Today is a super important date in transport for two reasons. One related to the past, the other for the future.
Regional Rail Link & reformed buses
Firstly regional Rail Link turns 10 today. This transformed transport in Melbourne's west and Geelong with the new Regional Rail Link starting, bringing rail to new stations at Wyndham Vale and Tarneit. We had built new stations and extended electrification but this was a completely new line on a completely new alignment.
While the intent was to provide a bypass to free up rail capacity in western Melbourne, the new stations became massively busy in their own right due to them serving huge growth area catchments popular with migrants seeking new affordable housing. Tarneit, for example, is now V/Line's busiest station outside Southern Cross. This 2010 Paul Mees ATRF paper, throwing shade on the Regional Rail Link, has not aged well given the undoubted patronage success of its stations; it is now impossible to see western Melbourne without it.
The basic off-peak weekday service to South Geelong started as every 20 minutes, versus the hourly provided under the old alignment via Werribee. Patronage boomed with this link becoming crowded shortly after opening. Weekend service started at hourly on opening. However crowding forced that to every 40 minutes. That wasn't enough so some extra trips were slotted in to provide some 20 minute intervals. Finally last December a 20 minute 7am - 9pm weekend timetable was instituted with more trips extended to Marshall.
The Regional Rail Link has one 'good' problem - it has become a victim of its own success. There is massive demand for more than the original two stations. There's been talk of extra stations but none have opened in RRL's first decade. Although West Tarneit is under construction with an opening due next year.
Reluctance to add new stations may be due to a view that this will crowd trains and unacceptably slow travel for Geelong passengers. RRL's future is clearly a two-tier service, with an intensive (possibly electric) service to Wyndham Vale and express services to Geelong/Marshall/Warrnambool. There also needs to be a westward extension of Werribee Metro electrification with a new station at Black Forest Road.
Wider network reforms - varying prospects
Regional Rail Link in 2015 was not just a V/Line rail upgrade project. As originally conceived it was also going to be the centrepiece of massive multimodal Metro train and bus network revamps across Melbourne. Planning for this had been done but their fates varied.
While the new Labor government pursued its infrastructure program with gusto, it resisted adding Metro service, especially if new timetables would affect travel for some in (then) marginal seats on the Frankston line. Thus the proposed 2015 Metro timetable was ditched, setting rail service reform back years, with elements not picked up until 2021 (and again likely late 2025). This delay meant that some anticipated benefits of RRL, that of freeing space for more Werribee line Metro services, were not realised as soon as they could have been, as the Auditor-General noted in 2018. A decade on we're still waiting for some, though last month's state budget has funded some welcome Werribee peak uplifts.
The government wasn't just shilly-shallying on Metro rail service reform. The proposed 2015 Transdev greenfield bus network was also scrapped . Although some reasons for not proceeding with some of this were sound, a promised later review did not happen and the cause of bus reform was put back years.
Fortunately the radically reformed RRL-related bus networks designed for Geelong and Wyndham survived. Geelong's new 'greenfields' network featured simpler more direct routes running at higher frequencies. Apart from isolated and minor objections this simplified Geelong bus network has proved successful with operating hours its main outstanding concern.
RRL could have opened without the Geelong bus changes. But the bus revamp enabled PTV to present a compelling multimode package to the public on Day One. This is a recipe Perth's Metronet routinely follows with new bus networks for Airport, Yanchep, Ellenbrook and Thornlie-Cockburn. Melbourne's record here is only sporadic; if we were as good as Perth now (or our own record with Geelong in 2015) our Metro Tunnel would get a radically revamped bus network between at least Watergardens and Dandenong along these lines along with reformed CBD trams. The indications so far are not strong for sweeping changes here, although some smaller bus reforms around Parkville happened last year.
Wyndham also got a brand new bus network on this day in 2015. In contrast to Geelong that had to happen as otherwise there would have been few if any routes properly serving the new stations at Tarneit and Wyndham Vale. That would have caused massive parking pressures and jeopardised public goodwill towards the RRL.
The 2015 Wyndham bus network comprises a two-tier network with more frequent main road routes and neighbourhood style coverage routes. While service levels aren't yet as high as they need to be the network has been extremely successful with Wyndham bus routes ranking amongst the most productive in Melbourne. This has set up Wyndham buses on a path of continuous improvement, as opposed to the network atrophy seen in other areas (eg Melton town, Broadmeadows, Preston - Epping, Ringwood, Knox, Greater Dandenong, Frankston etc). The latest Wyndham bus boost will start in less than two weeks, with improved timetable for four routes starting on July 1.
See my 4th anniversary write-up here for more about the Regional Rail Link.
Metro Tunnel's full day test
This one's about the future.
Rail officials and enthusiasts alike are out and about all day today to watch a full day's testing of the Metro Tunnel timetable.
While it's a Saturday, Rail Express reports that a weekday timetable will be operating on lines that will use the Metro Tunnel.
