good things with buses before we dumped them. Including timetable and network reform, which I'll explain below. 

While the Bracks / Brumby government reformed bus networks in many regional Victorian cities and greatly increased bus operating hours in metropolitan Melbourne, the pace of metropolitan bus network reform was still quite slow. Detailed consultants reports, grouped by local government area, were commissioned but only a small minority of reform recommendations got implemented. 

Still, the need for bus network reform was well known. So when it offered the Melbourne Metropolitan Bus Franchise the (then) Coalition government required that the successful plan a greenfields bus network. However there was some confusion with the same government setting up PTV, which was supposed to be a one-stop-shop to bring together various public transport functions including network planning. 

Transdev's network reform got divided into two steps. The first and generally less controversial (but still significant) changes happened ten years ago today. The emphasis was on simpler and more frequent routes with fewer duplicative overlaps. Multi-route corridors that may have had 3 or 4 routes were cut down to 2 routes. Notable areas where service was simplified include around Sunshine West, Fishermans Bend, Clifton Hill, Kew, Doncaster, Blackburn and Ringwood. However the three very long, resource-intensive and sometimes duplicative orbitals remained on their current alignments. 

The changes had to be pretty much cost neutral. So some corridors got fewer buses per hour than before, with peak overcrowding sometimes the result. Overall though the network was simpler with more corridors that ran every 10-15 minutes or better off-peak. There were also some weekend operating hours and frequency gains.

It wasn't all in the direction of simpler and better service though, with the complex Route 380 loop replacing the simpler 366 and 367 at Ringwood/Croydon. Also operating hours on orbital SmartBuses were reduced. A fuller description of what got changed is described by BCSV here.   

Transdev's more radical 2015 network, which did include orbital reform, was planned but did not proceed. Public consultation was poor, there were a lot of nasties in it (especially for Melbourne's north and west) and the new Labor government did not like it. So then minister Jacinta Allan (possibly correctly) ditched it completely, with the full story here. A lack of follow-up meant that buses entered another stagnation, despite large reform backlogs remaining. However 2019 saw reforms to Transdev's cross-city Routes 216, 219 and 220 along with gains for popular routes in 2021.  

The subsequent bus franchise (lost by Transdev/won by Kinetic) did not include a greenfields network requirement, with it being clear that planning was to be done by PTV/TfV, DoT/DTP in-house. 

Brimbank bus network reform

This was a network developed within PTV. It originated when there was funding for a small peak upgrade to one route that was getting overcrowded during the peak time. PTV pointed out, and then minister Terry Mulder accepted, that it was possible to not only deliver the funded upgrade but also wider network changes. This sowed the seeds for the new Brimbank bus network, the first and largest component of which commenced ten years ago today. 

Reform was economically possible because the area had bus routes that overlapped one another and had weak termini. Not all ran seven days. These could be thinned out slightly, made more direct, extended to logical termini and operated 7 days. The result was a more useful and very cost-effective network upgrade whose fifth anniversary got this write-up. Brimbank's demographics, social needs and bus network issues are closely matched in Greater Dandenong but the latter has yet to get commensurate 7 day bus network reforms.    

Airport bus network reform

Public transport to Melbourne Airport has long been talked about as a joke, and it's not just been discussions about our lack of airport rail. Buses from surrounding suburbs can be pretty lacking, especially for a precinct with so many jobs. 

The biggest single breakthrough in bus access came in late 2010 when the 901 SmartBus orbital commenced service. It connects suburbs across the north, including Broadmeadows, Roxburgh Park, Epping, South Morang and Greensborough to Melbourne Airport. However direct service to other surrounding destinations, such as Sunbury and Airport West, remained terrible with complex irregular timetables with multi-hour gaps. 

The latter changed (somewhat) ten years ago. Route 500 to Sunbury was deleted. So was the one trip on each weekend days that ran from an unmarked stop in the CBD to a closed asylum in Sunbury. Overlaps with trams and other buses got removed. These (and possibly some extra) resources were put into boosting the 478 and 479 to operate a simpler service. As a result Airport West now has buses every 30 minutes on weekdays and 60 minutes on weekends to the airport. Sunbury has an hourly weekday service, though weekend service remains sparse. Operating hours are still quite short, so the new arrangements don't suit everyone. But it is an improvement from the previous complex network. 

Wyndham bus network upgrades

The big Wyndham bus network upgrades happened when Regional Rail Link started in 2015, bringing new stations to the area at Tarneit and Wyndham Vale.

However the 27 July changes rolled out 7 day service to all routes and extended operating hours on some. More here. 

South-East Melbourne bus timetable changes

These changes coincided with the Pakenham/Cranbourne line frequency upgrades discussed above. Most were to coordinate with the new train timetables and/or reflect more realistic run times. However there were some new routes and frequency upgrades on existing routes, notably in the Berwick/Cranbourne area. As well the common section of routes between Dandenong and Endeavour Hills increased from every 12 to every 10 minutes on weekdays, harmonising with trains. 

Most of the changes were positive. However changing 802/804/862 from every 45 min each (providing an even 15 minute spacing) to every 40 minutes each (providing an uneven spacing) in theory harmonised with trains but meant a lumpier combined timetable over the route's lengthy common section from Chadstone to Mulgrave. It would likely have been better to stick to the old 45 minute frequency and put any spare resources into improving the abysmal weekend service (which has not had a trip added in the decade since). 

