Weekend Transport

Sydney / New South Wales Transport Discussion
Frosty
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Weekend Transport

Post by Frosty »

If anyone tries to travel on weekends some may find its harder than it is during weekdays. There are multiple factors primarily that now we have become a 7 day society unfortunately our transport network fails to reflect that both Road & PT.

Look at it trains run a poor weekend service more than 50% less during weekday peak hour and a significant amount less than off-peak services. When patronage is similar for weekends and off-peak during the week. How come our trains don't reflect that when was the last time the weekend train timetable was looked at in a major way?

I say its even worse on weekends on the buses particularly Sunday its half of the Saturday service. Sunday is just as busy as Saturday now.

On the roads most roads on weekends have no clearways when traffic volumes are the same weekday peak-hour probably doesn't help PT runs a very skeleton service in some areas on weekends.
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jpp42
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Re: Weekend Transport

Post by jpp42 »

Don't forget the cases like the Blue Mountains train services - which are often packed like sardines due to the reduction to 4 cars on all services, despite already good patronage numbers. Blue Mountains tourism is an important economic driver but I don't recommend to my out of town visitors to take the train due to the chance they'd have to stand for 2 hours.
Frosty
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Re: Weekend Transport

Post by Frosty »

They've been slowly getting better with Intercity carriage lengths. Probably reason for 4 car running on the BMT line is it's easier for the guard as V sets don't have SDO unlike OSCARs as a lot of the Blue Mountains stations can only accomodate 4-6 cars.

I once had to stand on an 8 carriage V set Central Coast train from Central up to Gosford. On the SCO line at least half of the weekend services that run to and from Sydney are 8 cars.
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jpp42
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Re: Weekend Transport

Post by jpp42 »

Are you sure about selective door opening? How does the presence of the repeater (extra guard) help with that any way? If someone opens the door off a platform is the guard going to be able to do anything about it?

As mentioned in another thread recently, the Blue Mountains weekend services were all cut back to four cars a few years ago, in order to save on wage costs for the 2nd guard (repeater). My understanding is the need for the repeaters has to do with curved platforms mostly - with a long train the guard can't see the whole length of the platform if it's a convex curve, e.g. a left-hand curve on an island platform.
Frosty
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Re: Weekend Transport

Post by Frosty »

Also there was a case on a 8 car train on a 6 car platform on the BMT as it was a V set all 8 carriages had the doors unlocked but somehow a blind man with a guide dog manage to open and fall out of the train. They could simply just run 8 cars to Penrith then decouple one half of the train.

Hopefully the Intercity Fleet deals with this as they probably would have CCTV on the exterior of the doors to help with guard operations.
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boronia
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Re: Weekend Transport

Post by boronia »

They run 8Vs on BMT in the peaks, maybe regular commuters are better trained than tourists.
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swtt
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Re: Weekend Transport

Post by swtt »

I need to get my act together to write a letter to the minister to complain about the lack of trains on the northern line, Strathfield to Epping. Every suburban train running throughout the day during the weekend is full!

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molybtek
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Re: Weekend Transport

Post by molybtek »

<sarcasm>This may be resolved after September when it's no longer free to travel on weekends for commuters</sarcasm>
Stu
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Re: Weekend Transport

Post by Stu »

There has been some investment with sta bus services on weekends in recent years with the growth bus program although I couldnt say the same about trains.

Growth Trains :lol: :P
Frosty
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Re: Weekend Transport

Post by Frosty »

Growth Trains :lol: The last new train set was introduced in 2014. Last order was 2006 with the Waratahs.

Don't worry swtt the Airport Line is just as bad but just add in a whole bunch of airport travelers and luggage. 4:30pm on a Saturday afternoon city bound Airport line packed no special event or anything. It actually causes an issue often the Airport Line train will leave 1 or 2 mins late out of Central heading towards Museum because of the long dwell time on weekends.

STA have been getting better like finally the 348 got a decent Sunday service. Though it is quite bad sometimes I've seen peak hour queues on weekends at Wynyard for Northern Beaches buses. Like there is the 6:30am Saturday Wynyard 190 service to Palm Beach I've seen regularly leave passengers behind after Neutral Bay.
Liamena
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Re: Weekend Transport

Post by Liamena »

The solution for the mountains line is probably to run the trains more often.

