22 March 2012

ACTION network changes for 2012

22 March 2012 | johnboy

Our bus network has announced their tweaks to the system for this year.

The new bus network is expected to commence on Monday 28 May 2012. All timetables will change as a result of the new network. Timetables are currently being updated and will be available two weeks prior to the commencement of the new network from the ACTION website, MyWay Centres, Woden and Tuggeranong Bus Stations and Canberra Connect Shopfronts.

The new network, Network 12, is the first step along the way to delivering the improvements outlined in the Transport for Canberra Strategy. This round of changes will improve the current network and further planning is underway for a more extensive review.

The Greens have expressed some pleasure with the direction this is going.

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Bramina9:11 pm 26 Mar 12

HenryBG said :

Bussie said :

Bramina said :

A 50 passenger seat bus can load about a passenger every five or six seconds – about one 50 passenger load every five minutes.

A tram can load 300 people in just five minutes.

So the capacity of a bus network is constrained at around a sixth of the capacity of a tram network.

A bus that seats 50 can stand around 20. An articulated bus can take 110. Less than trams sure but not as much less as you claim.

Good grief.

The point is: the extra 20 bus passengers will take an additional 2 minutes to load. (Even longer if some passengers get on and hang around the entrance, thus constricting the ingress of further passengers. Fnidiots.) The 110-seat bus will take a total of 10-11 minutes to load 1/3rd the number of passengers a tram can take on in 5 minutes.

What’s more, the idiots who implemented Myway have introduced further delays in the form of requiring that people swipe off, thus drastically slowing down the off-loading of passengers. I’d love to see a video of the meeting where that particular bit of genius was devised…

Yeah, my point was about route capacity – as in the number of people you can push through a transport route per hour. It wasn’t about the seating capacity of a single vehicle.

Busses might have the capacity to carry 5-600 people per hour along a route because of loading.

A lane of cars, travelling with a two second gap can carry 1800 cars per hour. However obstructions like traffic lights reduce this considerably.

A tram line can carry at most perhaps 4000-4500 people per hour.

But not only do trams add more capacity, they can add large amounts of capacity at a lower cost than any other form of transport.

The GDE for example has two lanes. At most it can carry 3600 cars per hour (is that optimistic? does it flow well in peak hour?). And it cost well in excess of $300 million.

The government could have built a tramline to Gungahlin for perhaps $250-300 million in total including the trams. The tramway could have carried 4000-4500 people per hour.

They could also build tramlines to Belconnen, Woden, and Tuggeranong for around $200 million each, with each line having a capacity once again of 4,000-4,500 people per hour.

Darkfalz3:43 pm 25 Mar 12

Well, this puts the nail in the coffin for the idea of me purchasing a new house in Crace. So they’ve just tacked Crace onto the arse (Belconnen) end of a long ride through all the further out (from Civic) Gungahlin suburbs, negating the location being “10 minutes from the CBD”. You’d be better off catching one of the buses that go through North Lyneham, but that’d mean crossing Barton highway first. It’s a shame they can’t just stick some stops along Barton highway.

HenryBG2:58 pm 25 Mar 12

Bussie said :

HenryBG said :

What’s more, the idiots who implemented Myway have introduced further delays in the form of requiring that people swipe off, thus drastically slowing down the off-loading of passengers. I’d love to see a video of the meeting where that particular bit of genius was devised…

It’s so they know where people are going. It’s pretty common in public transport systems elsewhere.

I realise that, and in those other systems there are zones which make swiping-off relevant – However, here, as implemented, swiping-off clearly fulfills no operational purpose so I wonder if it isn’t transparently obvious that slowing down an entire mass transit system(ie, handicapping its core function) for the purpose of capturing data (not even a peripheral function) is clearly ludicrous.

Gungahlin Al2:14 pm 25 Mar 12

Bussie said :

HenryBG said :

What’s more, the idiots who implemented Myway have introduced further delays in the form of requiring that people swipe off, thus drastically slowing down the off-loading of passengers. I’d love to see a video of the meeting where that particular bit of genius was devised…

It’s so they know where people are going. It’s pretty common in public transport systems elsewhere.

Yeah I’m OK with the swipe off process. The data gained helps build a better service because actual trips can be captured rather than just start points and assumptions about destination.

Good idea though about exit from the rear if available.

