The shocking state of the ACT Internal Omnibus Network

I have altogether given up on public transport and have moved into the inner city so I can walk everywhere, and occasionally catch taxis on rare times when I have to go somewhere unusual.

Centralised living is the way to go if you ask me. No more way out town centres, eg Gungahlin or Tuggers, just bunk everyone close to Civic.

I indeed post in my own name, own my opinions and stand behind everything I say and am prepared to send stuff out into the public domain for debate. I’m a Candidate for the elections for the next few months, I’m a citizen of Canberra for all the rest of the time. My public comment won’t stop after the election.

I don’t see how it’s a vested interest other than the same interest anyone else who crams onto a bus has. The post may show people what I’m interested in but will it make people vote for me?

No problems with that at all, and I agree with the sentiment of the post. I just think that if a candidate is posting stories, they should declare their candidacy and not rely on the readership to make the connection.

It’s only poor people who catch buses, and they don’t vote.

Well seeing light rail won’t happen for a few reasons relating to vested interests we are stuck with buses. They work pretty darn good on trunk routes, but it seems it is the connections that Haven’t been thought through properly. Surely some predictive type analytics could provide the smarts to liklely demand patterns?

Oh sorry I forgot. I did contact Action to complain and received the following reply:
“I have forwarded your feedback to ACTION’s Customer Services Manager to
discuss with the driver the importance of adhering to the timetables and
what effect early running causes our passengers.”

5 buses running from 8 till 9? yeesh, consider yourself lucky! down south, on my route, we’ve only got ..3. And dont get me started on the fact, that in the old network, it’d be two different routes (with what, 3 or 4 buses in that hour??)(and then there’s the fact that it only took 10 mins to get to tuggers, unlike the 30 min bus trip i’m left with now)

and we had one break down or something today, which got replaced with one of those 9 seater vans.
Which was nice, because im on one of the first stops, so i actulary got a seat, but ..there was at least 30 more people who clearly couldnt fit, so they had to wait another half an hour, for the next bus, which as you’ve described yourself, all have to cram into the next bus, which gets even more full, and so on and so-forth.

Some clarifications and additions: The second bus overtook on Barry drive and the remaining two stops from there don’t have people waiting to be picked up as they’re very close to the City. Secondly you can’t wait for the second (empty) bus because it’s so hit and miss whether it will turn up or not or even turn up 20 minutes late and be right in front of the next one…or not.

I indeed post in my own name, own my opinions and stand behind everything I say and am prepared to send stuff out into the public domain for debate. I’m a Candidate for the elections for the next few months, I’m a citizen of Canberra for all the rest of the time. My public comment won’t stop after the election.

I don’t see how it’s a vested interest other than the same interest anyone else who crams onto a bus has. The post may show people what I’m interested in but will it make people vote for me?

I know our public transport network can be fixed. Not by me because I’m no expert, but you can’t tell me there’s no one in the world, in similarly sized cities, that hasn’t already tackled this problem and won!

I’ve caught buses in other markets where there are procedures to cover the two-bunched-together problem, e.g. the at-capacity bus becomes an alight-only bus for the next 5 stops, the second bus pauses for 5 minutes, the two buses take turns at being the front bus, etc. When you take the bus every day for 5 years you notice these things. You’re effectively emulating light rail (to some degree).

Packed in, even.

He did use his real name, and….he’s right. I rarely catch buses but the last one I was on we were packing in like fcuking sardines.

He did use his real name, from there it’s really up to readers to make their own judgments.

Thanks to Caf for making the connection though.

Perhaps some disclosure would have been appropriate?
I wondered the same thing – it’s by no means a bad thing for a candidate to have opinions and want to share them (indeed, I’d consider it mandatory). However, wanting to get elected seems like something of a “vested interest” that should perhaps be mentioned when posting about topics potentially relevant to said election.

On the flip-side, of course, had he mentioned that he was a candidate I’m sure people would have been posting comments the the tune of “so we’re providing free political advertising now?” 🙂

Can’t please everyone.

A terrible terrible thing for candidates to share their thoughts with the public?

Perhaps some disclosure would have been appropriate?

JC said :

Oh great we have someone running for local government writting beat up stories and the light rail lobby pushing their barrow too….. Bloody great this is.

A terrible terrible thing for candidates to share their thoughts with the public?

Oh great we have someone running for local government writting beat up stories and the light rail lobby pushing their barrow too….. Bloody great this is.

With the buses if what was written was true then of course the 2nd bus would over take somewhere along the line and start picking up the waiting passengers. I for one am glad to see there is somewhere that has 5 buses and hour, that is pretty good, much better than in the good old days when every route had a bus 30 mins off peak and 15 mins peak.

Now Mr ACT light rail yeah sure a light rail train can carry more, but as history would know where people need to change vehicles it is a disinsentive to catch public transport. That is one of the reasons why the 333 which used high capacity articulated buses, running at one point every 5 minutes was abolished.

Hmmm, It seems to me that the light rail argument might be right, there is only so much capacity at Civic for all these intertown buses. The light rail might be the next big solution.

Capacity is one reason why intertown routes really need to be replaced by light rail. A bus can only carry 100 or so people, fully loaded. A light rail vehicle such as the ones used in sydney, carries 217 people.

To increase the capacity of a bus, you need extra buses and extra drivers. To increase the carrying capacity of a light rail system, you add another vehicle behind the initial vehicle. Two light rail vehicles = 440ish passengers. Thats 4 action buses and 4 drivers.

Action buses can best be used by collecting passengers from suburban routes and depositing them at collection points for light rail which will run efficiently and quickly between employment, town and population centres.

I was on the second bus, that was travelling behind the first one, hence that is why I noticed that both buses didn’t stop for passengers in Bruce.

So if the ‘second’ bus is less full and gets to the interchange before the ‘first’ bus why don’t you just catch the ‘second bus’ ?

My bus to Belco was 15 mins late this morning, and I got on one of the 300 series buses at the Belco interchange, it was packed as (not unusual) and there was another 300 series bus that was there (which was really full). Both buses did not stop at the Bruce bus stops (near UC and Calvary Hospital) to pick up passengers that had been waiting for them to go to Civic, as they were too full.

I think that this new timetable is crap… At least put the bigger buses during the peak hours on the 300 series routes instead of these smaller ones that service bike riders.

I love the way the bus bureaucrats move the routes but don’t move the bus stops.

There are bus stops on the route I’m now forced to use that were very obviously put there for very different services. You find one on a corner, turn left or right and – presto – there’s another around the corner.

Of course, the bus stops at all of these – which slows it down which makes the service less efficient which pushes more consumers to cars which means patronage falls which means that next time the bus bureaucrats pull out their red pencils they’ll be able to justify more cuts…

I’ve experienced the same thing.

This would be Damian Heffernan, Independent candidiate for Ginninderra in the upcoming election?

The bus issue sounds like a classic ballsup. Have you written to ACTION about it?

Sounds pretty much the same as the busses i catch.
Luckly in the morning i get on early in on the route so it is not to squished straight away but it dosen’t take long to fill up and on the way home it is well worse, The bus regularly has to drive straight past people waiting at the stops beacuse it is too full.