The most significant cut occurred to a most unexpected route - the busy Route 767 between Box Hill and Southland via Deakin University and Chadstone. This was downgraded from every 30 to every 40 minutes interpeak. This should never have happened due to the route's strong usage. Several years later this was reversed with 30 minute service restored. And, funded in the 2022 budget, the 767 gained a lift to every 20 minutes, with smaller improvements on weekends. 

More on these changes here.  

Conclusion

Ten years ago today we had a substantial multimodal lift to public transport services like we've never seen since. 

Its execution shows that we have been capable of this type of service improvement in the past, and hopefully will become so again in the future. 

In public transport infrastructure without service is useless, so it's important to work what we have as hard as possible. 

20 tested tips on taking credit, passing the buck or making nothing happen in transport

Project running over time and over budget? Treasury says no but you want to be seen to do stuff? Or at least not get embarrassed if you don't? 

Because heaps of political hopefuls, hacks and hangers-on read this, here's some tips to spin your way home until safely after your next election victory.  

1. Cool a hot issue by releasing an unfunded plan. Post tiktoks with trains, blogs with bikes or even Facebook with ferries. Whatever you do just get it in the media to shift the conversation. Getting the general sentiment from the government doesn't care to I think they're trying is a huge win. Leave the specifics to a later implementation plan if you're scared about being held accountable. Oh, in unrelated news, Victoria's Bus Plan came out three years ago last month.   

2. Fold a failed smaller plan into an even bigger plan. Doing a bold reset is a great trick if your smaller plan is getting stale with few runs on the board. That bigger plan can be sold as being more comprehensive or holistic as you background media on the smaller plan's limitations. In transport use words like integrated and multimodal and say the new plan is a product of a more sophisticated understanding. Don't worry about its cost; I'll deal with that later. 

3. Open the process for public consultation. A great way to buy time while be seen to be listening.  Transport Planning 2.0 is all about replacing old-style top-down with bottom-up imagineering that meets people where they are at and addresses the zeitgeist's suspicion of unresponsive 'we know best' bureaucracy. The full process requires at least two rounds of workshopping, collating sticky notes and reporting back, adding a handy 18 months to your charade. You might even be able to just drop it if enough people forget. Suddenly the 4 years between state elections doesn't seem so long. 

4. Shove an expensive project off to an expensive public-private partnership. All you need to know is that PPP means AAA. They are great instruments if you really must be seen to be building something while keeping the state's credit rating. PPPs are financing tricks that keep big borrowings off your books yet you still get the credit for what gets built or operated. Plus it provides another unaccountable outfit to blame. If you think that smells fishy you're wrong; it's more like diesel fumes as any Southern Cross Station user knows. 

5. Establish a task force or call an inquiry. Doing this indicates humbleness, not the first trait that necessarily comes to mind with politicians and staffers, especially someone ambitious and talent-exuding like yourself. Spending taxpayers' money on something like high speed rail is a serious affair that requires proper deliberation and the best possible advice from experts in the field. After all Rome wasn't built in a day. Questions can then be deflected to the inquiry. 

Getting someone known to be lukewarm to the idea to head the inquiry is a great money-saving tip  as it could save you from having to build it at all. One of those 'pricing makes all problems go away' economist wonks from Infrastructure Wherever or the Grattan Institute would have been perfect. Sadly Grattan closed its transport unit but its alumni still lurk.

The other trick is to recruit the highest-profile outside advocate. By making them a house-trained enthusiast for 'change from within', you are mending bridges, winning hearts and blunting opposition. A master stroke all round, whether anything gets built or not! 

Just don't play this card too often, as the one-term 2010-2014 Coalition government found to its cost through its ultimately inconsequential reports on Rowville, Doncaster and Avalon rail. 

6. Offer to fund only 50%, with the other half dependent on federal government funding. You cannot lose from this. If the feds cough up you can still take the credit. If they don't then you've kept your money and can blame Canberra for ignoring your state. This works especially well if the federal government is the opposite party to you or is otherwise on the nose. You can play the same trick with local governments for smaller scale projects. With the added benefit that if things get acrimonious the state government can just sack the council (or arrange party stooge candidates for October's elections). 

Involving a major private sector stakeholder can add even more fun. Especially if said stakeholder (a) wants the project to be gold-plated, while simultaneously (b) having a vested interest in the project not proceeding (they might be the state's biggest, most profitable and monopolistic car park operator for example). The result is a stalemate that suits everyone important as you, the state government, can use the money otherwise while blaming others.  

7. Invent fairy godmothers with names like 'private sector investment', 'venture capital' or 'value capture'. That can make up funding shortfalls for mega projects. Or at least raise enough confidence to get government funding past the point of no return (even if the private deal falls through). This is the 'sunk cost theory', an apt term given the especially high costs of tunnelled transport projects. See also TBTF. 

8. Use organisational restructuring as a shield or excuse for delaying projects. Any seasoned bureaucrat will tell you that you must get the structure right before you can deliver anything. And have the right people. Because directly sacking people is difficult (and opens agencies up to challenge), restructures that achieve much the same effect by spilling positions are arguably better. 

This works best if you provide an assurance that the project is still alive by setting up a dedicated agency named after it to convey  hope, urgency, focus and, most of all, an impression of progress. Second best is to shuffle some of your people into a departmental project team that matches key words from your unfunded plan.      

