Sydney's demographics are changing

[kypros1992]

Sydney's demographics are changing, and so are its bus services.

Analysis of Opal Card data compiled by the state government and obtained by 7NEWS has identified the busiest and emptiest bus routes.

The documents also reveal there are changes underway, with some bus services to be boosted, while others to get be scrapped.

Sydney's most used bus routes include the 333 North Bondi to Circular Quay, the B1 Mona Vale to Wynyard, route 343 from Kingsford to Chatswood and the 400 Bondi Junction to the Airport.

Among the least popular bus routes are the N90 Hornsby to Town Hall, the N91 Bondi Junction to Macquarie Park, the 362 Bondi Beach to Coogee bus, the 553 North Rocks to Beecroft and the 552 Oatlands to Parramatta.

Transport Minister Andrew Constance warned some bus routes will have to be scrapped.

"We don't want to see empty buses around the streets of Sydney ... we want to see public transport used," Constance told 7NEWS.

"And while you might have a small group of people put out, generally the majority benefit".

Those to benefit the most will be those living in the west, with bus services from Parramatta to the City to be boosted.

In total, there'll be 2,800 new services introduced over the next year - the majority reserved for the booming northwest and southwest.

The documents can also reveal a plan by the statement government to modernise some of its ageing fleets with electric and even hydrogen buses over the next few years.

"We've got a couple of the older buses that are inaccessible for people with disability. We want to phase those out," said Constance.

https://7news.com.au/news/transport/the ... p-c-421672

[moa999]

Was sort of a nothing article..
A quiet route could have every bus packed and need more.
The useful info is average load factor (to use an airline term) and for some routes (eg. The 400) you'd need to break it down over multiple segments

[Jurassic_Joke]

Sydney's demographics are changing, and so are its bus services.

Analysis of Opal Card data compiled by the state government and obtained by 7NEWS has identified the busiest and emptiest bus routes.

The documents also reveal there are changes underway, with some bus services to be boosted, while others to get be scrapped.

Sydney's most used bus routes include the 333 North Bondi to Circular Quay, the B1 Mona Vale to Wynyard, route 343 from Kingsford to Chatswood and the 400 Bondi Junction to the Airport.

Among the least popular bus routes are the N90 Hornsby to Town Hall, the N91 Bondi Junction to Macquarie Park, the 362 Bondi Beach to Coogee bus, the 553 North Rocks to Beecroft and the 552 Oatlands to Parramatta.

Transport Minister Andrew Constance warned some bus routes will have to be scrapped.

"We don't want to see empty buses around the streets of Sydney ... we want to see public transport used," Constance told 7NEWS.

"And while you might have a small group of people put out, generally the majority benefit".

Those to benefit the most will be those living in the west, with bus services from Parramatta to the City to be boosted.

In total, there'll be 2,800 new services introduced over the next year - the majority reserved for the booming northwest and southwest.

The documents can also reveal a plan by the statement government to modernise some of its ageing fleets with electric and even hydrogen buses over the next few years.

"We've got a couple of the older buses that are inaccessible for people with disability. We want to phase those out," said Constance.

https://7news.com.au/news/transport/the ... p-c-421672

Hey Constance, still not too late to change your mind on no more new artics

In regards to N90 and N91, I can attest both are regularly chockers full on Friday and Saturday nights. The thing that would be interesting to talk about is the fact that, before State Transit took over these routes in March 2018, N90 only existed and then the 2x an hour only on friday and saturday night (1/2 of these trips would end at Gordon and in that direction only), 1x an hour on other nights. What we now have with N90 and N91 is combined, between City and Chatswood, a frequency of 2x-3x an hour on all nights of the week. It does feel like a privilege, hope it still lasts.

[Stu]

Constance has been fed information from the state bureaucrats who are very simple minded. The routes that carry the least patronage are very limited in the number of services provided and their respective operational environments.

552 & 553 are local suburban loop services that are already not frequent so the low patronage numbers spread out across the day surely should not look as bleak as it has been reported.
Night Ride services carry the amount of people that you would expect for services that operate between 23:00 & 05:00. If they are scrapped, will train services become 24hrs? Probably not as Greiner told us many years ago about all the track work that would happen during the late night & early morning hours that trains do not operate.

