News & Discussion: Public Transport Contracts, Service & Policy

[rhino]

The current line is BG (broad gauge) and only needs one rail shifted to standard gauge.

This is true, but it needs a lot more than that to be able to run freight trains on it safely, and a stack more again to be able to run passenger trains on it.

Does anyone have any idea of the numbers of people travelling between Mt Gambier and Adelaide, or Mount Gambier and Melbourne, on a regular basis by bus or aeroplane? From memory, passenger rail travel on the Melbourne-Warrnambool line currently terminates at Geelong. When you consider that rail travel between Adelaide and Melbourne can only justify 3 trips per week in each direction, do you really think that passenger rail can be justified to Mount Gambier? How often? If only once a week, will that justify the cost of upgrading the line to passenger standard?

[muzzamo]

maybe they can refurb the jumbos and use them for a MG link...

[Norman]

The current line is BG (broad gauge) and only needs one rail shifted to standard gauge.

This is true, but it needs a lot more than that to be able to run freight trains on it safely, and a stack more again to be able to run passenger trains on it.

Does anyone have any idea of the numbers of people travelling between Mt Gambier and Adelaide, or Mount Gambier and Melbourne, on a regular basis by bus or aeroplane? From memory, passenger rail travel on the Melbourne-Warrnambool line currently terminates at Geelong. When you consider that rail travel between Adelaide and Melbourne can only justify 3 trips per week in each direction, do you really think that passenger rail can be justified to Mount Gambier? How often? If only once a week, will that justify the cost of upgrading the line to passenger standard?

There are 3 passenger trips per day on the Melbourne - Warrnambool line, and from what I saw, they are well used.

[rhino]

There are 3 passenger trips per day on the Melbourne - Warrnambool line, and from what I saw, they are well used.

Who is running these trains since West Coast Railway folded a few years ago?

[Will409]

V/line.

[mm42]

Mandurah line increases patronage 2.5 times over high-frequency express buses !

http://www.pta.wa.gov.au/scripts/viewar ... p?NID=2513

Capacity of a busway system means little if people won't use it in sufficient numbers to utilise that capacity. The Perth experience is that there has been a large mode shift from the private car to public transport when the public transport changed from bus to train.

The high-frequency express bus service the Manduarh line replaced was superior to any service operating anywhere else in Australia. Buses followed local routes then collected passengers from stations which had up to 1000 parking spaces. The buses then travelled express along the Kwinana freeway to their special CBD exit, and without travelling on local streets entered the mulitplatform Esplanade bus station - the best bus station in Australia. Passengers could then walk on pedestrian bridges to the CBD without having to walk on local streets.

The Esplanade bus station is still there, but now only local services and a few short-distance Kwinana Freeway services use it.

[Somebody]

Come on, guys - it's wasteful to be trying to provide single seat journeys from every suburban back street to the CBD - and did you know that the majority of people don't go into the CBD each day? It may be an advantage of the O-Bahn, but not something you can use against rail. People are not afraid of changing when the connection is quick and efficient.

I'm neutral on the O-Bahn - I wouldn't build any more, but it seems to be working pretty well as-is.

The high-frequency express bus service the Manduarh line replaced was superior to any service operating anywhere else in Australia.

The exprezz bus from Mandurah to Perth used to run once an hour and finish fairly early. Is an hourly bus the best anywhere in Australia?

Trains run every 15mins, 18/7/365. Outside of daytime hours, a Welfare On Wheels frequency of one train every 30 mins operates.

[monotonehell]

Mandurah line increases patronage 2.5 times over high-frequency express buses !

http://www.pta.wa.gov.au/scripts/viewar ... p?NID=2513

Capacity of a busway system means little if people won't use it in sufficient numbers to utilise that capacity. The Perth experience is that there has been a large mode shift from the private car to public transport when the public transport changed from bus to train.

The high-frequency express bus service the Manduarh line replaced was superior to any service operating anywhere else in Australia. Buses followed local routes then collected passengers from stations which had up to 1000 parking spaces. The buses then travelled express along the Kwinana freeway to their special CBD exit, and without travelling on local streets entered the mulitplatform Esplanade bus station - the best bus station in Australia. Passengers could then walk on pedestrian bridges to the CBD without having to walk on local streets.