9. Co-opt community groups' language to show you're listening. If a vocal community group calls themselves 'Rail Revival' then, as a canny operator you could do worse than rebrand your program  as 'Reviving Rail'. Don't have new money? Just reallocate existing staff and funding for now. Then you can leverage off the political pressure from the community group to justify your budget case for genuine new funding next year ($500k can buy a scoping study, some long lunches and even a study trip). 

 

10. The ferry good solution. If your big problem is road or rail congestion that involves billions you don't have to fix, brief journalists that you're planning modes like ferries, hot air balloons or electric helicopter taxis to relieve transport pressures. These are guaranteed for a bold front page to make you look forward thinking. And because hardly anyone understands their capabilities, it matters not that they are slower, lower capacity or less reliable than conventional bus or rail options.

As for winning friends and influencing people, no journo would turn down an afternoon on the Yarra riding a test ferry borrowed from a political donor. Especially if it's a sunny spring Thursday before Grand Final Friday and Parliament is disgorging the season's dismal annual and auditor-general reports which they'd otherwise be stuck poring over.    

11. Make it cheap, not good. Australians are cheap dates. Or at least that's what the politicians think. And cheap (or better still FREE!) is what gets the tongues twitching and the headlines happening. Even though in transport the evidence from revealed preference (as opposed to stated preference) is that better service gets higher patronage per dollar spent than cutting fares. 

Without the lead times for building infrastructure or even boosting timetables, cutting fares is a 'quick fix' power move the political class loves. Even if it doesn't necessarily politically work. For example two dollar fares didn't much help the Victorian Liberals in 2022. And Queensland Labor doesn't seem to be benefiting from this year's 50 cent pre-election fare bribe. Victorian Labor's 2022 regional fare cap promise might have won them some votes. But if you're a tired government or inept opposition then fare gimmicks won't save you. 

12. Call for private sector expressions of interest. Good for a quick headline and some amazing AI-inspired animations. Even better if you can persuade a respected former premier or party elder to 'take one for the party' by being a credibility-enhancing special adviser to a hastily-assembled private consortium. Artful dealing involves playing the 'commercial confidentiality' card to limit public scrutiny and thus embarrassment. Some might be tempted to pull this trick if there is a critical by-election but public faith in anything coming from such schemes is now rightfully low, as various bygone fast rail and airport transport schemes attest. 

13. Promise something and then overshadow it with a bigger promise. On 9 August 2018 then premier Daniel Andrews promised a tram to Rowville.  On August 28 he promised the much larger Suburban Rail Loop. The SRL got people talking. The government has started SRL work with gusto. However it ignored the Rowville tram, with this being just the latest in a long list of previous broken promises regarding public transport in Knox. Masterfully this has had no electoral impact, with 2022 being even better than 2018 in terms of eastern suburbs seats won.  

14. Use kids to inspire their parent voters. Examples include family fun days, colouring-in books, model trains and competitions. These add to the goodwill and excitement around a project. The memories this generates when some of those kids become politicians 30 years later is priceless. 

15. Release another plan to shift priorities. Melbourne was going to get 4 orbital SmartBus routes according to its 2006 'Meeting Our Transport Challenges' plan (MOTC). Then the trains started failing and political urgency shifted to rail with population growth and patronage pressures. Eddington reported. Shortly after the Victorian Transport Plan came out. This was generally much bigger than MOTC but it cut the 4 orbital bus routes to 2.7, with these all being operational by the end of 2010 along with major Doncaster area bus upgrades. These have proved successful and probably weakened community calls for rail. This didn't save the Brumby government but they lost by only a small margin and were back in 4 years.     

17. Scale things down or spin them out. First cut a big project into smaller chunks (geographic naming like north, south, west and especially east can work well). Only intend to fund one segment. Then make it a demonstration or pilot project, with no commitment to fund others. Or, if you are really hard-up just budget funds for a feasibility study (year 1), planning work (year 2) and initial preparatory works (year 3). That buys the better part of four years before you need to find substantive funding for construction. But you can still share Instagram animations unabated from the start so you get two elections' value from the one project. Any longer though is counterproductive, as anyone from Melton will say about their promised hospital. 

18. Go gold plated. That's good to make a big media splash and shift the narrative, especially if that dinky distributor you took to the election hardy made a splash. Spend big on promotion and say we only deserve the best. That may just happen to be a 'shovel-ready' unsolicited tunnel bid from a consortium (preferably 'known' and 'sound' by virtue of it engaging, say, a former ministerial adviser) with cool animations just one Facebook share away.

Pull this trick early to assure industry that it's 'business as usual' if you're a new government. Or consider it late if your tired administration is polling unsalvageably bad three months before an election. Since you'll lose you won't need to deliver. But showing vision might moderate your loss. It's like 'pump and dump' for shonky stockbrokers but for policies.

19. Do the rebundle trick. You have a plan for B that's struggling, since it was a 'plan for a plan' that was released without funding. But you were always going to do A as business as usual stuff that was anticipated even before the B plan came out. Provided that A is at least tenuously related to B you can rebundle what you always intended for A as being pursuant to implementing B. And thus the plan for B lives (albeit in name only).  

Another ploy is to spread the name of one of your popular marginal seat projects to an area that's getting indignant. For example, who thinks that there's no better name than 'SRL West' for a Werribee line electrification extension to Wyndham Vale?   