The service on sundays is a bit erratic. There is a train every hour, goes to Lithgow every second hour, and then there are some "extra" trains on the half-hour in the afternoon, which seems to work OK, but none in the morning. It is the morning trains to the mountains that I have observed ridiculously overcrowded on the weekend.

Running trains every half hour at least as far as Katoomba would go a long way to eliminating overcrowding and also reduce average waiting time a lot.
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Re: Weekend Transport

Post by Frosty »

That could work half hourly semi fast BMT trains so they would call at Strathfield, Lidcombe, Parramatta, Westmead, Blacktown, Penrith then the usual peak hour fast stopping pattern.
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boronia
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Re: Weekend Transport

Post by boronia »

Liamena wrote:The solution for the mountains line is probably to run the trains more often.

The service on sundays is a bit erratic. There is a train every hour, goes to Lithgow every second hour, and then there are some "extra" trains on the half-hour in the afternoon, which seems to work OK, but none in the morning. It is the morning trains to the mountains that I have observed ridiculously overcrowded on the weekend.

Running trains every half hour at least as far as Katoomba would go a long way to eliminating overcrowding and also reduce average waiting time a lot.
The is an "extra" down service from Central at 09:48, and two extra up services in the afternoon. These might benefit from operating to/from Katoomba only and being express from Leura to Emu Plains (although presumably they stable at Mt Vic?).
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boronia
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Re: Weekend Transport

Post by boronia »

One of the anomalies of weekend transport is the great variation in bus services between Saturday and Sunday.

Just an example that affects me. I occasionally have to catch the 0548 Central to Lithgow service on weekends. On Sunday I can catch the first 393 from Kensington to Central at around 0525 which gets me there with plenty of time to get a coffee on the way up. This service is often quite well patronised considering the hour.

But on Saturdays, the first such service is not until around 0620, almost an hour later. To get there on time I have to catch a CQ bus, change for a 440 in Oxford St and walk from Railway Sq.

I am surprised that travel patterns would be so much different over the two days. I would have expected the better service would be on the Saturday
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Frosty
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Re: Weekend Transport

Post by Frosty »

Weird usually on Sunday its the later start since a good example is the 380 & 333 the 333 outbound towards Bondi Beach doesn't operate till at least 8am. Same also can be said for the 381. But I've seen the 380 so often packed on early mornings on weekends particularly when there are running events.

Botany Rd is pretty good for early morning weekends. First bus leaves Matraville at 4:30am gets to Green Square at 4:50am. Arrives at Central just after 5am. But it's one hour later on Sunday.
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Re: Weekend Transport

Post by Jurassic_Joke »

Frosty wrote:
I say its even worse on weekends on the buses particularly Sunday its half of the Saturday service. Sunday is just as busy as Saturday now.
Completely true, glad I'm not the only one who noticed this and its exactly why I'm against the new Opal fare structure from September where effectively , the only day of the week you'll ever encouraged to galavant Sydney is on SUNDAY......completely broken, but anyways.

The train will get a new timetable from 2018, hopefully they will fix things up. T1 as an example is disgustingly overcrowded on sundays, from the North shore going into the City. Why? Half the trains from Macquarie Park end at Chatswood, and then that only leaves one train each way every 15 minutes on both the ECRL and North Shore line (and its usually like 1 minute behind the train from the North Shore after Chatswood), so you'll always wait 15 minutes if you miss it. This is so stupid. Its almost like its been done to troll people. Time to fix it, Howard.

As for Buses and Ferries, I'm not sure - the former could do with a frequency rise on Sunday to meet rising demand, the latter, dont bother, rorters are rorting it on Sunday, Andrew could have fixed this with the new weekend cap but chose not to, so suffer the economic consequences for it.
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boronia
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Re: Weekend Transport

Post by boronia »

Frosty wrote:Growth Trains :lol: The last new train set was introduced in 2014. Last order was 2006 with the Waratahs.
The recent announcement of 20 more A sets are supposedly for growth.
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Frosty
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Re: Weekend Transport

Post by Frosty »

Until there is a contract signed I wouldn't call it an order. It's an announcement not much substance yet. More like these growth trains are going to cover the Tangara upgrades and finally reduce the reliance of S sets often on a daily basis on the T2/T3 Lines.
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Re: Weekend Transport

Post by lunchbox »

[quote="jpp42"]Are you sure about selective door opening? How does the presence of the repeater (extra guard) help with that any way? If someone opens the door off a platform is the guard going to be able to do anything about it?

