I've long maintained a set of interactive network frequency maps showing where Melbourne's frequent public transport goes. There are sets for various times of week and day and you can select layers by frequency threshold. But I have never quantified the population near frequent public transport at various times of week and day.
But Philip Mallis has. And has presented figures and maps at last Friday's Transport Camp and earlier this week on his blog item here.
I'm a big fan of this service/population based approach. More people in the industry should do it more often. And the expansion of the frequent network should be a leading KPI for the transport portfolio and the incoming DTP secretary with their pay depending on it.
Public transport isn't just about building infrastructure as an end in itself. Instead it's more about serving people, making their lives better and connecting them to opportunity. Measuring access to frequent service is one great way to check the effectiveness (or otherwise) of investment choices.
Public transport isn't just about building infrastructure as an end in itself. Instead it's more about serving people, making their lives better and connecting them to opportunity. Measuring access to frequent service is one great way to check the effectiveness (or otherwise) of investment choices.
Below are a few of the maps presented. They show the extent how Melburnians' access to frequent public transport changes across the week and time of day.
As you might expect, frequent service (defined as every 10 min or better) is most prevalent at peak times. It exists in all directions from Melbourne, thanks to frequent peak rail service on all the longer lines. The gaps increase further out as only a few suburban bus services run every 10 minutes or better, even in the peaks.
M-F Peak: Overall about 50% of the population are within 800 metres of frequent service in peak times. Though note this will be an overestimate since the measurement method is based on services per hour and if there are multiple infrequent routes in an area this will count as a frequent service even though they may use different stops. Also even if (say) a route every 15 minutes and one every 20 minutes share a stop then you might still get 15 minute gaps even though 7 buses an hour means an average 9 minute headway. This effect is very pronounced in areas like Mornington, which show up on the map has having frequent service even though all routes are either every 30, 40 or 60 minutes in peaks.
M-F interpeak: About half a million Melburnians who had frequent service in the peaks lose it in the weekday interpeak periods. It's a bit hard to see from the maps but the big losses come from the outer parts of the rail network (notably in the outer south-east, outer east and almost all of the north and west) dropping from every 10-15 min in peaks to every 20, 30 and even sometimes 40 minutes (identifying these line sections is where my interactive network frequency maps will come in handy). Buses also fall off. Again its hard to see but it is common for buses in areas like Brimbank, Wyndham and around South Morang to fall from 20 minutes peak to 40 minutes off-peak. The 'holes' in many middle distance suburbs also increase.
Saturday: Compared to weekday interpeak, a further 700 000 people lose access to frequent service during the day on Saturday. Generally train and tram frequencies hold up but buses do not. In the south-east you can see the areas with frequent service are much more spindly around the railway lines on Saturday versus a more filled in look on weekdays. A large part of this is attributable to orbital SmartBus routes (meant to be a premium bus service) collapsing from every 15 to every 30 minutes on weekends. As well, particularly in eastern middle suburbs, it is common for local routes every 30 minutes on weekdays to fall to hourly on weekends. In contrast other areas have a flatter 40 or 60 minute frequency pattern all week on their buses. Very roughly one-quarter of Melburnians have frequent service on Saturdays versus one-half during weekday peaks. On Sundays it's more like one-fifth (noting that the method overestimates all proportions).
Saturday: Compared to weekday interpeak, a further 700 000 people lose access to frequent service during the day on Saturday. Generally train and tram frequencies hold up but buses do not. In the south-east you can see the areas with frequent service are much more spindly around the railway lines on Saturday versus a more filled in look on weekdays. A large part of this is attributable to orbital SmartBus routes (meant to be a premium bus service) collapsing from every 15 to every 30 minutes on weekends. As well, particularly in eastern middle suburbs, it is common for local routes every 30 minutes on weekdays to fall to hourly on weekends. In contrast other areas have a flatter 40 or 60 minute frequency pattern all week on their buses. Very roughly one-quarter of Melburnians have frequent service on Saturdays versus one-half during weekday peaks. On Sundays it's more like one-fifth (noting that the method overestimates all proportions).
Sunday evenings: When Sydney upgraded its train frequencies in 2017 it made a point of ensuring its 15 minute service extended to midnight or later. Melbourne has also had off-peak train frequency upgrades in the past two or three decades but they were overwhelmingly confined to daylight hours and/or a few lines (notably in the south-east). The result is that Melbourne had (and still has) zero routes that could individually be considered frequency on Saturday and especially Sunday evenings. Typical train and tram frequencies then are 30 minutes while most SmartBuses join local buses in finishing at 9pm Sundays. Thus just 5% of the population has frequent Sunday evening service and it is only because they live near sufficient infrequent routes that the analysis includes them. Saturday evening fares better, but even with the generous method used is still under 10%.
I've summarised the above (and a couple of extra time bands) below. This shows that the proportion of Melburnians with all week frequent public transport is a small minority. This is not due to infrastructure limitations or rolling stock shortages. Instead it is directly due to a political choice in the 12 or 13 years to avoid funding all-week service, with declining service per capita on our busiest metropolitan modes.
I've summarised the above (and a couple of extra time bands) below. This shows that the proportion of Melburnians with all week frequent public transport is a small minority. This is not due to infrastructure limitations or rolling stock shortages. Instead it is directly due to a political choice in the 12 or 13 years to avoid funding all-week service, with declining service per capita on our busiest metropolitan modes.
The Australasian city that has made the fastest progress towards spreading all week frequent service from the few to the many is Auckland. They did upgrade their train network but most of the gain is due to bus network and service reform, with Auckland now operating 40 routes with 7 day service every 15 minutes or better.
Climate Council analysis shows that Sydney has done quite well in making sure that its lower income people have as much access to frequent service as its higher income people (on average). And Perth, hampered by high growth and sprawl, has come off a low base, building its now significant frequent train and bus network from almost nothing, thanks to a sustained program of incremental all week train frequency increases and reforming buses far quicker than us.
The Increasing Melbourne's Service Frequency paper from the Victorian Transport Action Group proposes an approach for Melbourne to replicate the success in growing its frequent network of those abovementioned other cities.
The Increasing Melbourne's Service Frequency paper from the Victorian Transport Action Group proposes an approach for Melbourne to replicate the success in growing its frequent network of those abovementioned other cities.
1 comment:
We really do need to get with the times, even people from the turn of last century were complaining about the same thing to practically no avail (the NLA "Trove" has tons of digitised newspaper archives from circa 1906 with people complaining about lack of Sunday public transport).
The issue is not PTV, but the mindset of mostly-older people still running the show in Spring Street. If a politician entered adulthood prior to 1990, or came from a strict religious background with Sunday being nothing more than a day of rest and/or worship, it will be considered so normal that a public transport issue like crush-loaded hourly buses at 10AM (which may well also be the first bus for the day) all the way through to 8PM (when buses tend to finish in the "reverse" direction) aren't even a blip on the radar.
We need new blood in parliament before Sunday "travel restrictions" can be lifted, otherwise lack of public transport will continue to fall on deaf ears as a cultural norm which hasn't existed in Melbourne for thirty years. Even as a "broke" state we still find a $2 coin under the bed once in a while and suddenly a new stadium or multi-level car park is built, a freeway is given "just one more lane, bro" or a politician goes on a holiday around the world costing the public millions which could have been spent on upgrading the bus network with ample change left over for a few zero-emissions buses to keep the greenies happy. Sunday is just Saturday 2.0 these days, nothing more, nothing less.
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