Bussie12:22 pm 25 Mar 12

HenryBG said :

What’s more, the idiots who implemented Myway have introduced further delays in the form of requiring that people swipe off, thus drastically slowing down the off-loading of passengers. I’d love to see a video of the meeting where that particular bit of genius was devised…

It’s so they know where people are going. It’s pretty common in public transport systems elsewhere.

jase!2:43 pm 24 Mar 12

HenryBG said :

What’s more, the idiots who implemented Myway have introduced further delays in the form of requiring that people swipe off, thus drastically slowing down the off-loading of passengers. I’d love to see a video of the meeting where that particular bit of genius was devised…

agreed that it was a Muppet move

easy fix, entry only at the front of the bus, exit only at the back, people can swipe off at the back while others swipe on at the front

HenryBG12:54 pm 24 Mar 12

Bussie said :

Bramina said :

A 50 passenger seat bus can load about a passenger every five or six seconds – about one 50 passenger load every five minutes.

A tram can load 300 people in just five minutes.

So the capacity of a bus network is constrained at around a sixth of the capacity of a tram network.

A bus that seats 50 can stand around 20. An articulated bus can take 110. Less than trams sure but not as much less as you claim.

Good grief.

The point is: the extra 20 bus passengers will take an additional 2 minutes to load. (Even longer if some passengers get on and hang around the entrance, thus constricting the ingress of further passengers. Fnidiots.) The 110-seat bus will take a total of 10-11 minutes to load 1/3rd the number of passengers a tram can take on in 5 minutes.

What’s more, the idiots who implemented Myway have introduced further delays in the form of requiring that people swipe off, thus drastically slowing down the off-loading of passengers. I’d love to see a video of the meeting where that particular bit of genius was devised…

Bussie12:14 pm 24 Mar 12

Bramina said :

jase! said :

while i agree that something needs to be done to prioritise public transport down northbourne as a proponent of light rail I’d love to see how the cost of it would justify it over installing a T-Way type lane (and hopefully bike lane) down the middle of the traffic islands. A single T-way lane that is tidal flow based seems to be a much more flexible option and wouldn’t cost a mint. However if you can provide solid reasoning for how light rail would stack up both on a functional level and cost level I’d love to hear it

There are several differences between busses and trams. On the con side, trams lines are relatively expensive (the GDE wasn’t cheap either) and they are limited in where they can drive.

But where trams really beat busses is in their capacity. A 50 passenger seat bus can load about a passenger every five or six seconds – about one 50 passenger load every five minutes.

A tram can load 300 people in just five minutes.

So the capacity of a bus network is constrained at around a sixth of the capacity of a tram network.

If we want large numbers of people travelling on public transport, simply we have to move away from busses on the main routes. They can never have the capacity.

A bus that seats 50 can stand around 20. An articulated bus can take 110. Less than trams sure but not as much less as you claim.

Bramina10:14 am 24 Mar 12

jase! said :

while i agree that something needs to be done to prioritise public transport down northbourne as a proponent of light rail I’d love to see how the cost of it would justify it over installing a T-Way type lane (and hopefully bike lane) down the middle of the traffic islands. A single T-way lane that is tidal flow based seems to be a much more flexible option and wouldn’t cost a mint. However if you can provide solid reasoning for how light rail would stack up both on a functional level and cost level I’d love to hear it

There are several differences between busses and trams. On the con side, trams lines are relatively expensive (the GDE wasn’t cheap either) and they are limited in where they can drive.

But where trams really beat busses is in their capacity. A 50 passenger seat bus can load about a passenger every five or six seconds – about one 50 passenger load every five minutes.

A tram can load 300 people in just five minutes.

So the capacity of a bus network is constrained at around a sixth of the capacity of a tram network.

If we want large numbers of people travelling on public transport, simply we have to move away from busses on the main routes. They can never have the capacity.

jase!11:57 pm 23 Mar 12

neither of you really answered my question Al and the report linked doesn’t either, on page 43 it even suggests that dedicated T-way’s might be a good idea but it hasn’t really been looked at and the acquisition cost would be much lower (exactly what I was asking).

to me it seems the light rail collective want the rolled gold option or nothing whereas the northbourne issue could at least be partially solved quickly and without massive expense with a T-way but that is poo pooed because it isn’t the light rail solution

Gungahlin Al9:33 pm 22 Mar 12

JazzyJess said :

I catch the red rapid (a misnomer if ever there was one) from Gungahlin Marketplace to the city most days and it takes forever. Despite the sign saying limited stops it stops at every single one and crawls along Northbourne. There really needs to be a dedicated bus/car pool lane along Northbourne. That said, reducing it to two lanes for cars probably won’t help the situation.