As mentioned in another thread recently, the Blue Mountains weekend services were all cut back to four cars a few years ago, in order to save on wage costs for the 2nd guard (repeater). My understanding is the need for the repeaters has to do with curved platforms mostly - with a long train the guard can't see the whole length of the platform if it's a convex curve, e.g. a left-hand curve on an island platform.[/quote]

In response to a request by Commuter Council, From Saturday 17th December and Sunday 18th December 2016, the 9.18am Train
from Central to Mt Victoria will be 8 carriages, and operate every Saturday and Sunday. This will be in force until the 29th January
2017, when it will be reconsidered. Availability of the ageing V-set cars has deteriorated due to ever-increasing maintenance requirements.
Liamena
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Re: Weekend Transport

Post by Liamena »

Frosty wrote: Look at it trains run a poor weekend service more than 50% less during weekday peak hour and a significant amount less than off-peak services. When patronage is similar for weekends and off-peak during the week. How come our trains don't reflect that when was the last time the weekend train timetable was looked at in a major way?
The T1 north shore line runs 4 trains an hour at weekends, which is the same as weekday off-peak and evenings.
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boronia
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Re: Weekend Transport

Post by boronia »

lunchbox wrote: In response to a request by Commuter Council, From Saturday 17th December and Sunday 18th December 2016, the 9.18am Train
from Central to Mt Victoria will be 8 carriages, and operate every Saturday and Sunday. This will be in force until the 29th January
2017, when it will be reconsidered. Availability of the ageing V-set cars has deteriorated due to ever-increasing maintenance requirements.
In past years, a lot of BMT services have been upgraded to 8V over the summer holidays period
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Simes
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Re: Weekend Transport

Post by Simes »

Frosty wrote:If anyone tries to travel on weekends some may find its harder than it is during weekdays. There are multiple factors primarily that now we have become a 7 day society unfortunately our transport network fails to reflect that both Road & PT.

Look at it trains run a poor weekend service more than 50% less during weekday peak hour and a significant amount less than off-peak services. When patronage is similar for weekends and off-peak during the week. How come our trains don't reflect that when was the last time the weekend train timetable was looked at in a major way?

I say its even worse on weekends on the buses particularly Sunday its half of the Saturday service. Sunday is just as busy as Saturday now.

On the roads most roads on weekends have no clearways when traffic volumes are the same weekday peak-hour probably doesn't help PT runs a very skeleton service in some areas on weekends.
Yes in many areas things tend to run 7 days a week now - however, there are places that are still quiet on weekends, some parts of the economy stick to Monday - Friday operation.
I work in Kogarah and you can shoot a canon through there on the weekend

Some inner west shopping centres basically require daylight clearways! (Try going anywhere after 10am....)
I think you run the risk of indirectly stirring that penalty rate dragon too
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matthewg
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Re: Weekend Transport

Post by matthewg »

Frosty wrote:Also there was a case on a 8 car train on a 6 car platform on the BMT as it was a V set all 8 carriages had the doors unlocked but somehow a blind man with a guide dog manage to open and fall out of the train. They could simply just run 8 cars to Penrith then decouple one half of the train.

Hopefully the Intercity Fleet deals with this as they probably would have CCTV on the exterior of the doors to help with guard operations.
Inst there already a project to try selective door opening on a V set ?

The new intercity trains will almost certainly have GPS co-ordinated SDO. The train will 'know' which station it's at and 'know' which doors will be on the platform. The other doors will not unlock/open. The guard/driver (I'd bet the trains will be DOO capable, even if not initially used) won't have to think about it, just press the door release button.
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Re: Weekend Transport

Post by simonl »

Like everything it comes down to what people will vote for. I suppose you can argue that no one was running on just running more services on the existing lines in the 2015 election so they didn't have a chance to vote for that. However, say such a thing to someone who isn't a transit geek and they will argue about the money involved and if it is worth it.
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Re: Weekend Transport

Post by BroadGauge »

Simes wrote:Yes in many areas things tend to run 7 days a week now - however, there are places that are still quiet on weekends, some parts of the economy stick to Monday - Friday operation.
I work in Kogarah and you can shoot a canon through there on the weekend
North Sydney is another good example of that too. No extra weekend buses are needed at all given the lack of anything that actually happens there. Even the shops there are yet to adopt 7 day trading.
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