TT #154: Narre Warren's loopy 834 & 835 buses

Tourists like travelling in circles. They want to see as much as they can before they return to base. Those wishing to get from A to B prefer going straight, as close as possible to how the crow flies. But if you miss your stop on the 834 / 835 pair you will be going the scenic way, ending up where you started about 80 minutes later. 

834 and 835 are pretty much identical routes. Both are single directional starting at Berwick. Thus if you get an 834 to your destination you need the 835 coming back. And vice versa. 834 is the anti-clockwise version while 835 runs clockwise. Having differently numbered loop routes means that there are two route numbers to memorise. Also buses are less able to display destinations useful for passengers. 

Both routes connect the Pakenham line stations of Berwick and Narre Warren with homes several kilometres north and south of the line. As well both serve the massive Fountain Gate Shopping Centre and its adjacent civic hub. This is just before Narre Warren Station on the 834 and just after on the 835. 

No ordinary passenger would ride the full or even half a loop. Unless they were going to Fountain Gate most would ride a quarter or less of it. This is because as soon as it gets a quarter way around another station is closer. The main exception are where a bus has just been missed but a sooner bus is available if you alight at Berwick instead of Narre Warren (or vice versa) and get the bus the long way around in the opposite direction.

PTV’s single route/single mode map is below:

Area profile

Narre Warren is a lower middle class suburbs popular with those with trade qualifications. Berwick is more ‘middle class’ with ‘Old Berwick’ highly sought after. Housing is predominantly detached, ranging from modest project homes to ‘McMansions’. Car ownership is higher than lower income closer in suburbs like Doveton and Dandenong.  Local MPs include Luke Donnellan (Narre Warren North) and Gary Maas (Narre Warren South). Both are Labor with Donnellan retiring later this year. 

Narre Warren and Berwick form twin hubs with different purposes. Narre Warren is the shopping and local government hub (being the seat of the City of Casey) while Berwick has sought after health and education facilities (including private schools and a university campus). It also has historic buildings and ‘main street’ shopping and dining. One of the strengths of the 834/835 is that everyone in its large catchment has single bus (albeit indirect) access to both centres. 

 

Berwick started as a village on the highway, serving passing traffic and the surrounding rural area. Both it and Narre saw most residential growth during the 1980s and 1990s when planning street layouts for efficient bus routes was not much of a design consideration. Instead the aim was for heavy traffic to be on freeways and main arterials across which walkers were (often physically) barred from crossing. Walkers were to remain strictly within neighbourhoods whose curvy and disconnected streets would restrain driving speeds. Buses sometimes ran for those without cars. However they weren’t always there when people moved in and services often remained infrequent and indirect decades afterwards. 

If you were lucky main roads would get relatively frequent SmartBuses running long hours. However they rarely penetrated outer suburbs. In Narre Warren and Berwick’s case the nearest SmartBus route is at Dandenong, about 10 kilometres to the west. Melbourne added its last SmartBus route in 2010 and we’ve grown by about a million people since. 

There have been subsequent bus upgrades but they have tended to be more modest. More recent of these have involved local networks serving Hallam, Cranbourne and Endeavour Hills, still well to the west of Narre Warren and Berwick.  Significant reforms happened about 10 or 15 years ago but its pace has slowed in the more established areas, with recent emphasis shifting to newer areas like Clyde North. Hence there’s like a leapfrog effect with areas like Narre Warren being ‘passed over’ despite these too also needing reformed buses. 

You can see where the 834 and 835 fit in relative to the broader network below. 

834 & 835 largely serve areas between the main north-south roads. Although the main roads themselves don’t necessarily have strong serving offerings, with the exception being 893 on Hallam Rd (which got simplified and upgraded with 2016’s Cranbourne changes). Narre Warren – Cranbourne Rd has the 841, a direct route at lesser frequency, while Clyde Rd has many buses but none individually frequent. 

Timetable & service levels

Route 834 and 835 almost but not quite operates to minimum service standards. This includes 7 day service at least hourly to 9pm or later. Weekday interpeak and Saturday daytime frequency is 40 minutes on each route while an hourly service operates on Saturday evenings and all day Sunday.

 Peak frequency is about every 20 minutes with some gaps nearer to 30 minutes. This higher peak frequency runs over an unusually wide morning and afternoon spans (5 – 9am and 3 – 9pm). This aspect makes the 834 and 835 unusually good for outer suburban buses despite its off-peak frequency being the 40 – 60 minutes normally encountered.  

