Organizing bus routes

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doconnor
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Organizing bus routes

Post by doconnor »

I am in the process of adding support for Transport for NSW for my transit prediction and bus tracking webapp TransSee. It provides real time predictions, vehicle positions by route and I plan on supporting gathering a history of vehicle locations which will enable of variety reports and charts.

One of the things I provide is a list of routes, but I haven't found a good way of organizing it. I live in Toronto, Canada so I know nothing of the Sydney bus route structure. I have sorted the route list by route number and added jump links based on the list in Wikipedia, however there are problems, like the up to four route 11s.

I do have the ability to break down the routes by contract region, but it's not clear that makes sense for riders.

I would be interested in any suggestions you have.
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Re: Organizing bus routes

Post by Fleet Lists »

Perhaps the best way of sorting the routes would as follows:-
1. All of the 14 Sydney routes together - as you say splitting it further may not make much sense for the rider. Your current splitting of Northern Beaches | Northern Districts and North Shore | Inner West and Southern Suburbs | Western Suburbs | Outer Western Suburbs | Outer South-Western Suburbs | St George/Sutherland and South West does not make much sense as for instance there is no mention of the Eastern Suburbs and also includes routes in the regions around Sydney which is confusing - also keep in mind that there is a major reorganisation of the Eastern suburbs being planned. see https://www.mysydney.nsw.gov.au/Have_Yo ... us_Changes. Also route route 2C which I noticed the first time now seems to have gone - correctly as it is a school route only.
List of regions see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Me ... _contracts
2.Routes in the Wollongong/Illawarra are south of Sydney - see Illawarra regions in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Syd ... _Contracts
3. Blue Mountains West of Sydney only one region listed in Blue Mountains regions.
4. Newcastle/Central Coast regions north of Sydney - see Hunter, Newcastle & Central Coast regions.

I hope this is of some help.
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Re: Organizing bus routes

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Having a further look at the Sydney allocations, the current ones appear reasonable after the outer routes have been removed, if it is decided a split by region is desirable which some people may feel it is, and region 9 is added to a further Eastern Suburbs selection.
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Re: Organizing bus routes

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School routes.
The school routes for most regions are not included (correctly) but some regions still have four digit route number (1294-9079) or S prefixes (s017-s942)which are still included and also others such as 196S6, 689w, 718e, 769n and 662n. I think it is not intended to include these - if they are, school routes for other regions should also be included - I hope not as they tend be very volatile in some regions
Ferry route,
I notice on ferry route -Stockton ferry is included but none of Sydney ferry routes F1-F9 or any routes.
Other
The Eastern suburbs contains one non standard route L24 which is not included - it is listed as not changing in the upcoming proposal.
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Re: Organizing bus routes

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Most of the school routes have now gone except for 689w and 687w the latter not listed above.
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Re: Organizing bus routes

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A bit more 689w and 687w now gone.
Bus missing are Shopper Hopper services which are routes with S prefix and one or two digit route number.

A bit more on the Eastern Suburbs - should include all route numbers in the 3xx range and route 400 but this will no longer exist in the proposed changes.

This would then make all ranges agree with what you have got even though they would not be by region but basically by ranges of route numbers which may be a suitable alternative.

Dont be afraid to ask any more questions as I think I am signing off now.
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Re: Organizing bus routes

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By default only routes with current service are listed, which is why some routes are disappearing.
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Re: Organizing bus routes

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On that basis routes L24, S1, S2, S3, S4, S5, S7 Parklea, S10, S11 St Marys, S13, S14 Mount Lewis and S17 as well as the routes with an X prefix which have now disappeared should be there until they are deleted in the upcoming Eastern Suburbs changes. They all show current services.
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Re: Organizing bus routes

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I also just noticed that M92 has disappeared.

Of the 3 route 11's one is in the Illawarra region, one in the Central Coast Region and one in the Hunter Region - none are in Sydney - the region can be identified in the timetable name to allow the region the region they are in can be identified, so Hunter and Central Coast could be shown separately if desired.

Route 685 shows how a Blue Mountains route can be identified.

I just realised that all Sydney routes with alpha prefixes can not be "Sydney area' defined so perhaps a separate group is required for routes with such prefixes.
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Re: Organizing bus routes

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School routes now seem to be back. It is impossible for me to check whether they are all there but I will comment on any that appear missing.
It would not be possible to allocate school services to the various route number areas as there is no pattern to their route numbers - a separate list for school routes? It also appears that school services for the outer regions can not be identified as such, so may also need to be included in a general school services list.

School route S103-
You have only one listed.
S103-Hurstville to Mater Dei School (which is correct)
However Transport for NSW includes a further number of routes with this number.
S103 Jerrabomberra PS to Queanbeyan West (regional route)
S103 Springvale to South Wagga Wagga Primary (regional route)
S103 Howelston Rd opp Balmoral Dr to Wadalba HS (this is a Central Coast route and should be included as such)
S103 Holsworthy to Lucas Heights CS (this is a Sydney route and should be included as such)
S103 Tomaree HS to Anna Bay PS (This is a Hunter region route and should be included as such)
S103 Wellington to Orana Heights PS via Dubbo Schools (regional route)
S103 Argents Hill to Bowraville (regional route)
S103 Figtree HS to Kembla Heights (This is a n Illawarra route and should be included as such)
S103 Tweed Heads to Tweed Heads PS via Terranora & Banora Point (regional route)
Regional routes are routes outside the greater Sydney area and I notice that you have also not included public regional routes. I will raise that separately once this settles down.
Route S103 is just an example of this problem. S101 and S102 and I suspect many other school routes also have this problem.