Indeed. Puggy is right though – the Northbourne mess isn’t Action’s creation, and they can’t go any other way. It is a route where only fully segregated public transport will solve the problem. Fortunately after stacks of lobbying by many community groups (through several transport ministers with no vision for an actual solution), there finally are plans to do just that. Or plans to talk about it some more anyway. The key thing I think was that Katy responded to our requests to put transport planning back with the other planning functions. Previously, amalgamating transport design and delivery was a seriously retrograde step that held us up by several years.

With regard to whether the changes are responding to issues raised, we (GCC and Gungahlin residents) have been asking for:

*Additional Flemington Rd services – every 10 minutes instead of 15 now – tick.
*Additional 200 stop at Flemington and Well Station – tick
*Flemington Rd weekend service (that’s right there isn’t one at all now) – tick.
*Services for Bonner, Crace and Casey – tick.
*Straighten out the temporary zig zag through Franklin back streets now suburb is complete – tick for weekends anyway. On weekdays the 58 will not service Franklin or Mitchell any more! That’s a big change. Given the chronic overcrowding on all the Flemington Rd services from Harrison onwards, the 58 might become the route of choice for Harrison commuters.

Of course the question is whether the improvements have come at the expense of other aspects of the service. People in those areas will need to answer that.

Another thing that ACTION could do to improve their services at zero cost is to immediately stop forcing people on crowded buses to exit by the front door when a back door is available. The whole squeeze past everyone deal is a complete pain and puts people off.

The big change will be the next one where we are promised a complete rethink. This should be in line with the findings from all the consultation done over the last two years, which advised a restructure to more of a hub and spoke design with true express links between the hubs, and a greater incorporation of the new park’n’rides.

madamcholet1:32 pm 22 Mar 12

Last week, after leaving work slightly later, I accidentally boarded the wrong bus. I have to admit that with my normal bus I tend to follow my other bus compatriots and take no notice of what number it is. Because I was without my bus compatriots and a bus turned up saying it went to my suburb I got on – I thought it was the later version of my normal chauffer driven vehicle that I was waiting for – happened to come at exactly the right time. I DID ask the driver if he went down the Monaro Highway and he said that although it was the first time he had done the run, he definitely thought he would be going this way – he even picked up a sheet that looked like the route.

Lo and behold, after following my usual bus’ direction, we veered off and went towards Woden. No worries I thought, travelling through Woden is ok and proceeded to check my trusty smartphone for what bus I might actually be on. Turns out I was on one that was going to take 35 minutes longer to get to my normal destination than the one I had planned to get on.

Apart from being annoyed with myself for not checking properly and with the driver for giving me a bum steer, I was totally amazed that anyone actually catches this extraordinary bus. I could not describe the higgledy-piggledy journey that we took. It was truly bizarre. and the strange thing was that there were people on the bus from the start who also got off at my stop or later who could have gotten the much more efficient bus I should have taken – which is still a 45 minute trip at least.

So that’s what I see as the problem. In my area, there are efficient buses such as the one I get twice a week, and there are vastly inefficient buses. It has got to be admitted that the buses in Canberra can’t be all things to all people. Bus stops should be located on major roads and not up the back of a curly wurly street that is going to add 10 minutes to everyone’s trip. and if they have to continue these strange bus routes, then for heavens sake, just make them connectors to places like Tuggers, Woden, City and Belco – not going all the way up to Belco in one trip. But make those connections run very frequently using midi buses so they are more efficient and can get around the streets better. The bus I ended up on was by no means even near full, where as the one I normally get is quite full by the t ime it gets to Russell.

The way Canberra is laid out is just not conducive to running services like the one I was on. I left Sydney because I thought I was spending too much of my time stuck on a bus to go 12 kilometres each way. I’m shocked to know that some commuters in Canberra are spending over an hour one way to get to or from work.

They could also very much consider actually producing new buses rather than just talking about producing them. The old buses that I have to travel on (as the school kides seem to get the new ones in my area), are atrocious – if the heating is on you can hardly breath and if someone opens a window you get blown away if you are at the back of the bus – might sound like just a whinge, but decently maintained buses that get people to their destinations efficiently will be an attraction.

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