20. Use the right numbers to tell your best story. Project running over time or, like the >$100m spent on Hoddle St, doesn't look like achieving its aims? Maybe it's blown its budget? Don't worry. Wear its inflated cost with pride, saying it's an investment. Or point to the number of jobs it's 'created' (even if  temporary, casual or part-time labour hire stuff).

A rail infrastructure upgrade might have led to just 8 trips per weekday being added to the timetable. That can look pretty small. Fear not. Multiply it by 5 for a weekly total, 21 for a monthly figure or 250 for an annual number. All of a sudden you are into the thousands, without having to do any more work! 

No one with power seriously cares about benefit cost ratios, but low figures do cause commentariat chatter and help those out to smear you. If your $10 billion project's benefits looks low add some 'wider economic benefits' to jack up the numbers.  Adjust discount rates or use a different baseline. 

Downplay alternatives, or dismiss them as pointless if the project is settled government policy. Throw in $100m of walking and cycling measures to give it greenwash cred, lift the BCR and blunt opposition. Never recalculate if the project cost blows out and avoid benefit realisation audits on completed projects. That's about all that's needed as most journalists (and opposition political staffers) are arts graduates who failed maths at school.  
 

Conclusion

These 20 tested tips to do nothing for less will not only help you spin to survive but impress your colleagues and keep you on top. This is highly virtuous because nature abhors a vacuum. Every moment that you are not in power is a moment that the wrong people are. 

By being around to read this you've already shown what you're made of, valiantly working through Melbourne's bleak midwinter, keeping tabs on who's in with whom, and making every day a career climb. Not like some of your shirking colleagues wasting state parliament's month off for, at best, overseas 'study trips', meeting people in positions irrelevant to their future while the real pros stay home scheming.   

Just keep this a secret and you will go far. After all, you don't need to be particularly good, just better than your rival at the time, OK?  

More power tips are welcome and can be added in the comments below.  

TT #192: 7 day buses in Noble Park North for almost nothing?

Two months ago I asked what's next for improved buses in Greater Dandenong. The Fix800Bus campaign had just succeeded in winning budget funding for 7 day buses on Princes Hwy's Route 800 but six other Dandenong area routes remain on limited 6 day (or less) timetables with no funding committed for their improvement. 

Routes 802 and 804 looked next in line because of their high usage and connectivity to major destinations including Dandenong CBD, Dandenong Hospital, Monash University and Chadstone. Network simplification involving the related Route 862 could also make a 7 day upgrade involving them trivially cheap.

Route 814 - a very limited service

In third position was Route 814, which is mapped above. No one would travel on it from end to end. And most of it overlaps other routes (which do run 7 days). However Route 814 serves some busy destinations including Springvale, Waverley Gardens and Dandenong. It also has significant unique coverage on Jacksons Rd, Noble Park North as well as a lesser area in Springvale. Its timetable is limited, with hourly service between Monday and midday Saturday and nothing outside those times. 

If you were designing a local bus network you would never have a route like 814. Whether it's indirectness, a weak terminus, overlap or low frequency, it's a poster child for most things wrong with buses in Melbourne. Its alignment and schedule have lingered for decades with past network reviews being ignored. 

Despite that Route 814's patronage is above average, largely due to demographics with high social needs and a propensity to catch buses. Thus the argument to add even a basic 'minimum standards' 7 day service is strong since we know it will get reasonable use.

If the opportunity to upgrade an existing imperfect route to seven days exists then you'd take it without asking too many questions. Most of the 2006 - 2010 Bracks-Brumby government MOTC 7 day upgrades were like that and saw significant patronage increases. Area bus network reviews, in contrast, are less likely to happen but can deliver bigger gains over a wider area for a given annual service kilometres budget. 

A third way, short of a full network review, could be reforming just one to three routes, with a view to having all run seven days. In areas where multiple routes overlap that can buy a basic 7 day service to all neighbourhoods for much less than upgrading an existing unchanged route. Route 814, especially where it has unique but underserved catchment in the Noble Park North area along Jacksons Road, is a clear candidate. 

Unlike the 802/804/862 corridor, there is no one obvious reform that could simplify the more complex and less direct Route 814. Instead there are several approaches, each with pros and cons. I'll outline a few below, starting with a straight 7 day upgrade on the existing route as a reference.

No option uses more buses than now, though the cheaper ones won't work the fleet as hard over the week. The live bus hours are based on notional timetables prepared for each option versus existing service hours. 

Option 1: Unchanged Route 814 upgraded to 7 days

This leaves everything as is except for inserting extra evening and weekend trips in the hourly Route 814 timetable to deliver 7 day service until 9pm. 

Cost: +3500 live bus hours/year (for context that's about 10hrs/day, mostly weeknights & Sunday)
Pros: Simple timetable upgrade only / retains higher weekday frequency near Dandenong 
Cons: Dearer than other options / does not reform network

Option 2: Shorter Route 814 upgraded to 7 days

Shortens route by terminating at the area's nearest station at Noble Park instead of backtracking to Dandenong, forming a requested local link. Coverage of all but two stops on Oakwood Av is retained via Route 848 (which runs 7 days). The main trade-off is that removing the common 814/848 section reduces weekday service frequency to Dandenong. However areas near Princes Hwy will gain from the Route 800 7 day upgrade. Also as the new Route 814 is shorter a 7 day upgrade becomes cheaper. An hourly 7 day service until about 9pm is envisaged, meeting minimum service standards.  

