2005 flashback - Melbourne on Transit turns 20

Today marks 20 years since I started the Melbourne on Transit blog.

Starting with this test message, it has grown to something that a few people in transport read. 

Some things projected or advocated in it even happened. I am optimistic that more will in the next few years. This has to be as the policy pendulum, now weighted by infrastructure-incurred debt, swings back towards improved asset utilisation through better service as is the core theme here.   

Melbourne on Transit's history falls neatly into thirds of 6 to 7 years each. 

I started it early in my transport career, although I had been in transport advocacy and passenger information circles years before that. 

Things were different then. Back in 2005 transport was so institutionally fragmented that you could work in one area of transport and write about the others without piquing your boss's consternation. Chances are they watched TV rather than a computer screen at night so wouldn't have seen it anyway. 

The online environment

Social media was then less a part of popular culture, although there were very active niche websites. People with something (and sometimes nothing) to say in transport populated forums such as Bus Australia and Railpage in huge numbers. Others had blogs and websites with the still going Vicsig being a pioneer. Forums featured participants ranging from teenage gunzels, future rail fantasists, nostalgic curmudgeons all the way up to Secretary Jim Betts (who was then defending the government's record against critics such the PTUA's Paul Mees).  

The first substantive blog post, a day later on April 29, 2005, had links to four websites that I considered significant. Two of those four links still work. That includes Zen and the City Loop (an independent page needed to explain the then and now still complex City Loop as officialdom considers it too hard) and what is now the Australian Timetable Association. One of the broken links went to Rob O'Regan's unofficial Metcard website. An outstanding treasure of information about transport ticketing, notably Metcard, the Wayback Machine still has an archived version of it here. The other link was to the City Circle Tram, broken due to various renamings and rebrandings that plague official websites.

Public transport in 2005

What was public transport like in April 2005? Ticketing was Metcard, trains were Connex and the fancy Southern Cross Station roof was under construction. Branding still reflected the previous era of franchising and fragmentation, though Metlink, commenced the previous year, was starting to assert a network identity. 

Catching buses was a mugs game in 2005. There were some green shoots of renewal in 2002 with pilot SmartBuses on Blackburn and Springvale Rd running. But overwhelmingly if you wanted to catch a bus on a Sunday or after 7pm you couldn't as timetables were so limited. It wasn't until the Bracks government's 7th year in office, in 2006, that serious inroads were made into that with the launch of the Meeting our Transport Challenges plan (or MOTC). 

Perhaps compensating for the Melbourne-centrism of the Kennett years, the early Bracks years were regionally focused. A major emphasis was revitalising rail to Geelong, Ballarat, Bendigo and La Trobe Valley under the Regional Fast Rail program. Regional rail was returned to government management while metropolitan rail remained with continually rebranding private franchisees. 

As wouldn't become critical until later, state interest in developing metropolitan public transport was low with some 1999 promises scaled back or broken. The government launched the Melbourne 2030 planning document in 2002. Like the private rail franchises then in effect, there was an ambitious patronage goal but no serious funded transport component despite its own public forums calling for this. Instead it was the collapse of these franchises that forced the government to pay renewed attention to metropolitan rail.

Making the franchisees viable, preserving conditions for staff and reunifying the network were key priorities.  Service reform, including higher frequencies, was off the menu. So were major train and tram network extensions, with the public told in 2005 not to expect any for 15 to 20 years. Thus the official position when Melbourne on Transit started was that trains and trams would continue to operate but not significantly expand, essentially limiting their reach and role.  

Then metropolitan rail usage started surging, forcing punctuality into free fall. The government, hoping these times would pass, was caught with its pantographs down, with Minister Kosky famously saying that she didn't want to run a rail network. These times did not pass, the Labor government acted too late and so lost the 2010 state election. More about the Bracks and Brumby era here. 

A consequence of that election was institutional change in public transport. Both the Greens and Coalition supported some form of integrated public transport authority. Labor preferred to keep the current fragmented arrangements with a Department of Transport doing the planning, operators doing the running and Metlink, as a technically private operator-owned company, to do the information, marketing and revenue allocation. To the side there were other agencies like Victrack to look after rail assets and the Transport Ticketing Authority to implement the new myki system. 

The Coalition won and set up Public Transport Victoria as a 'one stop shop' incorporating Metlink and part of the Department of Transport. Not everyone in the old department found new roles in the new PTV so it was an unsettling time for some. However public transport's political importance, especially metropolitan rail, had risen. Exciting investments in infrastructure, some funded by the previous government, were to come on-line. Some lines were getting much needed 'greenfield' timetables with Frankston the first to get a 7 day 10 minute service. And we were on the cusp of a rail reliability revival that reversed nearly a decade of decline from 2003.  

Hiatus

My professional role was changing around then, with a move from data to planning. Plus there were other transport blogs starting that I (incorrectly) thought would be enduring. So in January 2012 I stopped posting but left it online.

Here I acknowledge blogging stalwarts Marcus Wong and Daniel Bowen who kept readers satisfied uninterrupted, before, during and after this period. Their steady fare got supplemented at times by others who would appear, delete then reappear.   

This hiatus marked the second third of the blog's history. The first third never saw very high readership. But what there was seemed to hold up for at least four years after I stopped posting. Followed by a slow decline from about 2016, around the time government transport priorities switched to infrastructure which this blog never covered in detail. 

 

Revival

The most recent third is apparent from the readership surge from January 2019. Others suggested I resume the blog but I was initially lukewarm. Then, following some trial posts on a Facebook group, blog posting resumed after another professional change gave new freedoms. That first item highlighted Melbourne's declining public transport service per capita, something that would become an increasing focus. The revival also saw weekly features looking at timetables and networks in more detail. 

Thanks to you readers views rose strongly until the pandemic. They levelled off then since resumed rising (though I would ignore the spikes). Lifetime impressions (at least since 2011) stands at 1.43 million. 

A staple matter covered has been bus network reform. Official interest in the rhetoric (if not yet the practice) of this rose with the launch of Victoria's Bus Plan in 2021. It is possible that, a bit like Infrastructure Victoria, Melbourne on Transit has assisted in creating a propitious policy climate for this, even if what gets implemented is less ambitious and at a slower pace than one might like.   