The Esplanade bus station is still there, but now only local services and a few short-distance Kwinana Freeway services use it.

And the capacity of a railway/ferry/bus/taxi service/3 seater bike means little if people wont use it in sufficient numbers to utilise that capacity -- moot point.

The OBahn is very different to a standard busway. Because it's guided it can move much faster and reduce the trip time as well as take the buses off the roads, as well as providing peak period point to point services. If you saw my previous comments you'll see that the obahn is more patronised than any of Adelaide's train routes:

OBahn: 583,333 passengers a year per km
Rail: 103,833 passengers a year per km

Showing my working:

OBahn (12 km)
ave 19178 a day
583,333 passengers a year per km
or 7,000,000 passengers per line


Outer Harbor Line (21.9 km)
Gawler Line (42.2 km)
Grange Line (5.5 km)
Noarlunga Line (30.2 km)
Belair Line (21.5 km)
Tonsley Line (3.9 km)
Total (125.2 km)

ave 35616 a day
103,833 passengers a year per km
or 1857 passengers per line
or 3,250,000 passengers just counting the 4 main lines

[jk1237]

evening monotone . Well I cant argue against your stats tonight, but Id like to see what happens if we upgrade our rail system to a reasonable standard

[Norman]

What are your sources, MTH?

[Somebody]

If you saw my previous comments you'll see that the obahn is more patronised than any of Adelaide's train routes:

OBahn: 583,333 passengers a year per km
Rail: 103,833 passengers a year per km

Not really surprising when the O-Bahn gets a decent service (pity about the feeders) on weekdays. All of the rail lines only get a joke service.

I'd love to see TransAdelaide's patronage statistics, line-by-line, station-by-station.

[Düsseldorfer]

evening monotone . Well I cant argue against your stats tonight, but Id like to see what happens if we upgrade our rail system to a reasonable standard

will be the same as the tram, once it is upgraded and extended to more places it's popularity will dramatically increase..

[monotonehell]

evening monotone . Well I cant argue against your stats tonight, but Id like to see what happens if we upgrade our rail system to a reasonable standard

Yes! That would be great. That would be a spur for more patronage.
However my points are
A) The Obahn has pretty much the same upper capacity as light rail, plus the advantages of lower cost, more flexibility and a door to door service for sprawl.
B) Calls to convert it to Light Rail are a furfy due to higher cost, and zero advantage.

The only points that light rail has over OBahn is the ability to electrify Light Rail in an attempt to reduce pollution (if pollution works that way, I believe it does but don't know). And the superior ToD encouraging effects of a rail line. OBahn has a similar effect, but lessens it because the buses can serve sprawl.

What are your sources, MTH?

Multiple, because none of this is in the same place. In this case it was Wikipedia for the KM measurements and the transadelaide/adelaidemetro websites for the annual ridership stats.

Not really surprising when the O-Bahn gets a decent service (pity about the feeders) on weekdays. All of the rail lines only get a joke service.
I'd love to see TransAdelaide's patronage statistics, line-by-line, station-by-station.

So would I! But those stats aren't easy to come by. I suspect that the rail patronage here is lower that we'd expect because the rail services are so shitty at the moment. But still, as I've stated a few times the upper capacity of trains is about the same as the upper capacity of the OBahn.

[fabricator]

The 721/722/725 (all various version of) aren't buses, they haven't been in a long time. These are long distance routes which should have been replaced with a dedicated railway decades ago. At peak hour these are Articulated buses, are packed, and leave every 10-15 minutes (more often than that if you count the transit link and express buses).

Yes long distance bus routes along major roads have their place, but to have half the southern part of the city fed by a handful of bus routes is just nuts. Its not the Obahn either so getting stuck in traffic is a bigger problem as well.

[Pat28]

The latest newletter from DTEI is out http://203.147.248.196/alt-host/assets/ ... CTIONS.pdf