Cost: +2200 live bus hours/year (ie cheaper than just upgrading existing route)
Pros: New feeder for Noble Park station, speeding many trips / gain for Springvale South / lower cost
Cons: Reduces frequency on portion currently shared with 848

Option 3: 813/814 through-routing

Concept seeks to reduce Route 814's overlap with other routes but deliver increased frequency in Noble Park North. Trips are operated as a through service with a number change at Springvale in conjunction with Route 813. The Noble Park station terminus from Option 2 is retained.

The map shows Route 814 deleted south and west of Springvale. However scope may exist to reroute 811 and/or 824 to retain service at most stops. Unlike Route 814 both these routes operate 7 days. The small section of Police Rd the new 814 misses retains adequate service from other routes including 631 and 848. Some single bus Springvale trips from Noble Park North are slowed by the bus operating via local Mulgrave streets (unless both ends of Hansworth Street can be joined). However, unlike now, the revised route offers a much faster trip via a change at Noble Park Station. 

Most notable about this network is its economy. This allows it to run cheaply if resources are tight, or frequently if the priority is to make full use of the existing fleet. Three service options could be as follows: 

* Bronze: Every 40 min weekday/60 min weekend (ie similar for 813, better for 814) 
* Silver: Every 30-33 min peak/40 min weekday/60 min weekend (better for both)
* Gold: Every 30-33 min peak/30 min weekday/30 min weekend/long hours (much better for both)
 

Cost: Bronze -400 / Silver +650 / Gold + 8200 live bus hours/year (excl any 811/824 increases)
Pros: Large frequency increases / simpler network / potentially very low cost
Cons: Reduces frequency on portion currently shared with 848 / Some Springvale trips slower

Option 4: Existing Route 813/extended Route 816

Another fairly economical network that permits some frequency increases. Retains current Route 813 between Dandenong and Waverley Gardens. The Noble Park North portion of Route 814 is covered by a northern extension of Route 816. This provides a new north-south Keysborough South - Parkmore - Noble Park - Waverley Gardens connection in an area currently without one. That's a significant gain as so many more local trips are possible with no or one change of buses rather than two. Issues with the Springvale South and Dandenong ends of the 814 remain as per the previous option.   

The 30 minute peak/40 minute interpeak weekday frequencies on both routes provide a better overall service than now. For example 813 gets lifted from every 40 to every 30 minutes during peaks while 816 and part of the current 814 go from every 60 to every 40 minutes interpeak. Weekend service remains at hourly on both 813 and 816 but the latter's extension north brings new 7 day and early evening service to Noble Park North.  

Cost: +2800 live bus hours/year (excluding any 811/824 increases)
Pros: Significant frequency increases / addresses 816's scheduling inefficiency / moderate cost
Cons: Reduces frequency on portion currently shared with 848 / may slow some Springvale trips

Option 5: 704/814 merger

The removal of level crossings should trigger a review of bus routes that could potentially benefit from fewer delays at boom gates. But in practice this almost never happens. One unreviewed example is the Route 704 bus from the busy station of Clayton terminates at the (much quieter) Westall Station (having been extended a short distance from the historic terminus at the former Volkswagen factory). Such a terminus leaves a section of busy Centre Rd without any bus. Meanwhile, a short distance to the east, the 814 overlaps many other routes to Waverley Gardens and then others on Springvale Rd. 

Despite a recent upgrade giving it more generous service levels than most Dandenong area local bus routes, the 704 is not a strong patronage performer. This could partly be attributed to its Oakleigh end overlapping other routes and a weak eastern terminus. 

Option 5 below merges the 704 and part of the 814 into a single Oakleigh to Noble Park route serving a lot of medium sized destinations. Most notable is a new direct connection to Clayton Station from Waverley Gardens (discussed in UN48 here). And, like some of the other options above, there is a new connection to Noble Park station. The route's 40 minute weekday/60 minute weekend service is somewhat lower than the existing 704 but better than the current 814, presenting a better match to patronage. 

While these are still not great frequencies, this option sets the network up for further reform. For example the direct portion of 814 east of Clayton station may make a good candidate for merging with 824 west of Clayton and a potential frequency increase in view of its directness. The loose end created for Keysborough's 824 could then operate to Oakleigh as a neighbourhood style route. 

Also notable from the map below is the alignment south rather than east of Oakleigh. This has a major benefit as it frees the very popular Route 733 from a back street coverage duty. Without this constraint the 733 could be extended further south to serve Clarinda, Southland and perhaps Sandringham as a Suburban Rail Loop precursor SmartBus. 

Cost: -270 live bus hours (excluding any 811/824 increased km required)
Pros: Fixes 'missing link' / potential to assist wider network reform / very low cost
Cons: Reduces frequency on portion currently shared with 848/requires change for Springvale 

Summary

Cost is sometimes used as an excuse to explain why we can't have better services like 7 day buses in more areas. However there are parts of Melbourne with overlapping bus routes that if simplified could allow services to be spread over all days of the week for basically no cost with certain trade-offs. 

I have presented a straight service upgrade option for Greater Dandenong's Route 814 and compared it with four options that deliver 7 day service to Route 814's catchment via different network reforms. No one of them is going to please everyone. However some open the door to higher frequencies, simpler networks and new direct connections that should have gains that outweigh the losses. 