I have increasingly covered rail service matters. Other things being equal, if I write an item about trains it will get more readers than one about buses. This might reflect trains' generally higher usage than buses in Melbourne. Or the heightened public interest given major projects, notably the Metro Tunnel, are starting soon. 

Service relationship with infrastructure builds

I have (too?) rarely covered major infrastructure builds. But I do want to discuss the intersection between infrastructure, planning and service. 

A continual theme of public transport planning in Melbourne (regional Victoria gets a better mix) is that we build infrastructure but rarely add enough service to make the infrastructure truly worthwhile for more than a few hours a day.

It's as if there's a need to justify projects with business cases that seek to deliver positive benefit cost ratios in order to attract funding. That may include a scramble to find low cost / high benefit network reforms or service upgrades that make BCRs better. Even reaching for things that could have been done at any time prior.

Then once the project is funded the need to substantiate benefits may vanish as the cost is sunk and there is no turning back. Also if project costs exceeds budget then wider benefits network additions, even if relatively cheap, risk getting discarded, narrowing benefits to less than envisaged.

As an example we could have had a heap of off-peak rail frequency upgrades (and even some greenfields peak timetables) without level crossing removals. Yet we got the (often still desirable) level crossing removals but rarely substantial all day service increases.

This downplaying of off-peaks has continued even though the pre-pandemic trends (that have only since intensified) have made off-peaks the main game. Which is actually good news for those who wish to see a generally useful all-week network that maximises its returns from assets.  

Service prospects for the Metro Tunnel

Right now is a particularly interesting time as we have yet to see what service levels we'll get from the Metro Tunnel and related train timetables. I discussed this here and here . 

Having seen only limited metropolitan rail service uplifts (a) before level crossing removals and (b) after level crossing removals, will the Metro Tunnel be the project that finally brings home the goods on service? We don't yet know. 

Thus with not even basic frequency specifications on this and related line timetables being public yet, any speculation or analysis, even if on a scrappy blog, finds an audience. Including by the news media, with the most recent being a major article this month. 

Most popular

Now about you. What have been your all-time favourite posts over the years? Here they are, starting with the most read first. 

1. Sydney versus Melbourne - who really has the better transport? 

Proof that everyone loves click-baity titled city by city comparisons. Even before their CBD metro opened the winner was Sydney. Though with our extensive rail system, trams and bus suitable suburban road grid, Melbourne can excel if it cared more about 18-20 hour a day all week frequency and more direct bus routes. 

2. The state capital with the worst public transport

Another inter city comparison but in more detail. The answer is NOT Melbourne, despite what some pessimists claim.   
 

3. Making sense of the Frankston line's winter works

Long term rail shutdowns can be confusing and official communication can sometimes be patchy. This guest post by Craig Halsall filled the gap for winter 2023 Frankston line passengers. 

4. Who runs transport? A look at DTP's leadership team

The Department of Transport and Planning is a mystery to outsiders. And people love reading about people. So when I put together what I could find about the backgrounds of the department's top executives it was an instant hit. DTP insiders appeared as eager to read about their bosses as the rest of us. Though as you'd expect, none left comments.

That item came out June last year. There have been some movements since. However redoing it today would be harder. As discovered on April 1, the executive organisational chart vanished from DTP's website earlier this year, making it a closed season for open governance. And restructures may be looming as the government seeks to cut costs.  

5. The Future Frequent Network Melbourne needs

When you already have a lot of public transport infrastructure, like Melbourne does, service becomes king. A recurring theme here over the last 20 years is that we could be doing a lot better on service. This popular item presents a multimode frequent network that would make public transport a truly go (almost) everywhere choice across Melbourne. 

6. Twelve lessons from Adelaide's attempted bus network reform

I talk about bus reform a lot here. It can indeed deliver large benefits. But it's also important to learn from failures. We had our own in 2015 when a new government scotched the Transdev Greenfields network. But far more dramatic was the case of Adelaide in 2020. Their complete rework of the bus network came to nothing, even costing the minister his political career. Re-read that item for a list of traps to avoid when reforming a bus network. 

7.  How will the Metro Tunnel benefit your line?

With the Metro Tunnel slated for opening later this year, this March 2024 item has only become more topical. Both Herald Sun and The Age had comprehensive stories this month. Their gist is that we might not get the service uplifts envisaged in the Metro Tunnel Business Case from 2016 (ie pre-pandemic). The government line is that the timetables were still being written and we should just wait and see.     

That's it for now. Thanks for all your reading and comments. 

UN 200: Box Hill to Cheltenham - Making a start on the 733 SRL SmartBus

Can we bring forward some of the benefits of the Box Hill - Cheltenham Suburban Rail Loop? 

We can. And for very little if we continue to be open to the idea of improving buses along its corridor.  

The state government set the ball rolling when it funded modest upgrades for Route 733 in the 2022 state budget. This boosted frequencies on the busiest part of this route, notably between Box Hill and Clayton. This has been very well received by passengers with strong patronage growth since starting nearly two years ago.

Thanks to these improvements the 733's Box Hill - Monash section now gets weekday interpeak buses every 15 minutes, a halving of waits from the previous 30 minutes. Saturdays improved from 40 to 30 minutes while gaps between Sunday buses shortened from 60 to 40 minutes.

However weekend waits are still longer than what should be a premium bus route, particularly on Sundays. As a taste of what it could be, premium bus routes in Sydney, Brisbane and Perth typically run every 10-15 minutes on weekends with longer operating hours than our 733.  

Another issue with the timetable upgrade was that as the 15 minute weekday service finishes at Monash station. That's not as useful as it could be if this extended to Clayton Station. Clarinda; a substantial residential area with no local train station, also didn't get the frequency upgrades it deserves. 

Part of the reason for this is that, good though they were, the budgeted upgrades were timetables only - not routes. There was no network reform that could have delivered 'greater good' network benefits. For example simpler routes, better train connections and increased 7 day frequencies. That's desirable to get the most service for the least money. 

There's many good reasons to upgrade buses in many parts of Melbourne. But Route 733 has one other ace up its sleeve. Because it is the route most similar to the Suburban Rail Loop, strong usage of that strengthens the SRL's case.

And the state government really needs a confidence-boost for the SRL right now with some querying its capacity to fund, especially if federal sources fall short or costs exceed those envisaged. Any reduced confidence potentially undermines the third funding source - that of 'value capture' - if developers walk away.  