Passengers will need to change at Caulfield or Footscray if travelling through to the city.
This won't matter to observers as they can just find a seat somewhere, grab their watch and tick off train arrival times. While this is normally only an activity undertaken by signalling staff and hard-core gunzels, this time it's of much wider interest.
This interest is partly because the state government has kept even basic Metro Tunnel frequency information under wraps.
Despite adding relatively little Metro train service in its first decade, it has raised expectations of the service possible with the Metro Tunnel and other projects. This heightened anticipation has given rise to a lot of guessing and discussion including here.
Speculation on Metro Tunnel service levels intensified last week when PTV's website showed modified timetables for Cranbourne, E Pakenham and Sunbury, applicable for today, that could well be part of a Metro Tunnel weekday timetable.
Daniel Bowen analysed this here . He hoped it was only partial, with the real timetable having more trips. Such a consistently high all-day frequency is key to the sort of multi-directional changing all day activity that is needed to make the Metro Tunnel a patronage success.
It is also desirable that best endeavours are made for the final timetable to avoid big 'holes' such as the peak period / peak direction 20 minute gap towards Cranbourne shown below.
The 2012 Network Development Plan - Metropolitan Rail proposed a hierarchy of base all-week frequencies for the rail network, including a 5 min inner core interval. Peak frequencies would be higher. For example it was envisaged that Cranbourne, Pakenham and Sunbury (all Tier 2 stations) would have 5, 9 and 9 trains per hour respectively by 2022 (see Figure 5-8).
The pandemic and its aftermath have reduced peak period train usage to less than envisaged in the NDP. However a 5 minute all day core frequency between at least Footscray and Caulfield remains essential for the Metro Tunnel to provide a 'big city' metro user experience, justify its construction costs and play its full role in the central area transport network (including enabling cascading tram network reform).
It will be interesting whether observations people make today tally with published timetables or not. And if any media releases reporting on the success or otherwise of today's trials provide further information on Metro Tunnel service levels.
Any observations on today would be welcome and can be left in the comments below.
2 comments:
As a commuter from Footscray to Geelong, I have used the RRL for over nine of those 10 years - I guess take out the pandemic as well - travelling most days (in the counterpeak direction, usually just outside the peak) - definitely appreciate the 20-minute frequency, and even in the evening the lower frequency is still pretty good. My office on Gheringhap St is only 5 or so minutes walk from Geelong station, but for a while I worked on Ryrie St and could know that pretty much always there would be a bus only minutes after getting off the train (with the bus stopping right outside the office). So good connections at that end.
I probably wouldn't have made the decision to commute to Geelong without the RRL as I initially either cycled or drove to Sunshine, for the cheaper non-Zone 1 fare. Nowadays I usually either walk to West Footscray and change at Sunshine or, if I'm a bit later, get the bus to Footscray station and then the express (Warrnambool) service, which gets from Footscray to Geelong in under 40 minutes usually now that it's a V/Locity service. (Bring on more expresses!) All while being able to work on the train. (Interestingly that express train is still timetabled for 52 minutes and I think spends the extra time at Geelong waiting for its path out!)
The importance of good connections is also highlighted particularly on my trip home, and the difference a few minutes make when connections are infrequent. My usual train home currently leaves Geelong at 6.08pm. Once the train gets to Deer Park I'm usually looking at the time of the next train from Sunshine to West Footscray (scheduled for 7.01pm, which I can usually catch with a couple of minutes to spare - otherwise I'm looking at what's happening in the opposite direction from Footscray and making a decision to stay on). But not that long ago the train from Geelong ran at 6.12pm, making that connection impossible unless the Metro train was running late. Of course there's always the option of the 216/220/410 buses at either Sunshine or Footscray but being buses they carry more uncertainty (although less walking) - principally not easily knowing the best bus option in real time before getting off the train.
The RRL and other improvements have definitely made it easier to travel to central Geelong, including I imagine from the outer western suburbs and along the rail spine in Geelong (although still only 40 minutes off-peak from Waurn Ponds even with the duplicated track), which I imagine has brought benefits to the Geelong economy and labour market as well as the benefits in the other direction. And I don't miss travelling in the peak direction, even though it's a short trip - although I now also make a trip once or twice a fortnight to Docklands.
Also tier 3: Burnley and Clifton Hill groups. Allanism has been in full force out east for an entire decade.
@Steve: Footscray to Geelong in 40-52 minutes you say.
Try Richmond to Belgrave in 62-63 minutes, stopping all stations except East Richmond. Expresses bring it down to 55 minutes (Richmond-Camberwell-Box Hill). Limited expresses save all of 2-3 minutes vs. stopping all stations (Richmond-Camberwell or Richmond-Glenferrie-Camberwell).
The train is sloooooooooow even on straight sections of track, it makes the 75 and 109 tram feel like an F1 car (with the right driver of course; I've copped enough walking-pace trams on 60 km/h roads to last a lifetime).
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