There are no doubt more options and needs for further simplifications and upgrades not discussed here. Better than hourly service for Route 811 between Springvale and Dandenong along Heatherton Rd,  all week 20 minute frequencies for high performing routes like the 813 and improved connections to the Monash precinct all spring to mind. 

Comments are welcome and can be left below. 

* DANDENONG BUS ADVOCACY: The #Fix800Bus campaign is now #FixDandyBuses, reflecting the new focus on other routes since the Route 800 upgrade got funded. Follow us on Facebook here.

Index to Timetable Tuesday items here

Competing visions: The battle for Bay Road

Anyone in transport needs to read (now Dr) John Stone's PhD thesis Political factors in the rebuilding of mass transit: an investigation of failure in Melbourne since 1970 through comparisons with Perth and Vancouver written in 2008. 

It's long but there has been no more detailed account of the oscillation of transport policy in Victoria for the 40 or so years to 2008. And I do think that 'oscillation' rather than 'progression' or 'development' is a fairer description.  

One thesis theme is that there has been a constant battle between (i) dispersed car-based and (ii) more clustered multimodal public and active transport planning visions in policy and bureaucratic circles. Different sections of state/provincial and local governments can emerge to champion one or the other at different times. 

Varying influences

The thesis describes toing and froing between competing institutions like the Country Roads Board/Vicroads, Melbourne Metropolitan Board of Works, Victorian Railways as well as certain transport ministers in detail. For example it describes the modal narrowness of the tramways and railways leadership of the 1970s and early 80s and their replacement with roads-background leaders heading The Met.

Ideas, and where they sit, are important. Mass automobility found a comfortable (and increasingly influential) home in the Country Roads Board/Vicroads/Linking Melbourne Authority. Other concepts, including those supportive of clustered land uses, walkable centres and public transport, also found homes in other organisations over the years. Indeed you could argue that ideas are enduring with history being an account of where they sat in various places and the influence they carried.     

2012's creation of Public Transport Victoria put those with operational experience of public transport at the top of public transport for the first time in years, with leaders Ian Dobbs, Mark Wild and Jeroen Weimar (all British). PTV's notable achievements included improved rail reliability, greenfield train timetables and accelerated bus network reform. Its main failure was weak contract supervision leading to Transdev's bus fleet management crisis in 2017.  

PTV's life as its own entity was short-lived. Restructuring a few years later put the roads people back in charge. Firstly the folding of PTV into a larger Department of Transport and then, in 2023 the folding of planning into the even larger Department of Transport and Planning (DTP). The latter is headed by roads engineer Paul Younis with public transport network planning overseen by another roads engineer in Will Tieppo. I count this a failure; public transport in Victoria has been unable to breed its own leaders for at least 40 years, and those it had before then were found wanting with a single mode focus (possibly for the good in the case of Sir Robert Risson). 

Paradoxically, as DTP got bigger it has also got weaker; matters it gained oversight of were not current  political priorities. DTP couldn't even convince the government that even a little of its bus plan was worth funding in either the 2023 or 2024 state budgets. Possibly not helped by history with Treasury and DTP's predecessor bodies having poor reputations for policy advice in top Labor circles.  

Hence, while it can claim more influence than Infrastructure Victoria, DTP has sometimes looked like a sidelined 'B-team', waiting for the government to throw crumbs their way. On this it had a recent win, gaining some limited-term GAIC funding for growth area buses. But otherwise the government is more invested in its massive 'Big Build' program for which it has set up various well-resourced project bodies as its 'A-teams' in the transport space. 

One of these is the Suburban Rail Loop Authority. For a while we have been told that the Suburban Rail Loop is more than just a transport project. Rather than providing additional car parking (which is a low-value land use for a middle suburban station) the SRLA has a vision of dense housing and jobs around its stations. In theory this is the sort of 'integrated transport and land use planning' that planning academics and others have wanted for years. To strengthen this the state government has declared SRLA as a planning authority, with power taken from local councils. 

Councils

Councils have not been happy. The City of Bayside has been encouraging residents to comment on the Suburban Rail Loop with signs near the project, such as this one at Highett. Statements like "This includes increased housing density, traffic congestion, and a squeeze on open space and infrastructure" would stoke such concerns. 

Highett (and the precinct around SRL's proposed 'Cheltenham' terminus) straddles two local government areas. A few metres from the above sign is that below from the City of Kingston. Its wording is milder. Kingston don't mention the SRL by name but it is clearly meant by 'other state government projects in the area'. 

Let's get back to competing visions for Melbourne.

SRLA is taking the clustered, denser, transit-oriented view that challenges the open road, free parking  and socially expensive model of unconstrained automobility. Its station precincts are arguably the inheritor of the district centres in the Melbourne Metropolitan Board of Works' Metropolitan Strategy of 1981.  

To generate the patronage needed for SRL to be worthwhile access to stations must be via the most space efficient means possible from multiple directions. While some will always wish to drive, their expectation of a car park (preferably free all day) crowds out higher value land uses, including housing, shopping and community facilities around stations.

Also, before they crowd themselves out to a position where no transport mode is any good, more cars in a precinct reduces safe direct active transport connections and slows buses. Both can deliver thousands of passengers per day to SRL stations in a more space efficient manner than if everyone drove.