An extended upgraded Route 733

Next Wednesday marks two years since the successful first round of improvements to Route 733's frequency. So today let's talk about how a much needed second round might be done and funded. 

If you, like Treasury, believe 'charity begins at home' in the sense that departments should look for internal savings before asking others for money, DTP could start with identifying potential offsetting savings in the existing network by reviewing the usage and coverage of local buses. 

That includes Route 733 itself, especially its Clayton to Oakleigh section. Part of that overlaps the more frequent Route 703. Another part operates about 300-400 metres parallel to Warrigal Rd which is served by the frequent 903 orbital. Oakleigh itself is served by numerous buses to Box Hill and Monash. Splitting the 733 at Clayton gives scope to continue it south rather than west, hence permitting a Southland/Cheltenham connection. 

Bus route 631 traces its history back to the acrimonious bus contracts dispute of the late 1980s. When the government lost the legal proceedings it started two long and duplicative bus routes across the eastern suburbs with Quinces as the operator. Route 634 was later merged into other routes but 631 remains today as a remnant of a previously longer route that once ran to Mitcham. 

Few passengers from 631's southern half remain on the bus beyond Monash University, giving potential to join this with the 733 at Clayton. Helpful to such a join is that Route 733 south of Monash operates every 30 minutes interpeak weekdays, matching the current Route 631 interpeak frequency. On weekends the 631 operates every 40 min Saturdays and 60 min on Sundays, ie similar to the Route 733 before it got upgraded.  

Route 704 is a quiet east-west route between Oakleigh, Clayton and Westall. It overlaps other routes in Oakleigh but offers some unique coverage in parts of Clayton. Service is every 30 minutes peak and 40 minutes off-peak (including weekends) which is relatively high for its usage. It retained its Oakleigh alignment on Burlington St despite being overlapped by the 742 and later (in 2006) the 900 SmartBus. This may generate opportunities to allow a potential southward Route 733 extension as mentioned above.  

Existing network

The three existing routes discussed are mapped below. 

 

Potential revised network

The above suggestions lead to the network below. 733 becomes predominantly a north-south route while 704 and 631 are roughly west-east routes. All stops lost to the 631 get the 733 instead, sometimes with increased frequency. The 733's rerouting would remove stops from Cameron Av and Golf Rd, which as noted before are close to the 903 on Warrigal Rd. However Golf Links Av would gain the rerouted 704 as a replacement for 733. 

Careful observers will note a southern extension to Cheltenham station. This is because Southland bus interchange lacks short and simple access to Frankston line trains. Affecting routes such as the 631 and 767, this reduces connectivity between the south and south-east. To mitigate that the extended 733 runs to Cheltenham though a dearer option could run it west to Sandringham via stops nearer to Southland station on Bay Rd.  

Route 704 would remain a similar length to now (around 10km long). 631 drops from about 22 to 7 km while 733 has a net gain of 6 km to go from 23 to 29km. The three routes combined drop about 8km, from 54 to 46 km, with negligible coverage loss. 

It is this reduction in route kilometres that could buy higher frequency without adding buses or driver hours. In this case my pick for the higher frequency would be (a) between Monash University and Clayton Station (retaining the current 4 buses per hour of 631 and 733 but more evenly spaced) and (b) between Clayton Station and Clarinda. Effectively this makes more of Route 733 a frequent service. And it could enable higher weekend frequencies. Overall there is a more even distribution of service as service kilometres move from Centre Rd to the currently underserved southern part of Clarinda (whose route 824 runs only hourly on Saturday afternoons and Sundays).  

Does this network solve all the problems with buses in the area? No it does not. Thus I regard it as an interim rather than an ultimate. Existing issues this network does not tackle include:  

a. Slow travel speed between Clayton and Southland/Cheltenham due to indirectness
b. Confusion on Bourke Rd where buses in opposing directions (incl 824) go to Clayton
c. Weak eastern terminus of 704 (Waverley Gardens would be better but this requires a Mulgrave/Springvale area review to simplify overlapping bus routes on Police Rd)

In addition the reformed Route 631 is quite short. It could be extended to Noble Park Station via Jacksons Rd. Again this would need a Mulgrave/Springvale area review to avoid duplication with 814. 

Given the remaining issues is it still worth doing? That depends on the extent it can permit increased frequency, particularly on Route 733. That's covered next. 

Potential Route 733 frequency gains

Below are some network frequency diagrams for bus routes 631, 704 and 733. Each of the thin lines represents one bus per hour. Thus two lines equals a 30 minute frequency and four lines a 15 minute frequency. A single thick line is a 40 minute frequency (ie 1.5 buses per hour). Lengths of routes (or route segments where frequencies vary) are multiplied by the number of buses per hour. This gives a rough idea of service resourcing per route.

Each diagram has a total on the bottom right. It doesn't mean a lot by itself but is useful when comparing options (which appear directly under the existing cases for each day of the week). Peak periods have higher frequencies and evenings lower frequencies so the use of interpeak frequencies should be a reasonable average. All three routes have roughly similar spans of hours, making comparisons based on frequencies alone reasonably fair.  

Monday - Friday

Above is existing for the three routes discussed above. It does not include cases where there are overlaps involving other routes. If these were counted then you'd have 6 buses per hour on a part of Centre Rd (in conjunction with 703) and 5 buses per hour on part of Bourke Rd (with 824). However these will not be evenly spaced so maximum waits will be longer.   

Below is a potential revised weekday interpeak pattern as mapped before (see 'Potential revised network'). The extended Route 733 delivers a 15 minute off-peak frequency from Box Hill to Clarinda, representing a large gain for the latter. Southland and Waverley Gardens retain their existing 30 minute frequencies, while 704's remains at every 40 minutes. After all that the total is 127km, ie slightly less than existing.   

A potential variation is to reduce 704's interpeak frequency to hourly (due to low usage). That may free up service kilometres to (a) commence 631 from Clayton rather than Monash, (b) run Route 733 later at night and/or (c) redistribute service kilometres to weekends. 

Saturday

Above is existing for Saturday. Route 733 frequency drops from 15 to 30 min on the busiest section but remains at 30 minutes on the quieter Oakleigh - Clayton section. Both Routes 631 and 704 are every 40 min.