[Campbelltown busboy]

Hey Constance, still not too late to change your mind on no more new artics

The Libs didn't want buses to take too much space at bus stops so they picked double deck and 12 metre single deck over the longer 18 metre artic didn't Gladys make a statement back in about 2014 when she was the transport minister about arctics being too long and double deckers were better while they had Busways trialing the CDI that was most probably bought from Bustech to use as a high capacity school bus on the north coast but the Libs and transport for NSW asked Busways to transfer it down to Sydney for the trial

[Fleet Lists]

Split from September 2019 timetable changes - totally off topic as far as that thread is concerned.

[tonyp]

Gladys also made an earlier statement (I'd have to look it up to reference it) that double deckers would only be used on long-distance, limited-stop routes because their passenger exchange shortcomings and general slowness made them unsuitable for normal route work - which is a statement any knowledgeable transport professional would make. Too long for bus stops is only an excuse for perpetuating the one size fits all philosophy. Lengthen the bus stops. Taking up too much road space is something out of the auto lobby textbook. They used that against trams. Here's a suggestion - let's make all buses and trams ten meters long. That would solve a lot of problems. First there would be no room for any other motor traffic and, second, you wouldn't need bus and tram stops because passengers could board and alight anywhere along the conga line.

[Campbelltown busboy]

Gladys also made an earlier statement (I'd have to look it up to reference it) that double deckers would only be used on long-distance, limited-stop routes because their passenger exchange shortcomings and general slowness made them unsuitable for normal route work - which is a statement any knowledgeable transport professional would make. Too long for bus stops is only an excuse for perpetuating the one size fits all philosophy. Lengthen the bus stops. Taking up too much road space is something out of the auto lobby textbook. They used that against trams. Here's a suggestion - let's make all buses and trams ten meters long. That would solve a lot of problems. First there would be no room for any other motor traffic and, second, you wouldn't need bus and tram stops because passengers could board and alight anywhere along the conga line.

How would a 10 metre long bus work in the outer suburbs of Sydney where passenger numbers can vary with every run

[tonyp]

Exactly. Mine was not a serious suggestion though. If 12 metres is to be the standard size though, for some services it will be too big and for some too small.

[Jurassic_Joke]

Hey Constance, still not too late to change your mind on no more new artics

The Libs didn't want buses to take too much space at bus stops so they picked double deck and 12 metre single deck over the longer 18 metre artic didn't Gladys make a statement back in about 2014 when she was the transport minister about arctics being too long and double deckers were better while they had Busways trialing the CDI that was most probably bought from Bustech to use as a high capacity school bus on the north coast but the Libs and transport for NSW asked Busways to transfer it down to Sydney for the trial

The big issue I have with deckers in NSW besides being slower to offload because only two doors, is the fact that unlike bendy buses, they are time restricted (B Line excepted for branding reasons). This means they only come out for a few hours each day during the weekday peaks and occasionally for a few hours on weekends. So double decker buses are a niche-use bus, rather than a 'regular' bus. They'll do the minimum and only come out when needed (and thats it) and otherwise just be invisible, unlike artics. Don't get me wrong, I do like double deckers, they're fun to ride on and feel 'different' enough, but the time restriction just kills it for me - just reeks of mollycoddling “nope you don’t need it ”

If we consider that artic buses are otherwise, in Constances own words, being phased out altogether from here on in, then its just a capacity downgrade everywhere elsewhere. That's not progressive. It's backwards. It's only to appeal to rich people that drive everywhere and who's that more likely to be? The rich. Who the Liberal Party is meant to represent.

When I was last in Melb, I see Transdev (inner city company there) has in the last year gotten a couple of lovely nice new Scania K360UA Gemilang artics at their Doncaster depot to join the existing artic fleet, with more to come. Point is, at least PTV is open to new bendy buses. PTV is smart. PTV isn't oblivious to recognise that when population and therefore public transport use is booming at an unprecedented rate, you kinda need the appropriate sized buses to cater for this and that one size does not fit all.