Weekend mornings are the main areas that have been skimped on. Saturday morning frequencies are as poor as 80 minutes, with some 70 minute gaps on Sunday mornings. Part of this may be due to the inefficient length of the route which make it difficult to schedule an exact hourly service without wasteful layovers. 

Weekend start times are also below par with the first Sunday trips on both routes arriving at Berwick after 10am. Early weekend mornings is one time of the week that transport planners have historically underestimated demand. The result has been that some local bus routes introduced in the last five or ten years commence their weekend service an hour or so earlier to reflect this. 

As far as I can tell the 834 and 835 loop started in about 2007, replacing other routes. For a long time they operate at frequencies incompatible with trains. Where you had trains every 30 or 40 minutes trying to meet buses every 40 to 60 minutes the result was long and inconsistent waiting. Since then Pakenham and Cranbourne train line service upgrades has improved frequencies except for Sunday mornings and weekend evenings which remain infrequent. Also bus frequencies were adjusted to harmonise connectivity with trains. 

The future

Loop routes are good at providing coverage and one-seat rides, often at the expense of directness and legibility. They may be a means to provide service to a new estate but as areas develop they need to be reviewed. We haven't had such a review to routes like the 834 and 835 in years. 

Possibly the simplest approach could be to keep operations and timetables the same but renumber routes when they reach Berwick and Narre Warren so that the loop presents as two linear bidirectional routes. One could be 834 Narre Warren to Berwick (north side) while the other could be 835 Narre Warren to Berwick (south side). This would simplify the service with regards to information on destinations etc. However through-running could be preserved so that 835 trips arriving at Narre Warren from the South could continue as Route 834, thus maintaining a one seat ride to Fountain Gate, a locally important destination. Such through-running was part of the design of the successful 494 and 495 pair in Point Cook when these routes commenced in 2013. 

Longer term a more comprehensive reappraisal of the network is needed, especially in the Narre Warren South area. This is to provide better east-west access to Lynbrook station and shopping centre as well as simplify services on Clyde Rd. Solutions may involve breaking up the 834/835 loop and/or amalgamating parts with other routes.

Main roads with development around them now exist that weren't there when these routes were introduced. This might strengthen the case for a Wyndham-style two tier network with more frequent service on them and local routes in between. Concepts for this were discussed here and here. Again this has implications for 834/835, designed when train frequencies were lower and frequent buses were inconceivable in the area. 

What do you think should be done about the 834 and 835? Should it be left as it is or is reform needed? And what about its timetable? Comments are welcome and can be left below.  

Index to Timetable Tuesday items

UN 118: PTUA's 2016 bus network proposals - a review

Anyone can make lists of potential bus service upgrades. More than a small number has appeared here. Today though we’ll look at one developed a while back by the Public Transport Users Association, our main passenger advocacy group.

Combined with rail and tram extensions you can read it here: https://www.ptua.org.au/policy/network/

It was written in 2016 so bear that in mind when you see it. Since then we’ve seen continued fringe growth and government announcements on projects including Airport Rail, the Suburban Rail Loop and a Caulfield to Rowville tram. These can affect bus network planning, both if you want buses as a precursor to rail projects and later when improved transport is needed to feed rail. 

The preamble talks about the ‘network effect’. Basically if you improve frequency on one route you not only assist travel along it but also connectivity to intersecting routes. If the intersecting routes are also frequent then you multiply the number of destinations that are accessible via a short wait and transfer. In theory that can deliver patronage gains by a higher percentage than the service added. This concept was presented in various academic papers, manuals and books, notably by the late Paul Mees (who was PTUA president in much of the 1990s).

Below are the PTUA’s 2016 bus service priorities. My comments on them follow.

1. Inner-suburban “blue orbital” Smartbus connecting Footscray, Moonee Ponds, Brunswick, Clifton Hill, Richmond, St Kilda and Elsternwick (incorporating routes 246 and 472) enabling more inner-cross-suburban trips without having to travel via the CBD.

Partly useful.