I will present two potential Saturday network options. 

The first upgrades frequency to every 20 min between Box Hill, Mt Waverley, Monash, Clayton and Clarinda. Thus would be a major upgrade on a busy corridor that justifies it. Like on weekdays every second trip would operate to Southland/Cheltenham. The 40 minute frequency is not attractive but retains the current frequency of the existing 631. The total kilometres (94) is very similar to current (93.5). This is achieved by reducing Saturday on the quiet Route 704 from 40 to 60 minutes. Much of its catchment is near the higher frequency 703 or 903.   

The second potential Saturday option retains 733's current 30 minute frequency but delivers a benefit for Clarinda, Southland and Cheltenham by having a consistent two buses per hour running on the entire route. It actually involves less service kilometres than now, although that gap can be narrowed by adding Route 733 evening trips, extending Route 631 to start at Clayton and/or boosting 704 frequency.  

Overall the first option is a likely to benefit the largest number of passengers. It would also represent a service breakthrough in it being the first Box Hill and Monash area bus route to operate a consistent 20 minute frequency (or better) on Saturdays. 20 minute Saturday service already operates on routes elsewhere in Melbourne, including 465, 472, 893 that do not serve as many busy destinations as the upgraded 733 would. And, unlike the existing 30 minute frequency, it would harmonise with the 20 minute Saturday service on the Glen Waverley line.  

Sunday 

 

The existing Sunday service pattern (above) probably demonstrates the greatest mismatch between demand and service provided. The busy Route 733 drops to only every 40 min, ie the same frequency as the quiet Route 704. 631 becomes the lowest frequency of the lot at only hourly. A major rationale of the simplified network presented here is to enable a better Sunday service on the 733. 

Both options below improve Route 733 Sunday service. The first is quite similar to the first Saturday option and involves more resourcing than now. But there's some big gains, notably the 20 minute frequency between Box Hill and Clarinda. Southland/Cheltenham would get a smaller improvement, going from every 60 to every 40 minutes. It has the 631 remaining at every 60 minutes which would also be the 704's frequency. 

The second Sunday option is cheaper, with only slightly more service kilometres than current. It delivers a flat 30 minute service for all of the extended 733. Not as good as every 20 min but it's still an improvement on the existing 40 minutes at the Southland end. 631 gets boosted from 60 to 40 minutes with this paid for by reducing 704 from 40 to 60 min. 

Like with the Saturday option, the first Sunday option is likely to be get the most patronage due to the strength of Route 733 usage. It does however have a higher cost than present though it may be possible to claw some of that back through the slightly reduced weekday hours. 

Project sequencing

The successful already implemented 2023 service upgrade is effectively Stage 1 of this. 

Stage 2 is what is described here. The opex would be somewhere between between negligible and low (even if you went for the 20 minute Sunday option). The capex is also minor as although there's changes to bus routes there are no new stops or termini. 

Stage 3 would be a small network tidy up in the Clarinda area to make Route 733 more direct to Southland/Cheltenham. Concepts for that here and here. That's needed as travel times, even with the Stage 2 upgrade, are too slow on this portion. Speeding access to the Monash precinct from the Cheltenham area would strengthen the case for improved frequency over the whole route, not just Box Hill to Clarinda. This would entail both capital and operational spending but would bring legibility and connectivity benefits. Potential also exists to do this in tandem with abovementioned Springvale/Mulgrave network improvements. 

Stage 4 would be further frequency uplifts, 24 hour weekend service, bus priority, upgraded shelters and passenger information to make it clearly a premium service. The gold standard version of this stage would be all week 5-10 min frequencies and limited stop expresses operating each day until late.  

Conclusion

An upgraded 7 day Box Hill - Cheltenham bus is both possible and essential given the success of recent service upgrades.

The next logical step in this could be trivially cheap if assisted by modest network reform.  

While no claims are made it of it being an 'ultimate' it could still represent the next step towards a genuinely premium SRL SmartBus. 

The patronage success of the recent modest Route 733 upgrades should give added confidence that a further upgrade is a journey worth embarking on, especially given Stage 2's very low cost.

Especially as a tangible means for the government to build goodwill towards the Suburban Rail Loop by bringing forward some of its benefits. 

Other Useful Network items are here 

TT 203: Scrimping for Sundays - should we do it for Brunswick's 503 bus?

If you want a bus route to be upgraded it may be easier if proponents can identify some operational savings. That way DTP doesn't need to run to Treasury for recurrent funding. Although there are still small one-off set-up costs that DTP needs to find as well as its internal capacity to add to its work program.  

Savings can come from either the route you're upgrading (straightening, shortening, removing any timetable 'fat' or adjusting frequencies) or another route in the area. The latter is more controversial but has bigger potential overall gains, with the Doncaster timetable reforms earlier this year being a successful example. 

Route 503 profile

Let's look at Route 503 between Essendon and Brunswick East along Albion St. It is a direct east-west route intersecting with two train lines and many trams. The catchment is not posh. There is significant housing development, including 'community and social housing'. 

Route 503 is a daytime only Monday to Saturday route. Weekday services are every 20 min peaks and an irregular every 25-30 min interpeak. Saturday service is every 25 to 40 minutes, again irregular. Operating hours are limited with no after 7pm or Sunday service.

It wasn't always thus; back in 1955 the Albion St forerunner of today's 503 ran frequently until midnight with substantial Sunday afternoon service too. Services got cut as the area de-industrialised and people moved away.

But the increased traffic and housing density make Sunday service on routes like 503 and 506 a matter that should be back on the agenda. 

Usage numbers back this up. Since the 800 bus got 7 day service, the 506 (another east-west Brunswick route) took over the title as Melbourne's busiest bus route without Sunday service. The 508 has Sunday service but it's only every 40 minutes.

Route 503, at 21 boardings per hour on a Saturday, is quieter than Dandenong's 804 or the 506. But it is still in the top fifth or so of buses lacking Sunday service, beating both the 284 and 285 (which recently did gain 7 day service). 

So regardless of the others, the case for 7 day service on the 503 is strong, especially if a way could be found to fund it. 

The 503 is mapped below. It is about as simple as a bus route can get. Except for a curious Saturday afternoon deviation at the Essendon end. 