It's worth noting that even if SRL stations lack non-disabled parking, there will remain substantial parking available at  the several dozen other stations on lines that feeds the SRL. It is for the benefit of those who need to park and ride (as well as thousands of other passengers) that bus/tram/Metro/SRL connectivity must be short, direct, safe and sheltered at all stations. Attention to connectivity also means frequent all week/all day feeder services and excellent active transport links. If these are not done then SRL and its suburban centres will fail.  

Bay Road

One major connection for SRL's 'Cheltenham' Station is Bay Road from the west. Not least because it is the most direct corridor to Sandringham, which some people have suggested that the Suburban Rail Loop should have extended to. I have also suggested the use of Bay Rd as a Route 733 'SRL SmartBus' from Box Hill to Sandringham via most of the SRL stations. 

SRL's vision for Bay Road is contained in Attachment B - Urban Design Strategy in its EES. Page 61 of this says:

Complementing improved crossings of Nepean Highway and the existing Frankston rail line, Bay Road will be transformed to better service pedestrians and cyclists travelling east west, and new and improved crossing points will be provided for people travelling north south. 

That's a big change from current conditions which you can see below.  

Where SRLA is arguably lacking is detail for buses. Eg their vision could have included a map of a notional feeder bus network including reformed, more direct and frequent routes. Bay Rd stands out as being a candidate corridor. Which has implications for the design choices here, including its width. 

What about Bayside Council? In their published agenda for the 23 July 2024 council meeting they have advanced a different vision for Bay Rd, including a resumption of private land to expand the two lane section. This widening induces traffic and lessens permeability for walking, including across uncatered for desire lines such as near Aldi. However it is consistent with Council's SRL precinct vision submission. 

Bayside council seems to be retaining a 'car traffic first, everything else last' arterial road vision for Bay Rd, with cyclists pushed off to less direct and legible paths for their east-west travel. That could induce more driving, especially given that most people who own bikes also own cars and thus have transport choices. It also has consequences for access to the SRL station and connectivity to local destinations like Southland. The item before the council meeting doesn't mention a strong role for buses, or the possibility of a lane being for buses only. However the council has said other things about buses, for instance advocating for higher bus frequencies in its 2016 advocacy statement and 2018-2028 Integrated Transport Strategy. 

A 'no net loss of car parking' preference, which has contributed to significant vegetation clearing and impaired active transport connections at some level crossing removal sites, also apparently applies in the City of Bayside. They say that mode shift to active transport (as required by their own 'Climate Emergency Action Plan') 'cannot occur overnight nor by consequence of removing car parking'. When greater flexibility on parking is essential to many active transport improvements being implemented. Which are proven successes in encouraging mode shift in a surprisingly short amount of time. The expansion of shared paths in some LXRP projects has increased local cycling, for example. 

Given the apparent desire to expand roads and defend existing car parking, the City of Bayside appears to lean towards the 'more cars/more roads' camp. It is perhaps fortunate for them that some key attractions for their residents (eg Southland Shopping Centre and the 'Cheltenham' SRL station) are over the border in Kingston where the parking consequences of their Bay Rd widening stance become someone else's problem.  

Time will tell as to which vision for Bay Rd will prevail. 

UN 179: Comparing public transport service trends across cities

Back in March I mentioned that Melbourne's busiest public transport modes were in a per capita service decline. We were adding people but were not adding service at anywhere near the same rate. 

In April I cited research saying that service provision was lagging apartment builds. 

May saw a comparison with Sydney. The two cities are going in opposite trends. We're adding population faster than they are while they're adding public transport service faster than us. The gap is so wide is that their waits for public transport are now often half ours, especially at night. It will widen further if there is not a transport service agenda commensurate with our housing targets. 

And earlier this month the Climate Council report on PT services documented the big differences between Sydney and Melbourne in their population's access to frequent public transport. 

How do we compare with other cities and how have they trended over time? 

While snamuts.com is most known for its maps showing relative public transport service and connectivity within metropolitan areas, it also has some handy comparisons between the bigger cities in Australia and New Zealand. These include metrics like public transport service per capita and the proportion of people and jobs that are walkable to public transport that exceeds a defined service standard (every 20 minutes weekdays, 30 minutes weekends). Furthermore these numbers are recorded at various times over the last 15-20 years so you can get an idea of trends. 

Graphing service trends

The first thing I did was to make separate graphs of six cities (Adelaide, Auckland, Perth, Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney). These have years across the bottom (noting that not all cities have data for all years). 

The lower line (blue) is service intensity of service kilometres operated per 100 000 residents. This does not discriminate between modes, so all are weighted the same. The source numbers appear at the ends of the SNAMUTS service intensity bar graphs for each city and year. A city that throws a lot of service kilometres across the metropolitan area rates highly here. However a high service intensity does not mean that the service kilometres are efficiently deployed (although if they are not then the scope for cost-effective network reform is highest).   

The red line comes from the network coverage metric. As noted above this is based on a frequency standard set by SNAMUTS that is considerably higher than the 'minimum standards' that transit agencies might set (eg service every 60 minutes or better). Transit agency records might thus rate a network's coverage as being 90% of an urbanised population while SNAMUTS numbers for the same network might only be 40% due to its higher threshold. 

Inspect the graphs below. Click for the clearer full size version. Discussion to follow below. 

Adelaide has been relatively steady. Partly due to its lower population and service growth than the other cities. However its service intensity (blue line) is relatively high, again much assisted by its low population growth. This is because faster growing cities have to add a lot more service each year just to stay still. That's not always happened (eg Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth).  