As background, the government proposed the ‘Blue Orbital’ about 15 years ago to run from Sandringham to Williamstown. It (and the western part of the Green Orbital) was dropped from plans a few years later. The 246 in the east is already 1.5 to 2 times as frequent as a SmartBus. The 472’s western end does not serve any major destinations that its parallel Williamstown line train doesn’t, although it does have some unique residential catchment. Similar weaknesses exist at the Sandringham – Brighton end. Nevertheless there is a major need for frequent east-west buses across Melbourne’s inner north as far west as Highpoint that would suit a SmartBus. However Footscray to Highpoint justifies a superior service to a SmartBus, particularly on weekends. And it already has 7 buses per hour on existing confusing routes so just needs reform to deliver a simple 10 minute frequency.

Although a simple concept, this proposal would overservice some areas while underserving others. Therefore I cannot recommend it. The 246 is best left on its own with its current enhanced frequency. Highpoint is better served with a rerouted 903 along with simpler reformed buses to Footscray. And Williamstown Road can be upgraded much cheaper with more service hours on the 472 south of Footscray (particularly on Sunday). It would be more useful instead to ditch the orbital idea in favour of one or preferably two existing routes upgraded to SmartBus across the inner north (eg Route 508 and likely 506 plus the very economical 904 MegaBus concept).

2. High-frequency connection from Broadmeadows to Melbourne Airport, supplementing existing route 901, to provide better connections from the northern suburbs to the airport precinct

The existing 901 already runs every 15 minutes on weekdays. Its main issues include (a) its 15 minute frequency does not harmonise with trains at Broadmeadows, (b) the poor 30 minute frequency on weekends and (c) an early Sunday night finish (9pm).

A case could be made for a couple of buses to run between existing trips to provide a 30 minute weekend service but connections with trains (that can be as infrequent as every 40 minutes, eg on Sunday mornings) will remain an issue until these are upgraded.

Overall though I’d spend the money instead on numerous smaller upgrades, eg running all Broadmeadows/Campbellfield/Glenroy buses seven days, higher bus frequencies at Craigieburn (which we're getting in April 2022), better coverage in growth areas like Attwood and network reform to make buses simpler. If improved airport connectivity is required I’d instead suggest a fast Sunshine – Airport bus (the Route 500 concept) as a precursor to Airport Rail.

3. Extend shuttle 401 to North Richmond station, enabling better connections from the South Morang/Mernda and Hurstbridge lines

This has merit as Melbourne sorely lacks east-west bus connectivity across CBD fringe areas to the north. To some extent it has been overtaken by events as the government introduced the frequent 202 shuttle from Parkville to Victoria Park earlier this year. However the very frequent 401 will not need to be run as intensively (or at all) after the Metro Tunnel opens in 2025 so this might be the trigger for a rethink involving a longer route between say North Melbourne and Victoria Park..

4. Mornington Peninsula route 788 upgrade to at least every 30 minutes, to better connect with trains and cut waiting times on the principal public transport route on the Peninsula

Supported. And mostly implemented with major service upgrades in late 2021. Services now run every 30 minutes weekday and 40 minutes weekend, with a 30 minute service running during summer peaks.  Further network improvements happened in February 2022 but 7 day service and longer operating hours (some routes finish before 4pm!) remain a pressing need on the peninsula. 

5. LaTrobe University to Glenferrie station bus route to provide high-frequency bus services across the Yarra (via Chandler Highway), serving multiple universities and major activity centres such as Northland

Has merit but should require general bus reform in the area for most benefit. A connection south to Caulfield is arguably of even stronger patronage potential, filling a huge network gap across the east and south-east.

Key steps in such a revamped network involving two upgraded La Trobe University routes might include:

1. Split the 903 at Heidelberg with portion west operating as different route (904) and merged with 527 to deliver a 10 minute frequency at least to Coburg. Extend eastern part of 903 to LaTrobe University (via Heidelberg and replacing 551 bus).

2. Merge 548 and 624 into a single route (620) operating directly between La Trobe University and Monash Caulfield, passing quite close to Swinburne at Auburn. An additional local route would run in the Springthorpe area to replace straightened 548. And 624 would be simplified and shortened, with parts west of Chadstone being replaced by a rerouted 623 and 734 extended to Caulfield.

Conclusion

The PTUA has come up with some useful bus service upgrades. It's good that a couple can be considered substantially done. Also if you had to revisit the exercise in 2022 you may have other priorities, especially where they could complement major projects including the Metro Tunnel, Airport Rail and the Suburban Rail Loop. Your thoughts are appreciated and can be left below. 

