Perth Compared with other cities

[Merc1107]

If the state bus agency posted a propaganda piece like this on Youtube in Sydney there'd be heads rolling for challenging the prevailing state orthodoxy (move vehicles not people)!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0DOQGrIVwY

In the video is the phrase, "It's a solution that relies on all levels of government working together for it to be truly effective."

Truer words have not been spoken. Anyone who frequently uses the network here will quickly come to appreciate how often buses are held up by the very measures meant to speed them up; say the "B Lights" on the Causeway and at most major bus interchanges.

(In my opinion) Bus movements should not be restricted to any singular point in the traffic light cycle, if a bus is present at the lights, "priority" means they should be allowed to move prior to the next wave of traffic. Instead of having for a short window for buses every few minutes, they'd get several cycles across the span of a few minutes. The added benefits being less "waves" of arrivals at the interchanges as buses get their light cycle, and major corridors to & from the interchanges will have services staggered better.

[simonl]

Could not agree more! In Sydney there are a few traffic lights which have two phases per cycle for right turners or whatever.

There is no reason why this can't be done for B signals except for the political cost which may apply. Even better would be lights which detect that a bus is approaching and start to change before it arrives. I'm sure this would be justified in some places such as Smith St/Hassall St Parramatta.

[tonyp]

An indirect compliment to Perth and Adelaide as they are normally regarded as the most hopelessly low-density, car-dependent cities. They must be doing something right with their PT.

https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_5853457097001

Some nice footage of Transperth buses at work there! Also this interesting video, a few years old but still relevant (Wellington St has been replaced by Perth Busport):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZ11C1e4Ep8

[rogf24]

Some interesting graphs from that report.

[tonyp]

A recent presentation on Perth public transport system:

http://cotma.net.au/documents/perth_201 ... erence.pdf

And on the rail network:

http://cotma.net.au/documents/perth_201 ... 202018.pdf

A history of the origins of the modern Perth rail system:

http://cotma.net.au/documents/perth_201 ... Cotton.pdf

http://cotma.net.au/documents/perth_201 ... Slides.pdf

[tonyp]

Why can't one retro-fit a few transverse seats in a less-crowded metro car?

A number of the Perth A and B sets have this and they're progressively being converted to all longitudinal. I don't know whether the transverse ones make that much difference to seating capacity and they have two disadvantages to me, half of them are facing backwards and legroom is too tight.

[rogf24]

Why is there this belief that if the trains only filled to their low seated capacity instead of their full rated standing capacity they wouldn't cut the service frequency back till the capacity matched the demand ?.

The trains still cost money to run even if they don't have crews on board operating them. They are not going to run them around mostly empty just so most people can get a seat.

It's simple - Metro trains expects 70% or more of the passengers to stand their entire journey. If they are not filling to that capacity, they will either cut the train frequency or approve some more 20 story residential towers around the stations to increase the demand till 70% of the passengers have to stand.

A lot of trains especially during off-peak but even some peak trains aren't fully full. Yet you don't see them cutting back on services, they're adding services even though they aren't fully full. Same logic for metro, you won't see them cut back on services that aren't full. If they're not cutting back on DD services that aren't full, there's no reason why they'll cut back on Metro services that aren't full especially given it'll be cheaper to run. Public transport operators run services that aren't full all the time, the Metro will be no different. It's simple.

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[Bus Suggestions]

A number of the Perth A and B sets have this and they're progressively being converted to all longitudinal.

For clarification, the A-Series cars have had all longitudinal seating since at least 2010. B-Series sets 049 (currently suspected to be undergoing refurbishment) to 060 have transverse seating in the two driving cars between the doors, longitudinal between the car ends and the doors and longitudinal in the middle trailer, while 061 to 094 have entirely transverse seating except for the driving cars between the doors and car ends which have longitudinal seats. However, 095 to 126 were delivered with complete longitudinal seating.

[boronia]

Why can't one retro-fit a few transverse seats in a less-crowded metro car?

And what happens when that car gets crowded?

All the open space is an optical illusion. Fitting transverse seats does not increase the seating capacity to any great extent, they simply reduce the standing space considerably.

Measure the pitch of transverse seats, then the pitch of 2 longitudinal seats. Not a lot of difference.

[tonyp]

You continue to ignore the fact that existing Sydney Trains' services could be speeded up considerably if there was the political will to achieve it. It would be possible now, let alone when ATO is rolled out across the network. However, it suits the current government's agenda to show how slow they are compared with the new flashy metro. As I've pointed out previously, there is little difference between the acceleration/deceleration performance of the Waratahs and new Metropolis metro trains. The Waratahs or even the Millenniums and Oscars haven't been allowed to utilise their full potential to justify their metro strategy.