[Cazza]

For long distance routes with few stops, like the B-Line is, DD buses are perfect. Getting more people onto seats rather than standing for upwards of 45 mins is the best way to go about it. Apart from that, bendies should be the bus of choice for Sydney's fleet. Stops are too close together to begin with so that pretty much rules DD's out for running any normal suburban routes.

In saying that, why was the M92 the route of choice for Transdev to run DD's? They could have at least spaced out the stops more or have it run Limited Stops at least, especially for a route that can take an hour and a half to complete at the best of times.

[tonyp]

Plus double deckers are route-restricted or have to have routes engineered and approved, whereas artics can go anywhere. I agree with the use of the deckers on the B Line type of service but to say that one size fits all yet allow deckers appears more like playing favourite buses than sound service planning. As I've said, the capacity gap between a 12 metre bus and a 30 metre + tram is too big to ignore, while 12 metre buses can also be too big for some services (the NW with a better service design comes to mind).

[BroadGauge]

Point is, at least PTV is open to new bendy buses. PTV is smart. PTV isn't oblivious to recognise that when population and therefore public transport use is booming at an unprecedented rate, you kinda need the appropriate sized buses to cater for this and that one size does not fit all.

That's hilarious. I don't understand why so many people have this "grass is greener on the other side" mentality where they think everything is better everywhere else.

Bus patronage in Melbourne is actually declining, despite the extremely high level of population growth in that city. There's also only a relatively tiny number of articulated route buses in Melbourne, around 20 vehicles spread around several operators.

And that's before we even touch on the subject of so many routes and timetables still being stuck in the 1980s. Perhaps a read over this blog might enlighten you on that. But I guess as it's somewhere else, things must be better there and they must be smarter than TfNSW is, right?

[tonyp]

Melbourne doesn't need that many artics because it has trams doing the heavy work. Sydney is streets ahead of Melbourne in public transport progress, despite its bus issues that still need sorting. The best thing about Melbourne is that it has retained its tram system, but they're not investing enough in it to make the most of its potential. They also have a good rail network, again short of its potential. Melbourne public transport is all about unrealised potential, which, as time goes on, is an increasing concern as Melbourne's population is growing at a greater rate than Sydney's and it will eventually overtake Sydney as the mosr populous city at the present rate. For all its faults, be grateful that you're in NSW. The only other place in Australia that's as good that you could be in is Perth.

[stupid_girl]

Plus double deckers are route-restricted or have to have routes engineered and approved, whereas artics can go anywhere. I agree with the use of the deckers on the B Line type of service but to say that one size fits all yet allow deckers appears more like playing favourite buses than sound service planning. As I've said, the capacity gap between a 12 metre bus and a 30 metre + tram is too big to ignore, while 12 metre buses can also be too big for some services (the NW with a better service design comes to mind).

Are you sure that artics can go anywhere? There are many streets in Sydney which are too narrow for arctic to make a turn.

[tonyp]

Are you sure that artics can go anywhere? There are many streets in Sydney which are too narrow for arctic to make a turn.

I have the impression from watching artics manoeuvring that they can go anywhere a 12 metre rigid can. The turning circle quoted in typical specs is the same as far as I've observed.

[Linto63]

While in theory artics can operate any where that a rigid can, they tend to be kept away from anywhere there is a reasonable chance a reverse may be required, e.g. tight inner city streets and the wharves. There is a sign at Gladstone Park, Balmain prohibiting them proceeding any further down Darling Street.

[Jurassic_Joke]

Point is, at least PTV is open to new bendy buses. PTV is smart. PTV isn't oblivious to recognise that when population and therefore public transport use is booming at an unprecedented rate, you kinda need the appropriate sized buses to cater for this and that one size does not fit all.

That's hilarious. I don't understand why so many people have this "grass is greener on the other side" mentality where they think everything is better everywhere else.

Bus patronage in Melbourne is actually declining, despite the extremely high level of population growth in that city. There's also only a relatively tiny number of articulated route buses in Melbourne, around 20 vehicles spread around several operators.