Noted missing at this point in time are:-
S7 Parklea (shopping)
S10 Shopping
S13 Shopping
S14 Mount Lewis (shopping.
S14 school

There are five two digit routes (all in Outer South West) which would need special code to ensure they are listed in that area if the current area allocation is to be retained.
32-Warragamba to Camden via Werombi and Theresa Park
38-Camden to Spring Creek and Brownlow Hill (Loop Service)
39-Mowbray Park to Camden via Belimbla Park and The Oaks
40-Camden to Belimbla Park and Oakdale via The Oaks (Loop Service)
49-Camden to Menangle and Razorback (Loop Service)
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Re: Organizing bus routes

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Just had a look at the list for all services including those with no current services listed and found all four of the S103 routes listed above which should be included but are not-
S103 Howelston Rd opp Balmoral Dr to Wadalba HS (this is a Central Coast route and should be included as such) operates every week day so should be included in active list.
S103 Holsworthy to Lucas Heights CS (this is a Sydney route and should be included as such) operates every week day so should be included in active list.
S103 Tomaree HS to Anna Bay PS (This is a Hunter region route and should be included as such) operates every week day so should be included in active list.
S103 Figtree HS to Kembla Heights (This is a n Illawarra route and should be included as such) operates Thursdays only so probably correct that it is not included in active list on Wednesday.

Some other comments on routes found there which are not in the active list:
2C-Woolooware HS to Saunders Bay Rd after Parthenia St, Caringbah South operates Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday & Friday so should be in active list on Wednesday.
4C-Wooloware HS to Port Hacking Rd before Lynch Ave, Carringbah South operates every weekday so should be included in active list on Wednesday.
6C-Endeavour Sports HS to Woolooware HS operates every weekday so should be included in active list on Wednesday.
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Re: Organizing bus routes

Post by doconnor »

TransSee show routes based on the routes with scheduled service at the time you view the route list, so routes will appear or disappear as they go in and out of service within the day. You can click "Show all routes" to see all the routes supported by TransSee.

I have reorganized the to list the Sydney Metropolitan routes first by route number, then the Outer Sydney routes by contract region and route. I have tried to move all the school buses to the end.
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Re: Organizing bus routes

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Thanks for the explanation of the active buses - that sorts that out.

Although not perfect I think that is about the best I would expect.

I cant look at schools as none are active at the moment.
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Re: Organizing bus routes

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I have now had a look at schools with most routes now active. The link for schools goes to the start of the S routes but as a result it misses all the four digit routes and the three digit routes with an alpha suffix and and any other odd school routes. And when looking up the lists for 5nn, 6nn and 7nn, it also includes routes in those ranges with the alpha school suffix although those routes may not be anywhere near the area concerned. Somewhat confusing.

And a question.
On page https://www.transsee.ca/fleetfind?a=tfnsw what does 116901800062 represent in 1: Vehicle 116901800062 on route 2537-St Edwards Brothers College to Davidstown 1:51 behind 3:30:45PM. going ↓Saratoga aprchg Bourke Av on Davistown Rd - it does not look like a fleet number to me. And what needs to be entered in the fleet number request form as nothing I have entered seems to work?
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Re: Organizing bus routes

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Screenshot 2021-05-12 16.13.54.png
To hopefully simplify things, I assume you pick up the route name from the electronic record from which the above is displayed.
So can I suggest that if B shows Sydney Buses Network the route is added to the Sydney Buses network and just forget about trying to split it into further sections such as regions or route number ranges.
Similarly if B shows Blue Mountains Buses Network add the route to the Blue Mountains Network, Central Coast Buses Network to the Central Coast Network, Hunter Buses Network to the Hunter Buses Network and Illawarra Buses Network to the Illawarra Buses Network again all without further splitting network as it all appeared confusing and unnecessary.
If B shows School buses AND Opal shows "Opal card accepted" add to the school section - it will not matter if all school routes are shown in the one group for simplicity - the current setup is very confusing.
Under this arrangement the Shopper heading would not be required and routes with alpha prefixes would also be included correctly in the relevant section in sequence.
Something NEW. If B shows "Temporary buses" add to a new section "Temporary routes" Route 40T2 is a current example operating on 15 and 16 May, 47T1 on 13 May. This in fact is something that is badly needed and which I have requested Transport for NSW to do on a number of occasions but has been given a very low priority.

Once this is in place I might try and design something more detailed but at least at this stage let us get rid of the confusion and give something which is meaningful.
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Re: Organizing bus routes

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I changed the link to just to say Shopper.

The numbers that appear as fleet number are from the GTFS real time feed, but are not fleet numbers. I would provide fleet numbers if they where available.