I think it's delusional to think that the double deckers can make up a nearly 10 minute time performance gap over 33 km with about 10 stops, no matter how much they improve their acceleration. Glen's historical figures have shown that the suburban trains were only ever a few minutes faster over such a distance/number of stops, not anywhere near as much as 10 minutes. Apart from the average speed issue, the passenger exchange capability of both types of train at stations is just so radically different. Inherently you just can't get passengers in and out of the gondola section with two decks and stairs through two doors at anything like the rate of a single deck with three doors and certainly not with the ability to fill the train to capacity in the dwell times.

One of Sydney's major public transport issues - and the one that is most relevant to attracting people from cars - is journey time. Sydney suburban trains have historically only been able to make significant gains in journey time by missing stops, which is completely self-defeating. When you have a train service that's anything from 5 to 15 minutes faster stopping at all stops than a train that misses some stops to be 5 to 15 minutes slower, it's clear which one is preferable. This also has a bearing on general passenger comfort as when people are standing they are standing for a significantly shorter time. When you add on top of that a service that is able to run more frequent services and thus deliver more seats per hour you don't have much of a competition.

[Fleet Lists]

One of Sydney's major public transport issues - and the one that is most relevant to attracting people from cars - is journey time. Sydney suburban trains have historically only been able to make significant gains in journey time by missing stops, which is completely self-defeating. When you have a train service that's anything from 5 to 15 minutes faster stopping at all stops than a train that misses some stops to be 5 to 15 minutes slower, it's clear which one is preferable. This also has a bearing on general passenger comfort as when people are standing they are standing for a significantly shorter time. When you add on top of that a service that is able to run more frequent services and thus deliver more seats per hour you don't have much of a competition.

Here we go again. As usual I totally disagree.
When I traveled by train doing a 40 minute trip to work, if I got a seat as I usually did, I could do half an hour's work on the way while if I was standing I could not do that. So to me and to a lot of other people I have spoken to, seating was more important than traveling time.

[tonyp]

Here we go again. As usual I totally disagree.
When I traveled by train doing a 40 minute trip to work, if I got a seat as I usually did, I could do half an hour's work on the way while if I was standing I could not do that. So to me and to a lot of other people I have spoken to, seating was more important than traveling time.

Yes no doubt, but not for many other people. In Perth, which had a revolutionary swing to rail use over the last twenty years using trains with a high standing to seating ratio but with Sydney-like distances, it seems to be the travel time that attracted people because I don't read about complaints about standing. Travel time is extremely attractive to me. I'll tolerate standing if it's in exchange for a fast journey, especially faster than by car. If it loses the time advantage over driving, I'm straight off into the car. I'm sure a huge number of people think like that.

I guess all will be revealed when metro starts running in the NW, particularly when it's extended to the Sydney CBD.

[neilrex]

People are forced to use public transport, not so much because of faster journey times, but because of parking constraints.

[tonyp]

People are forced to use public transport, not so much because of faster journey times, but because of parking constraints.

This mainly applies to inner Sydney and CBD. Elsewhere there is a choice. Fast public transport is profoundly attractive to people anywhere in the world. The huge patronage upsurge in Perth after the rail modernisation (like from about 10 million ppa to about 60 million ppa iirc) occurred and still occurs - in an environment of citywide generous parking availablity, including in the CBD.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaArj_zjRtc

Now how would that go attracting people if the public transport journey was as slow as or slower than the car journey, which it would be if run by Sydney Trains double deckers? (Clarkson-Perth 33 mins with 9 stops vs e.g. Cronulla-Redfern 43 min with 8 stops, both 33 km.)

[Merc1107]

Yes no doubt, but not for many other people. In Perth, which had a revolutionary swing to rail use over the last twenty years using trains with a high standing to seating ratio but with Sydney-like distances, it seems to be the travel time that attracted people because I don't read about complaints about standing. .

While it's true the train to Mandurah saves almost 20mins over the final timetable for the Mandurah Express bus, there's a lot more to the success of the North-South rail lines than some time savings or seats vs standing issue (there were a number of artics on the Expresses that were often full).

For example, the last bus to Mandurah was 7:15pm from the city on weekdays or 5:43pm weekends. Compare that to a train that not only runs close to midnight, but with a frequency of 15mins until well into the evening. Also noteworthy was freeway bus services rarely allowed interchange en-route. Services towards the city could stop at Murdoch, but outbound services could not. Nowadays you always stop at all stations; making shorter journeys between suburbs (or even Murdoch to Mandurah) a possibility compared to the previous city-centric buses. Buses are also significantly more reliable (frequent, predictable) and direct than they once were.

[boronia]

Yes no doubt, but not for many other people. In Perth, which had a revolutionary swing to rail use over the last twenty years using trains with a high standing to seating ratio but with Sydney-like distances, it seems to be the travel time that attracted people because I don't read about complaints about standing. Travel time is extremely attractive to me. I'll tolerate standing if it's in exchange for a fast journey, especially faster than by car. If it loses the time advantage over driving, I'm straight off into the car. I'm sure a huge number of people think like that.