Nearby route 509

Near the middle part of the 503 is the 509. This was a quirky route that ran backwards and forwards along Hope St approximately every 20 minutes. It was removed by the previous Liberal government with no offsetting service upgrades. They didn't think it had much use, with the 503 and 508 serving its catchment.

Labor went to the 2014 state election promising to restore the 509 bus. They did but in a longer and lower frequency form, operating hourly. 

Route 509 has 12 boardings per hour on weekdays and a (surprisingly high) 18 boardings per hour on Saturdays. 

Both numbers are a long way from being the least productive bus route in Melbourne.  For that you'd need to look at the productivity for the 941 - 982 Night Network only buses. 
 
Nearby route 951

The 951 is one of those 1am - 5am Night Network only routes. It operating between Brunswick and Glenroy with timing to connect with Upfield line trains. 

Like most dedicated Night Network routes usage is apparently low. I don't have figures I can rely on but it would likely be a small fraction of daytime routes.

The social value in retaining the 951 should not be discounted. But there may well be a point where its usage is such that there is even higher social value in running a high patronage potential route like 503 seven days instead.  

Potential Route 503 service improvements

An upgraded 7 day Route 503 is likely to be strongly used. There may be an 'overall good' argument in favour of its upgrade even if trips were removed on other routes like the 509 and 951. 

503 is quite a short route with an end-to-end run time of about 23 to 26 minutes (based on the Saturday timetable). A single bus could efficiently provide an hourly Sunday service. That would need approximately 12 live operating hours per week to provide a minimum standards service (ie approx 8am to 9pm). That annualises to over 600 live hours per year extra. If run times are too tight to stop delays cascading potential may exist to bring in another bus from the depot for the afternoon. 

Another 2 live hours per week could provide some after 7pm trips on Saturdays. Annualised that is over 100 live hours per year extra service. The lumpy Saturday timetable could be made a regular every 30 minutes during the day. This should not require more trips in the timetable than now. 

It may be possible to extend weekday span by altering interpeak spacing from a variable 25-30 minutes to a flat 30 minutes. That is the same number of live bus trips, although longer driver hours would need to be rostered to accommodate the longer spread. A 30 minute service does not harmonise with trains but the current 25-30 minute service doesn't either. And there would be 'greater good' gains from a 'memory' 30 minute timetable.  

To summarise around 700 live hours per year extra is required to deliver longer spans and 7 day service on the 503. Most of that is on Sunday which is notable as the cost of that is more than if those hours are on a weekday. 

Funding

Where might extra hours be obtained? 

Starting with quietest routes first, not running Route 951 would offset about half of that, with about 350 hours saved. 

Not running 509 on a Saturday would save about 180 hours annually (or 3 live hours per Saturday). 

More than that is needed to fully fund. 

Not running any 509 weekday trips would save 850 hours. That should be more than enough but is likely to be controversial given the history.

A middle ground might involve keeping some 509 trips as an occasional shopper type service. Noting that since it is very close a significant proportion of Route 509 users would benefit from the upgraded 503.

Planning here would need to involve consultation with passengers with regards to how long they need on Sydney Rd or Barkly Square so that timings work for them. Given rider demographics this engagement should be done in-person on board the bus, not on-line. Such consultation would need to be sufficiently wide to include those who would benefit from a 503 upgrade. 

Conclusion

A strong exists for Route 503 to operate a 7 day service and longer operating hours. 

It may be possible to fund this by running fewer trips on quieter routes.

This may produce an overall good by making local buses simpler and more useful. 

If the hourly Sunday service envisaged does well then consideration could be given to operating it more frequently. Though arguably the longer Route 508 in the area (currently every 40 min) has a higher claim to go to every 30 minutes first due to its high usage. 

Just because we can do something doesn't necessarily mean we should. Comments on this invited below. 

See other Timetable Tuesday items here

Good Friday special: Melbourne's late-rising trains

Today is the one day of the year where the Night Network timetable veil reliably comes off so you can see how late Sunday trains used to start in Melbourne. 

Late starts were one of the two factors that made Melbourne's Sunday morning trains the worst of any large city rail network in Australia. The other was frequency, with our up to 40 minute gaps lagging the 15 to 30 minutes found elsewhere. 

This 2011 PTUA investigation compared first time arrivals across Australian capitals. Our starts were then the latest of all capitals but Adelaide. With first arrivals around 8am on Sunday you then couldn't use trains to go to early Sunday morning events in the city. Sydney, in contrast had trains running from about 5am every day of the year. PTUA revisited this in 2014 to find that we had slipped behind Adelaide.   

Night Network's 97.4% fix

Unless you're in V/Line territory you can now get an early train on a Sunday. The big change came in 2016 when hourly Night Network trains were added to the timetable to provide a continuous service from first service Friday to last service Sunday. It followed a smaller initiative in 2007 where 'late night' services were added to train (and tram) timetables to extend Friday and Saturday finishes by about an hour to 1 to 1:30am the following day. 

The general rule was that public holiday services would operate to either a Saturday or Sunday timetable, depending on the holiday. The two 'holiest' days (Good Friday and Christmas Day) would have a Sunday timetable while the other public holidays would have a Saturday timetable. 

But not quite - the late night services added in 2007 and the Night Network services added in 2016 would not operate. Unless the public holiday was on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday in which case Night Network would operate. You could say that whereas regular timetables were dependent on public holidays, Night Network ones ignored public holidays, ie were public holiday agnostic.  

Adding a further complication to service messaging (that PTV isn't great at in the best of times), these arrangements work in two ways - both for and against the passenger.

If a a public holiday like Christmas Day fell on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday there would be some Night Network service. On the Friday it is evening, on the Saturday both morning and evening and on the Sunday morning only. Just like a normal weekend. 

The Christmas Day base timetable would be always be Sunday. That is one with late morning starts and a low morning frequency. But if it falls on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday then it would have Night Network trips added. These would be late evening only, both early morning and late evening or early morning only respectively, depending on day.

That's more service than you bargained for. I'm not sure how many people use Night Network on Christmas morning or Christmas night but it is sometimes there if you want it. 

The Sunday timetable operates on 54 days of the year. 52 days for normal Sundays and the remaining 2 days for Good Friday and Christmas Day. Night Network fixed the late Sunday start problem on an average of 52.3 of them. The unresolved issues apply for Good Friday morning every year and 5 out of 7 Christmas Day mornings.

