These same misunderstandings come up every few years...
PeFe wrote:What percentage of O-Bahn trips are one bus journeys? I believe the number of one seat journeys is highest during the day, but at weekends/night time a considerable number of trips involve transfers, so the belief that the O-Bahn is a non-transfer service is not true.
You're not asking a valid question in relation to the point I made above. You've set up a strawman argument. The one seat journeys are mostly happening in peak period. Outside of peak, where the demand for seats is lower, lower patronised services connect to main line services. This adaptability is an advantage over rail where poorly patronised services carry a similar cost to a full train. Where feeder services must be run at all times, so no door to door services can be run.
PeFe wrote:The weakness of the O-Bahn is the capacity issues (60 people on 1 bus, compared to 160-250 people on 1 tram)
Again. Not a weakness. Your argument assumes that max capacity is required all day. It also ignores the fact that vehicles can run on the O-Bahn with a few seconds separation, compared to trains which require minutes separation. The actual peak capacity of the O-Bahn is near the peak capacity of light rail. This also ignores that those separate vehicles can then run on-street to and from different locations (door to door).
So there's two situations to be compared here - on and off peak. Your arguments compound both situations and attempt to argue from both directions. That's a logical fallacy.
PeFe wrote:Also the number of buses that clog up major thoroughfares like Grenfell/Currie Streets, its an issue and it will only get worse.
This is true. But it's an implementation issue, not a O-Bahn issue. One could argue that rail gets congested because on one track there's no way for trains to pass ones waiting at a station, or that they have to wait for one train to leave the station for another to visit.
PeFe wrote:The new Sydney CBD/South East Light rail will be tram/bus transfer, the future issue there is capacity (should it be a metro?)
Also the Gold Coast light rail is tram/bus transfer.....a big success, why would Adelaide be any different?
I know very little about these two examples so I can't comment much more than saying different situations better suit different modes and implementations. There's no one mode that's better in ALL situations. The O-Bahn has and does suit the N.E. Suburbs' situation very well. In hindsight it was the correct decision.
PeFe wrote:The O-Bahn has not been replicated in any great number around the world (bar the few exceptions mentioned) so you have got to ask yourself why?
Capacity would be my guess, if you have a transit corridor like the linear park, then light rail/metro would be the world's answer for that particular space. BRT seems to be usually built on main roads, creating a "bus only" lane.
I wish I could find that damn paper - it had a graph showing capacity versus speed of various modes. The O-Bahn was on top of everything until heavy rail. The graph and the paper showed that when your capacity requirements exceed that of the O-Bahn, light rail is no longer an option.
PeFe wrote:Having said all this I am actually looking forward to the new O-Bahn tunnel opening at the end of the year. I believe it will be a winner, muck quicker transit times into the CBD, another "plus" for the public transport in the eyes of "Joe public".
One further suggestion though, maybe during the weekday business hours, the buses should all be the longer/articulated kind, so this addresses the capacity and number of buses in Grenfell St issue. This of course may entail more transfers down the line though....
I'm looking forward to it being opened. But I'm worried that (as you mention) there will be major congestion during peak at the Grenfell Street end. They need to work out some kind of "exchange like" solutions, to deal with all the buses. Perhaps they already have and I worry for nothing.
I thought that was how it was run now. But some people have told me that even though the time tables require artics at certain times, real life gets in the way and on-ground situations mean that occasionally a lower capacity bus is sent out on a route.
Exit on the right in the direction of travel.