I guess all will be revealed when metro starts running in the NW, particularly when it's extended to the Sydney CBD.

Perth commuters have had mainly longitudinal seating since the inception of electric services, they have grown up not knowing anything different.

Sydney commuters have been travelling in transverse (mostly) tip-over seating for over 100 years, it might be hard to re-acclimatise them. The vast open space belies the fact there is still a close equivalent number to 2+2 format layout.

From observation, there does not seem to be any aversion to using the longitudinal seats in the end saloons of d/d sets

[Transtopic]

One of Sydney's major public transport issues - and the one that is most relevant to attracting people from cars - is journey time. Sydney suburban trains have historically only been able to make significant gains in journey time by missing stops, which is completely self-defeating. When you have a train service that's anything from 5 to 15 minutes faster stopping at all stops than a train that misses some stops to be 5 to 15 minutes slower, it's clear which one is preferable. This also has a bearing on general passenger comfort as when people are standing they are standing for a significantly shorter time. When you add on top of that a service that is able to run more frequent services and thus deliver more seats per hour you don't have much of a competition.

Here we go again. As usual I totally disagree.
When I traveled by train doing a 40 minute trip to work, if I got a seat as I usually did, I could do half an hour's work on the way while if I was standing I could not do that. So to me and to a lot of other people I have spoken to, seating was more important than traveling time.

Amen to that. I wouldn't waste my breath challenging tonyp Fleet Lists, because no matter how valid an argument, he will never concede anything. He's always right (according to himself). I'm getting to the point where I'm beginning to wonder whether it's even worth continuing on this blog.

[tonyp]

This seems to have wandered off-topic as usual. Perhaps it should be directed back to the Sydney NW rail thread.

Admin: Some posts moved back to the Metro thread.

[Linto63]

Perth was coming off a very low base when it was electrified in the 1990s. The system was operated by largely ancient 2 carriage DMUs on three straight out and back 2 track lines with patronage that was sufficiently low for both sides of politics to instigate action to close it. It was able to learn from the mistakes learnt from previous electrifications, whereas Sydney was largely done in the 1920s at which time it was already a far more complicated network and without the accumulated knowledge.

Not to say that there hasn't been some foot dragging since, but it's a chalk and cheese comparison.

[Merc1107]

Perth was coming off a very low base when it was electrified in the 1990s. The system was operated by largely ancient 2 carriage DMUs on three straight out and back 2 track lines with patronage that was sufficiently low for both sides of politics to instigate action to close it. It was able to learn from the mistakes learnt from previous electrifications, whereas Sydney was largely done in the 1920s at which time it was already a far more complicated network and without the accumulated knowledge.

Not to say that there hasn't been some foot dragging since, but it's a chalk and cheese comparison.

Perhaps someone else with period-knowledge can chime in, but I'm sure I've read here on the ATDB the pre-electrification rail network had many of the same issues as the pre-rail bus networks did in terms of service span and frequency. Big improvements here would likely explain the growth in patronage throughout the 1990s.

[PoweredByCNG]

Perth commuters have had mainly longitudinal seating since the inception of electric services, they have grown up not knowing anything different.

Not quite true. The A-series EMUs were delivered with transverse seating throughout much of the carriages. They were not modified until they received the first overhauls in the early-2000s.

[Leyland B21]

Perth was coming off a very low base when it was electrified in the 1990s. The system was operated by largely ancient 2 carriage DMUs on three straight out and back 2 track lines with patronage that was sufficiently low for both sides of politics to instigate action to close it. It was able to learn from the mistakes learnt from previous electrifications, whereas Sydney was largely done in the 1920s at which time it was already a far more complicated network and without the accumulated knowledge.

Not to say that there hasn't been some foot dragging since, but it's a chalk and cheese comparison.

Perhaps someone else with period-knowledge can chime in, but I'm sure I've read here on the ATDB the pre-electrification rail network had many of the same issues as the pre-rail bus networks did in terms of service span and frequency. Big improvements here would likely explain the growth in patronage throughout the 1990s.

I can go as far back as when the Armadale line operated on weekdays with a 30 min frequency off peak and a single carriage ADX. The bus to Armadale was busier than the train back then an d that's early 80s

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[tonyp]

Some people at SCF have been doing a marvellous job charting some interstate comparisons. Of the smaller cities, note how well Perth stands out, including those 15 minute train headways, even beating out Melbourne.

Patronage, mode separated:


Ditto, stacked:


Population scaled (per head):


Ditto, stacked:


Train frequency per hour Sydney:


Ditto Melbourne:


Ditto Brisbane:


Ditto Perth:


Ditto Adelaide:

[Swift]

Perth has classy transport, but from what I've gathered, they have some unclassy behaviour, both on buses and trains.

[PoweredByCNG]

Perth has classy transport, but from what I've gathered, they have some unclassy behaviour, both on buses and trains.

It's the same anywhere in this lovely country really. No more than usual really.