Night Network could have resolved this cheaply for the affected 1.7 days per year by adding two  to three hours span to the base Sunday timetable but chose not to do so as it was out of scope. So it didn't.  

This means that if you want to catch an early morning train on Good Friday you won't be able to. Especially if you are going outbound, with first arrivals as late as 9:37am.

Despite their reputation for operating hours shorter than trains, you will sometimes not even be able to make first bus, which will usually have a departure around 8 or 9am (earlier if it's a SmartBus).  

First Good Friday morning arrivals City / terminus

Listed here by line, working clockwise from Werribee. 

Werribee: first arrival FSS 8:14am/first arrival Werribee 8:36am
Williamstown: First arrival FSS 8:34am/first arrival Williamstown 8:15am
Sunbury: first arrival FSS 7:45am/first arrival Sunbury 9:10am 
Craigieburn: first arrival FSS 8:20am/first arrival Craigieburn 8:39am 
Upfield: first arrival FSS 7:55am/first arrival Upfield 8:27am
Mernda: first arrival FSS 7:56am/first arrival Mernda 8:50am
Hurstbridge: first arrival FSS 7:46am/first arrival Hurstbridge 9:17am
Lilydale: first arrival FSS 7:57am/first arrival Lilydale 8:44am
Belgrave: first arrival FSS 7:57am/first arrival Belgrave 8:02am 
Alamein:  first arrival FSS 7:57am/first arrival Alamein 7:49am
Glen Waverley:  first arrival FSS 8:04am/first arrival Glen Waverley 8:44am 
East Pakenham: first arrival FSS 7:55am/first arrival East Pakenham 9:37am
Cranbourne: first arrival FSS 7:55am/first arrival Cranbourne 9:22am (earlier arrivals ex Dng only)
Frankston: first arrival FSS 8:04am/first arrival Frankston 9:24am 
Stony Point: first arrival Frankston 8:55am/first departure Frankston 7:27am
Sandringham: first arrival FSS 8:07am/first arrival Sandringham 8:47am

As noted before a consequence of this is that certain connections possible on a normal Sunday (which has longer operating hours thanks to Night Network) cannot be made on Good Friday.

This is most notable in the Frankston area given the first train's arrival at 9:24am. Because this is scheduled more than 2 hours later than it should be the first Stony Point train (7:27am) has no connecting train from the city. Neither do all Frankston's longest and most important bus routes, all of which depart Frankston well before the first train (eg 788 6:31am, 781 8:05am, 791 8:45am, 887 8:50am & 782 9:09am). These late train starts make arrivals at Mornington Peninsula locations hard if not impossible much before 11am. This is a potential issue for family gatherings on Good Friday and on most Christmas Days. 

Other lines with particularly late first train arrivals include Williamstown and Craigieburn (late city arrival on the inbound) and, on the outbound, Hurstbridge, East Pakenham and Cranbourne (all well after 9am). 

The fix to this would be simple for negligible cost. That is to transfer the first two or three hours worth of trains from the Night Network to the Sunday timetable for the 1.7 days of the year this does not currently apply. That way the Sunday timetable even without Night Network service would have adequate span to maintain all its connections. 

Other modes

Late Good Friday starts are most conspicuous on the Metro network but they apply on other modes too.

Here's the official word from PTV regarding Good Friday arrangements. It has a lot of 'weasel words'. These paper over the complexity of the network or could just be laziness in not listing exceptions (especially for buses). There is a high reliance on asking people to check website timetables or use the journey planner but these risk having errors if people check them too many days in advance. 

Let's quickly run through most remaining modes. 

Regional trains (ie V/Line) don't have Night Network services meaning they start late every Sunday and thus also Good Friday. This is something that the otherwise (very good) upgraded Geelong timetable did not resolve when it started last December.  

Buses are a mess. Some run and some don't. And it's mostly (but not always) a case of if it runs Sundays it runs Good Friday. Each public holiday PTV seems to present a slightly different 'word salad' to try to cover all bases without being wrong or saying very much. This is their offering today: Most metropolitan bus services will run to a Sunday timetable, but some services may be altered or will not run. Some bus routes do not run on public holidays, including Good Friday. Please check your route before travelling. PTV's textual contortions wouldn't be necessary if public holiday arrangements for buses were simpler. But they're not. So if you want the full story you need to read the essay-length Public Holidays on Melbourne’s Buses from BCSV.  

Trams are another example where PTV tries to be artful in words but hope no one reads too closely. They may be technically correct by they risk underselling the service. PTV says that trams will operate to a Sunday frequency, with Night Network running as normal. A casual reader might think that it's OK to look at the Sunday timetable. But that's not so if you're travelling in the mornings because there is a pattern of starting trams earlier on public holidays (including Good Friday) than on a Sunday. 

To take a random tram example, Route 59's first Good Friday tram arrives at Airport West terminus at 5:16am. The first full length tram arrives there at 6:23am, having departed Flinders Street Station at 5:42am. In contrast the Sunday timetable has those times at 6:43, 8:18 and 7:36am respectively, ie up to almost 2 hours later. In the more dominant direction towards Flinders St, the first arrival of a full length service is 6:02am on Good Friday versus 7:31am on a regular Sunday.

Given the Good Friday start is significantly earlier than a normal Sunday timetable PTV should have mentioned this for trams. Although again the core issue is the complexity of weekend and holiday timetables across the network. Whereas Metro Trains have early starts on all Sunday mornings (thanks to Night Network) but a late start Good Friday, the situation for most trams is the reverse (late start most Sundays, early start on Good Friday). 

History of progress

In 1999 the Kennett government simplified 10am - 7pm train and tram timetables such that Sundays matched Saturday times. Basically a big Sunday service uplift. A few years later National Express did the same for Sunday evening trains (then every 40 minutes) followed by Connex for its half. Twenty years on that job was left unfinished in that before 10am Sunday timetables are dogged with late starts and long waits compared to Saturday timetables. 

Night Network made early Sunday morning travel possible but did not simplify things for public holidays. Arguably it made it more complicated because of it opting to attach a sometimes operating new timetable to the Sunday timetable rather than just upgrade the Sunday timetable by starting it earlier. 