More Building Melbourne's Useful Network items here

TT #153: Tram 78

The 78 tram is a rare thing in Melbourne. It’s one of just two fixed rail routes that do not eventually go into the CBD. Instead it provides a tangential connection between many radial train and tram lines in Melbourne’s inner east and south-east. And, like Route 82, its non-CBD cousin in the inner-west, it rates low in the pecking order when it comes to service upgrades and new trams. Both routes have reputations for slowness, though 78 is dead straight, serving just two streets of ecclesiastical names.

The 78 tram is locally significant. It cannot be separated from the life of Chapel St in Windsor and Prahran. And it passes through diverse neighbourhoods, from 1800s housing to modern, ethnic to Anglo, high to low income, chick to shabby, smooth to gritty. Extremes coexist around here; people can range from being there to be seen to being there to inject. But most are just doing what regular people do in a city.   

While Chapel and Church are now single route streets, it wasn’t always thus. For many years the 78 was not a full time tram route. Part of the time services ran as the 79 which was like the 78 except it missed the bottom bit to turn off to St Kilda beach instead. The 79 was discontinued in 2014 with the 78 made full-time. Go back even earlier to the 1980s and you also had the 77 which had come from Flinders St via Swan St before heading south via Chapel. The 77 was discontinued in 1986, apparently due to low patronage. Between the three routes (two running at any one time) Chapel St especially likely saw more trams then than now. 

The 78 intersects (at right angles) with more radial tram routes than almost any other tram due to its geometry. Possibly half of Melbourne’s tram routes are one change away from the 78. It is also the last significant north-south connection across Melbourne’s south-east until the 16 tram. This makes the 78 of key network importance if we valued non-CBD and short cross-suburban trips in planning (spoiler: We don’t). 

The 78 properly intersects with trains at two places. These include the minor East Richmond station (which people joke about their train not stopping at) and Windsor on the Sandringham line (parallel to this portion of the 78). The 78 passes near the Mernda and Hurstbridge lines (nearest station North Richmond) and the Frankston, Cranbourne and Pakenham lines (nearest station South Yarra). These are not convenient interchanges due to walking distances however they would still be done by some people. 

Service levels 

Route 78 is one of the least commuter-oriented tram routes. Unlike others there are no clear ‘inbound’ and ‘outbound’ directions. It may act as a feeder for some stations but it is likely faster for people to walk to stations near it. Timetables reflect this non-commuter focus. Weekday peak frequencies are typically 12-15 minutes while interpeak intervals are a more even 12 minutes. Early morning weekday headways are 30 minutes while evening service drops off to the standard 20 minute headway after about 7:30 to 8pm. 

Saturday service levels are quite similar to weekdays except that the midday frequency is 15 rather than 12 minutes.  This does not harmonise with trains that typically run every 20 minutes. 

On Sundays frequencies are every 30 minutes before about 10:30am and after 7:30pm. Between those times they are every 15 minutes except for a short transition in the morning where service is nearer 20 minutes. 

New Years typically sees 24 hour service on trains and trams. 78 and 82 are the main exceptions. Being non-radial routes they are not seen as supporting the festivities in the CBD so do not run. 

The service difference between the 78 and St Kilda Rd routes (with basic 12 min weekday/15 min weekend/ 20 min Mon – Sat evening and 30 min Sun evening service) is small.  Nevertheless small things are enough to make the 78 the second least frequent full-time tram route on the network, beating only the 82.  

Potential and Advocacy

The 78 could be more than it is. At no time does it run a turn-up-and-go frequency. This is important if the route is to become a feeder to the numerous routes and lines it intersects. It, and its stops are a long way from being DDA compliant. Also travel speeds are slow. 

What about the route itself? Could it be connected better with the rest of the network? 

I mentioned before how the 78 passes near but doesn't connect to some major train lines. Regretably rail geometry isn't favourable in the south-east; a new station at Chapel St in the short gap between South Yarra and Hawksburn is highly unlikely. Calls for a South Yarra stop on  the under construction Metro Tunnel have gone unheeded and even if it was built it wouldn't necessarily be nearer the 78 than the existing South Yarra Station.

So if the train won't move for the tram, could the tram move for the train? The most promising would appear to be an 800 metre extension of the northern end to terminate at North Richmond Station (which would also pass two supermarkets). This would greatly improve local connectivity as it would save the need to board the 12 or 109 for a couple of stops. There is a short overlap of routes but in a dense urban area this is acceptable given the reduced transfer penalties for passengers. 