And that's before we even touch on the subject of so many routes and timetables still being stuck in the 1980s. Perhaps a read over this blog might enlighten you on that. But I guess as it's somewhere else, things must be better there and they must be smarter than TfNSW is, right?

I would definitely agree with Tony that as Melbourne has the massive tram network to do most of the work, of course, higher capacity buses aren’t as necessary as Sydney. There’s only one double decker there last time I checked.

But at least they haven’t bullheadedly “no ifs no buts” closed themselves off to the possibility of artics In the future, should the need ever pop up. Because that’s what we’ve done.

Ventura group, I found out just by browsing the fleet lists, has this year received four Scania K360UA Volgren Optimus artics, looks like intended for a specific route, but at least they recognise it’s needed - only something we can dream of in Sydney despite the fact it’s kinda obvious we need more of these high capacity buses, not replacing them with short buses. If we even got like 5 or so new artics just for route specific 288, 420, and everything else that used the 14.5 Scanias, then I’d be happy, but it’s otherwise a capacity downgrade moving forward.

https://mobile.twitter.com/venturabus/s ... 16?lang=en

[BroadGauge]

looks like intended for a specific route, but at least they recognise it’s needed

Ahh, the good old route 788 - a slow milk run that is basically the only service at all for tens of thousands of people along the western side of the Mornington Pensinula, which runs at a 40-50 minute weekday (including peak) and 70-80 minute weekend frequency. No wonder it gets crowded.

Infact that blog that I linked to wrote a post about it just last week.

Such a nirvana that Melbourne is for buses. I wish we had the Victorian Government and PTV planning our services in NSW for us, so we could have services as great as that one

[tonyp]

I think they have secretly commissioned PTV to plan the post-metro bus services in the NW.

[idontknow556]

I have a feeling that the buses running in the suburbs will be smaller ones in the future. I've noticed that CDC is currently trialing smaller buses such as Optare solos and Transdev NSW trialed a wright streetlite a couple of years back.

[tonyp]

I have a feeling that the buses running in the suburbs will be smaller ones in the future. I've noticed that CDC is currently trialing smaller buses such as Optare solos and Transdev NSW trialed a wright streetlite a couple of years back.

And that's often all you need for station feeder services. Like articulated buses at the other end of the spectrum, another casualty of the one-size-fits-all thinking.

[Linto63]

I have a feeling that the buses running in the suburbs will be smaller ones in the future. I've noticed that CDC is currently trialing smaller buses such as Optare solos and Transdev NSW trialed a wright streetlite a couple of years back.

However the midibus experiment of the 1990s was obviously not successful with Westbus in Sydney, National Bus Company in Melbourne and Surfside on the Gold Coast amongst others, purchasing Mercedes LO812s in large numbers, only to revert to full sized buses after a few years.

[Merc1107]

I have a feeling that the buses running in the suburbs will be smaller ones in the future. I've noticed that CDC is currently trialing smaller buses such as Optare solos and Transdev NSW trialed a wright streetlite a couple of years back.

However the midibus experiment of the 1990s was obviously not successful with Westbus in Sydney, National Bus Company in Melbourne and Surfside on the Gold Coast amongst others, purchasing Mercedes LO812s in large numbers, only to revert to full sized buses after a few years.

The notion of smaller buses becomes quite impractical when you consider the sort of gymnastics that is likely required to keep such a subfleet away from busy mainline operations (it's probably easier in some areas than others)... What happens should these be the only spare buses available in a crisis and they end up on runs they have far too little capacity for?

[tonyp]

The notion of smaller buses becomes quite impractical when you consider the sort of gymnastics that is likely required to keep such a subfleet away from busy mainline operations (it's probably easier in some areas than others)... What happens should these be the only spare buses available in a crisis and they end up on runs they have far too little capacity for?

I sometimes wonder what the operating cost savings would be. A driver still has to be paid for and that's a major component of the cost. An artic on the other hand can often do a job that would require two rigid buses and two drivers.