Buses got big 7 day uplifts and standardisation starting in 2006. Most routes were done but, nearly 20 years later, enough complexities remain to make buses chancy - both for those charged with communicating their timetables and those who ride them.  

Trams have good start times on public holidays but start too late and are too infrequent on regular Sunday mornings. This reflects unfinished business from the 1999 upgrades. 

Next steps

The biggest step forward to simplify services would be to have as close as possible to a common weekend timetable between 5am and midnight across all modes. For Metropolitan train that just means fixing Sunday morning frequency and (on 1.7 public holidays per year) span also. A later step could be to harmonise weekend with weekday off-peak frequencies so these are similar across the week. Thus there would be fewer distinctions on public holidays (except maybe the very quiet ones).  

If you did choose to adjust timetables on quiet public holidays like Good Friday and Christmas Day you might have lower frequencies but maintain a good span including early starts. As a potentially zero cost 'devils advocate' example, reducing frequency on a line like Frankston from every 10 to every 20 minutes on these two holidays would probably save enough service kilometres to start every Metro line about 2 hours earlier. Arguably this is another complication but likely an overall greater good so that (more like Sydney) the whole Metro rail network enjoys a good span 365 days of the year. 

Timetable reform along these lines is a major part of making public transport simpler to use all week, thus maximising the returns on the state's significant investments in infrastructure. Some things can be done by redistributing service kilometres as with the example above but ultimately new service kilometres is required to reverse per-capita declines on most metropolitan modes.  

UN 199: Should we keep quiet Night Network bus routes?

Ask yourself this. 

At what point do you say that a bus route has so few passengers that you stop running it? 

a. Usage of one-quarter the network average? 

b. Usage of one-tenth the network average (including many empty trips)? 

c. Or you keep it running on principle that buses are a public rather than a commercial service? 

If you answered c. would you change your answer if the bus hours you saved was put towards a 'greater good' improvement that carried 5 or 10 times as many passengers in the same area that the quiet route was cut from?   

The above is not an academic question, however much new service funding you wish would come.

We live under a state government that has invested heavily in major infrastructure but has presided over stagnant or declining service per capita on most metropolitan public transport modes.

Notwithstanding its privileged institutional position as adviser to government, DTP has a record of writing business cases that don't win funding. GAIC (ie limited term growth area bus funding issued under tight conditions) has been almost its only bright spots in 2023 and 2024.

DTP must get the hint. Firstly it needs to get better at writing submissions this government likes. Secondly it must more aggressively find ways to cut 'fat' to internally fund high priority service improvements so more happen during this period of relative service parsimony.

The government for its part needs to be less risk averse and more open to reform ideas from DTP, including more easily making available the (very small) one-off capital funds needed each time a route gets a new timetable or minor alignment change. Some comfort for the government could come if the department streamlined its slow internal processes so that if a genuine problem did arise with a new network then it could be attended to without too much political damage.   

A recent success

The very successful Manningham area bus timetable reforms of January 2025 can be held up as a recent model for what I was talking about above. It just needs to be done on a bigger scale in more areas.  

The 280/282 or 'Manningham Mover' was a route put in by the Brumby government when it was feeling the heat on not providing Doncaster Rail but at that stage was unwilling to invest seriously in more rail-like frequent and direct buses. It involved the removal of some other bus routes to fund, introduced wasteful overlaps of its own and was never a patronage success. 

Neither did it help the Brumby government's political problems regarding transport in the area. So a few months before the 2010 state election the government had another go with Manningham buses, this time introducing the direct and frequent DART routes 905 906 907 and 908.  

While the DART routes succeeded, usage on the still remaining Manningham Mover continued to languish at around 6 boardings per hour - well below average for a Melbourne bus route. And there were higher bus needs in the area. So in January 2025 its weekday timetable was cut from every 30 to every 60 minutes. Because 280/282 are long routes, that freed up a lot of service kilometres per week.

That got recycled to boost four busier routes with between 2 and 7 times the boardings per hour. The medium usage routes 284 and 285 gained new Sunday service. The high usage 905 joined the exclusive club of buses running every 15 minutes or better 7 days. And the even busier Route 907 got its existing 15 minute weekend service extended over  more hours. There were also some small consistency changes involving routes 207 and 309. Overall there were a lot of wins with few complaints about the reduced 280 / 282 timetable as its use was so low. 

More examples

The 280/282 aren't the only bus routes understood to be very quiet. There are some short weekday shopper style routes that also don't carry many. But their running costs are low and little is saved by cutting them. And they can be surprisingly resilient, like the (then) DoT's abandoned attempt to delete the 706 between Mordialloc and Chelsea.  

Another group of routes potentially worth looking at is our dedicated Night Network routes. That is special routes that only operate 1-5am Saturday and Sunday. They are typically longer than short shopper routes. And, because they operate on weekends at unsociable hours, their driver costs are likely higher, especially relative to passenger loadings.   

Tracing their history back to the NightRider buses from the late '90s, there used to be a lot more of these, especially when Night Network (involving trains and trams) started in 2016. However reforms in 2021 saw most replaced with extra trips on 21 regular routes. That made travel simpler for passengers and gave some bus served areas 24 hour weekend service. An added benefit for weekend morning travellers is, Good Friday and Christmas Day excepted, they resolve the late starts that some of these routes previously had. 

The remaining thirteen dedicated Night Network only routes are numbered 941 - 982. Most are listed on PTV's website here (967 is missing) and dotted on local area maps. These are the ones that I'll talk about today.  

Options for quiet Night Network bus routes

Three years ago I looked at whether those thirteen routes could be folded into improved services on existing regular routes. That would improve legibility but there would be a cost involved. Not least because you'd be wanting to add 9pm - midnight and 5am-7am service to deliver true 24 hour weekend service similar to the 21 regular routes already operating. 

Another approach (with a smaller budget) is to consider an area's existing service levels and consider whether Night Network services are the best use of bus resources. Especially if (i) their usage is very low and (ii) they ply streets that don't get a proper daytime service. 

The latter is more common than you might think. For example, over 70 routes don't run during the day on Sundays, with some not operating Saturday afternoons.  There are busy streets in Melbourne that have buses at 2am on a Sunday but not 2pm on a Sunday. Nor even 2pm on a Saturday (eg Jacksons Rd Noble Park North).  There's also parts of main roads where service at 2am on weekends is more frequent than at any time during the day (eg Scoresby Rd).