Where cities have added growth area bus service on their expanding fringes these are typically routes whose frequency does not meet minimum SNAMUTS standards (red line). So again it's a struggle for cities with a lot of suburban growth to hold their own unless (a) they add frequent service in growth suburbs and/or (b) they add people and jobs in established well-served areas. 

Auckland is in complete contrast to Adelaide. It has added population AND service massively. Not only that but, largely due to bus reform that added a 15 minute frequent network, it has increased the proportion of people and jobs near a minimum service from the lowest to higher than all but Australia's two largest cities. 

Both Melbourne and Perth have somewhat similar patterns but Perth's percentage growth in service has been higher, starting at a low base. It's a bit like Auckland in this regard. It has overtaken Brisbane in service intensity but not (as of 2021) on the minimum standard criterion. However since 2021 Perth has opened a new railway to Airport/High Wycombe, reformed its eastern suburbs buses and is about to open its Yanchep line extension (again with a new bus network) so may now be equal if not ahead of Brisbane on this measure too.  

Melbourne came off a very low service base in 2006, largely due to its (then) terrible bus network. Major improvements had been made by 2011, with more in some subsequent years. However its population was growing strongly, leading to a service per capita decline. Growth in population and jobs near SNAMUTS minimum standard services can be largely attributed to SmartBus roll-out (in 2006-2011) and CBD jobs growth along with intensification around trams in the period to 2016. Since 2016 service growth has been insufficient to keep up with jobs and population growth due to Allanism's favouring of big infrastructure builds over service.  

Sydney had a drop in service per capita and then a rebound. It has consistently been higher than Melbourne. This is attributable to a strongly pro-service state government and lower population growth than Melbourne. The population near minimum standard of service is high and rising due to both these factors and network extensions including the Metro. 

On the one graph

Below is the same data (plus a bit more) overlapped for easier comparison. This allows you to better compare the service performance of various cities. The bracketed number is the number of public transport trips per capita for the latest available year. Again click graph to enlarge.  

Though there's only two data points, Auckland's progress is conspicuous. Perth and Melbourne also made significant strides between 2006 and 2011. As noted before Melbourne and Sydney have gone in opposite directions since 2016, with Sydney adding service per capita and Melbourne reducing it. Melbourne's continued (slow) growth in the percentage with minimum service since 2016 can likely be attributed to apartment building in the CBD and near tram lines more than actual service growth.  

Very roughly the higher the service intensity the more likely people and jobs will have better than minimum service levels. You might think that having a high proportion of the latter creates the conditions required to increase per capita usage given that increasing frequency generally does increase patronage. However it's not a straightforward relationship as service intensity tells us nothing about how efficiently a network is planned or whether modes are optimally used.

Service intensity versus trips per capita

Of note is that Adelaide scores highly on both service intensity and the reach of minimum service (assisted greatly by its Go Zone buses). However its average resident takes 42 public transport trips per year, which is lower than bigger cities.

Sydney and Melbourne have less service intensity but has almost double or more in trips per capita. OK you might say that driving conditions are poorer in the larger capitals, leading to lower car ownership, but look at Perth. Much less reach of minimum service (its non-CBD light industrial areas are notoriously poorly served by PT and it has huge sprawl with typically hourly buses) yet it attracts higher trips per capita than Adelaide. 

Can network structure affect usage?

This may be due to something that's harder to quantify by numbers like these - while Perth's urban form and land use patterns aren't very good for public transport, its network structure is sufficiently better than Adelaide and SE Queensland to attract a higher trips per capita. 

Most notable is that, in terms of service levels, Perth has a 'big city' rail network with well-planned buses that also cater for local trips. Whereas both Adelaide and Brisbane have less frequent underperforming rail networks and a lot of buses that parallel radial rail. Neither have the circumferential bus routes that Perth, Melbourne and Sydney have. An excessively radial system limits the potential for public transport to cater for diverse suburban trips.

And it can be inefficient with service kilometres that do not necessarily lead to good patronage outcomes. Even though Perth's network is more rail oriented than either Brisbane or Adelaide's, the attraction of its trains and their ability to relieve buses for other purposes is sufficient to give Perth a higher bus usage per capita than either of the other cities. 

Conclusion

Service per capita is an important (but underappreciated) metric of investment in public transport. Service kilometres needs to keep up with population growth just to remain constant. Unfortunately it hasn't in too many cities. 

Service per capita is a quantitative measure. The way that service is deployed, a qualitative measure, also affects patronage. Cities that throw a lot of service on excessively radial or duplicative bus networks to the exclusion of radial trains and circumferential bus routes get a network unsuitable for any trip but towards or away from the CBD. The networks most like that, ie Adelaide and SE Queensland, had the lowest patronage per capita. The pandemic has only increased the gap between the types of trips such legacy public transport networks are best at and the trips that people actually make. 

The performance of Perth (and even more so Auckland) gives encouragement that good network design can lead to higher patronage outcomes. Brisbane and Adelaide should be following Perth and Auckland on this. Auckland has potential to do even better by boosting train frequency from 20 to 15 min to match buses. And Melbourne should be following Sydney with consistent 7 day frequent trains and better buses given the latter's improvements in services and strong ridership numbers in recent times.  

Index to Building Melbourne's Useful Network items