More radically it may be possible to join the 78 to the 30 to provide an L-shaped circumferential route. An issue with this is how it ties in with other things you might wish to do with the tram network. I mentioned before the potential benefits of deleting Route 30 and rerouting the 12 to provide better connections to the northern part of the CBD and to Southern Cross Station from it. If you did that you might just terminate the 78 at North Richmond Station and call it job done. Ultimately though there does need to be a direct east-west tram across the CBD's northern fringe (including along a section of Victoria St that has no tram lines) with a terminus at North Melbourne or Arden station. A future upgraded and extended L-shaped 78 may be part of the solution here. 

Prahran MP Sam Hibbins has started a campaign on improving the 78 tram with a letter to Minister Carroll. Results from a survey also (with an unspecified number of participants) appear on his website. Frequency was the highest priority for improvement, closely followed by speed. New trams and level access stops were next. 24 hour service was least important.  As for why people caught the 78, the top two reasons were shopping and meeting friends. Work was relatively unimportant though it's hard to draw conclusions as we do not know when the survey was conducted and there has been widespread working from home. As for when people caught it, weekends were more than twice as popular as so-called peak hours, with midday also popular. 

As well as being the local MP for the southern end of the 78 tram, Mr Hibbins is also the Victorian Greens transport spokesperson. Under his watch the Victorian Greens has weakened its interest in  improved public transport, especially in the suburbs. 

As an example the party presented quite strong service policies (including for buses) in its 2018 campaign. These have hardly been spoken about since. In 2020 the Victorian Greens proposed a 'Green New Deal' that boosted trains, trams and cycling but ignored buses and walking. The urban and political geography of this modal bias is interesting; trams and commuter cycling are more prevalent in affluent Green-held seats while the ignored buses and walking are the only non-driving transport options in many (mostly Labor) outer and lower income areas. It would seem that Greens transport policy emphasis is increasingly to an inner suburban elite with little to offer others, especially in outer suburbs.  

2021 saw a further shift to favour an even more elite (and likely price-insensitive) group. That year almost all their energies in transport went towards encouraging electric car driving by participating in a tax revolt-style campaign against a modest EV user charge introduced by the Andrews government. The EV focus has distanced Victorian Greens from public and active transport advocates who might otherwise find their policies attractive. Individual Greens MPs have supported some public transport service upgrades in their seats (Tim Read 505 bus, Ellen Sandell 402 bus, now Sam Hibbins with 78 tram) but they have offered little critique of the bigger picture in transport despite well-documented shortcomings of the current Labor state government they could exploit (eg an under-emphasis on service aspects).  

With a tough campaign coming up in 2022 it will be interesting to see we see a renewed interest from all parties in public transport service as key to making the network more useful and improving peoples lives. There's benefits for all parties in 'switching to service'. Labor could sell it as realising the benefits of their infrastructure program, Liberals could use it as part of a critique of Labor while Greens could reconnect with potential supporters in transport that their recent emphases has cast off. More on why this is important here. 

Conclusion

Current policy settings towards trams have been relatively stagnant. 'Big Builds' on the roads, on the trains and in the suburbs are more politically fashionable. Small infrastructure and service upgrades are much less so. Thus we haven't seen significant tram service upgrades for years. Trams continue to be delayed severely by cars with which they (unfortunately) share most of their routes with. There are some DDA stop upgrades but the Auditor-General found that the pace is slow relative to what is required. The 78 exemplifies these issues more than most other tram routes.  

Victoria's political geography doesn't always help trams. Most marginal seats are concentrated in outer eastern and southern regions a long way from trams (2022 Vic state election guide here). It is in these plus some regional areas that the main Labor / Coalition battles will be fought. 

However 78 is somewhat of an exception. It serves at least two seats that cannot be ignored by two if not three parties. Notably Prahran. Boundary changes have this as favouring Labor (despite having a sitting Green MP in Sam Hibbins) but Antony Green still says that he's still in with a chance. The Liberals have higher support here than in the north and even won Prahran in 2010. So their voters' preferences could be critical. 

Richmond, through which the northern end of the 78 passes, is also somewhat marginal. While the redistribution again strengthens Labor slightly, the retirement of Richard Wynne (the current Labor MP) means that there's no established name for Labor to draw on, weakening their position. Hence this too will likely be on the Greens priority campaign list. 

With these battles looming you may well be hearing more about the 78 tram in the upcoming state election campaign. 

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