 

'Greater good' service reforms

It may be that if you have a neighbourhood with a combination of (i) high productivity but limited service regular routes and (ii) very quiet Night Network routes there may be an argument to shift resources from the latter to the former if you can demonstrate that (say) 90% of passengers will be better off. 

You might start by reviewing usage patterns of lower productivity routes. There may well be route reforms you can do. And/or timetable adjustments that release resources for 'greater good' service upgrades on higher productivity routes. One order of doing things might be to tackle the widest productivity gaps first as that maximises the ratio of those who gain versus those who might lose.

This is shown below, where routes are ordered from least to most productive, left to right (although proper analysis would look at day and preferably trip level boarding data). 

On the other hand you might opt for a lower (but still large) gap, especially if the resources freed from a timetable reduced route are not large and you might only have budget for a few trips on a long route.

That alternative is shown by dotted lines pointing to still popular but underserved routes in low income areas. These stack up because of (i) the significant social benefits derived from Sunday service and extended hours and (ii) the low cost due to the route's shortness (Brunswick's 503, Glenroy's 536, Thomastown's 559 and Dandenong's 844 are all good examples).  

You can do this with any set of quiet and busy routes in an area. But since Night Network routes are concentrated at the low usage end of the scale they may well be some of the first a planning agency like DTP might consider if they need to find underused service kilometres for desired service improvements.
 
The patronage uplift of upgraded routes would need to attract a high multiple of the Night Network route's patronage to justify the change and make it politically defensible in terms of increased benefit. That is the donor route and the recipient route are widely spaced on the diagram above. 

The Manningham network transferred resources from the quiet 280/282 to routes that were 2 to 7 times as productive. If you were planning to remove a route (rather than just cut its timetable) you might have a higher threshold, eg a minimum 3 times as productive before you would consider it. A high threshold focuses priorities, maximises early gains and improves return for the small capital costs involved (largely removing and installing stop timetables and adjusting flags). Both 2 and 3x benefit thresholds are also strong relative to big infrastructure build BCRs that can excite people even if as low as 1.1. 

Potential service reforms by Night Network route

Here's a quick run through each special Night Network route. If analysis confirms low usage for the Night Network route and there are high usage regular routes operate nearby then it might be worth investigating 'greater good' improvements for the latter. 

* Night Network 941 Sunshine Station – Watergardens Station

Investigate boosting frequency and/or hours on regular Route 419. Eg Saturday and preferably also Sunday service from every 60 to every 40 min.

* Night Network 943 Watergardens Station - Melton

Suggested retain as V/Line trains do not operate all night on weekends. 

* Night Network 947 Footscray -Newport Station

Potentially replace with later evening finishes or wider weekend span on Route 411 and/or 412 which have above average usage. 

* Night Network 949 Williams Landing Station - Altona Meadows

Potentially replace with longer span on Route 494 and/or 495 on more nights of the week (even if it was just a single trip departing Williams Landing at around 10-11pm on all weeknights). Some catchment would also gain from 411/412 improvement above. Both 494 and 495 have above average usage. 

* Night Network 951 Brunswick Station– Glenroy Station

Potentially replace with 7 day service on Route 503 along Albion St. Route 503 has above average patronage, serves dense housing development but has early evening finishes and no Sunday service. 

* Night Network 953 Broadmeadows Station - Craigieburn HIGH

Potentially replace with longer span on Route 541 which is main north-south bus between Broadmeadows and Craigieburn.

* Night Network 959 City – Broadmeadows Station

Suggested retain as may be busier than most other Night Network routes and is effectively a replacement for 59 tram (that is not a Night Network route). 

* Night Network 965 Lilydale - Healesville Loop HIGH

Potential to replace with longer hours on popular Route 683, especially extra early weekend morning trips. Potentially 685 also. 

* Night Network 967 Glen Waverley - Croydon 

Potential to reform in conjunction with Knox area bus network review that adds a route on Scoresby Rd. Currently Scoresby Rd gets a better service around 2-3am weekends than at any other time.  

* Night Network 978 Dandenong Station - Clayton Station HIGH
* Night Network 979 Clayton Station – Dandenong Station HIGH

Potentially replace with 7 day service and longer operating hours on 814. Route 814 covers most catchment of 978 and 979, has very strong patronage but very short operating hours (including a 1pm Saturday finish and no Sunday service). 

Route 814 is indirect with a weak western terminus. It disobeys all of the attributes of a well planned bus route. Yet, thanks to its strong demographic catchment (around Springvale/Dandenong) it has significantly above average usage of around 25 boardings per hour Monday to Saturday. Because there is an almost perfect correlation between Saturday and Sunday bus patronage, you can be confident that a 7 day Route 814 will be strongly used on Sunday with around 20 boardings per hour. Potential network reform could even involve the 814 being run to Noble Park station to reduce costs and provide a new local connection. 

* Night Network 981 Dandenong Station – Cranbourne

* Night Network 982 Dandenong Station – Cranbourne

Potentially replace with 7 day service on 844, later trips on one Endeavour Hills route and/or simplify Route 894. 

HIGH priorities for consideration are due to factors like (i) a regular route covering a large proportion of a Night Network route, thus minimising the catchment that gains nothing, or (ii) the regular route being productive but having low service levels, in some cases even lacking Saturday afternoon and Sunday service. 

Some upgrades would need funding supplemented from other sources (eg timetable reforms on regular routes). But the greater good framework identified above could remain valid. There may also be issues if Night Network routes are not operated by the same bus company that runs regular routes. 

Conclusion 

Identified above are cases where a review of bus resourcing for Night Network versus regular routes may result in some significant overall benefits for bus passengers.

These benefits are likely to be greatest in parts of Melbourne where the network is least developed, eg on routes that lack 7 day service and/or where productivity warrants improved service. 

Winning public support or at least acceptance is also made easier with widely agreed points that more people will be needing buses at 2pm on a Saturday or Sunday than 2am on those days. Especially if corroborating data can be produced showing the much lower use of Night Network routes versus regular routes that are proposed for upgrade.   

Index to other Useful Network items here