I get the route data from the GTFS schedule data. I have found an API that provides similar information that I can try and use.
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Re: Organizing bus routes

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Thanks - that looks fantastic.
We should group the routes in exactly the same groups as present there with these geographic names - taken from http://www.sydneybusroutes.com/images/P ... eviews.pdf . These are far more meaningful than the ones from the Nxx route number ranges which have tended to spread all over the placed over the years.:-
Region 1 - Outer west between Blacktown, Penrith, Windsor & Richmond
Region 2 - South west between Liverpool, Ingleburn & Hoxton Park
Region 3 - South west between Parramatta,Liverpool& Bonnyrigg
Region 4 - Hills District: Parramatta-Pennant Hills-Castle Hill-Rouse Hill
Region 5 - South west between Strathfield, Bankstown & Hurstville
Region 6 - Inner West
Region 7 - Inner North West
Region 8 - Lower North Shore & Northern Beaches
Region 9 - Eastern Suburbs
Region 10 - South west between Bankstown, Cronulla & Engadine Is 10 and 11 combined)
Region 12 - Upper North Shore & Hornsby-Hawkesbury River
Region 13 - South west between Lidcombe, Granville, Bankstown & Liverpool
Region 14 - Forest area: Chatswood-Frenchs Forest-Terrey Hills-St Ives-Gordon
Region 15 - South west between Campbelltown, Camden & beyond

I am intrigued to see a group /buses/PRBSL001 GTFS timetables, stops, and route shapes for Planned Replacement Buses for Light Rail
but I cant see anything that covers the temporary routes for other rail replacement routes such as the ones I mentioned previously.
I think we should at least create a group for these Light Rail replacement services to see what turns up.

The outer Metropolitan regions are pretty close as is but I notice that Wollongong needs to be split between Wollongong North for Dions and Wollongong South for Premier Illawarra. If there any other questions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Syd ... _Contracts might give the answers.

Unfortunately I have not been able to access those datasets myself so far.

This expands on the two personal messages sent last night.
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Re: Organizing bus routes

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A bit more on temporary routes
Previously mentioned routes 47T1 operating tonight and route 40T2 operating 15 May - 16 May are not present in the full list of routes.
However similar routes 20T4 and 23T4 operating on the nights of 17May - 20 May do show in that list.
I dont know what the difference is? I wonder what sub list they would be included in? I suspect that they would be in region 9 as they operate within that area and by the operator of that area whereas the other two routes do not show a specific operator but just " train replacement bus operators."
So this looks like just hit and miss. I will keep investigating this and advise if I find anything else.

Also found in the full list are Olympic Park routes:
2 Glebe
5A Castle Hill
5B Rouse Hill
7 Cronulla
8 Dural
These are rarely operated and I can not look up any current timetables. They have just operated for two weeks for the Easter Show but I have no idea when they are due next.
BUT not listed are routes:
1A Warriewood
1B Warriewood
4 Maroubra
6 Menai
Again I have no idea what is different about these latter four.
When they next operate I will see what subgroups the first five show in and if the other four show at all.
Again it looks like a bit of hit and miss.

But this not should not stop us from the regional approach I suggested this morning.
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Re: Organizing bus routes

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Five more temporary routes have just appeared - all operating on 22nd and 23rd May.
They are routes 40T7, 60T8, 62T8, 65T8 and 66T8 and all operated by State Transit like routes 20T4 and 23T4. The T8 routes would all be in region 9 but route 40T7 is nowhere region 9 - their nearest region to that route would be region 7 but if they use central input for this they may use region 9 for all their temporary services. I will keep an eye on this on the days they operate.
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Re: Organizing bus routes

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I was thinking of breaking the Sydney routes down based on the twitter account they are associated with.

The routes API includes the twitter account and other information. You need an API key to even test it out, but if you apply for one you can get it right away.
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Re: Organizing bus routes

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doconnor wrote: Thu May 13, 2021 11:42 pm I was thinking of breaking the Sydney routes down based on the twitter account they are associated with.
I have some concerns about that. That list is totally out of date for trains as T6 no longer exists and there are now T8 and T9 lines which have existed for a couple of years. Hence I think the bus information may also not be up to date and I cant see any clear definition of the bus routes including school routes and routes with alpha prefixes in each area. So I would prefer to see the region definitions as I was suggesting yesterday.
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Re: Organizing bus routes

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^ the data from the actual API is accurate though -

Code: Select all

GET https://api.transport.nsw.gov.au/v1/routes?route=t9

Code: Select all

{
  "ROUTE": [
    {
      "transport_name": "Sydney Trains Network",
      "operator_id": "x0001",
      "contract_id": "",
      "efa_route_name": "Northern Line",
      "regional_trains": "",
      "background_colour": "#FFFFFF",
      "depot_name": "",
      "lp_weekday_hours": "",
      "route_type": "2",
      "mot_for_interchange_id": "1",
      "start_date": "",
      "my_timetable_route_name": "T9",
      "service_direction_name": "North Shore to Hornsby via City",
      "second_twitter_handle": "",
      "route_variant_type": "",
      "route_search_name": "Northern Line",
      "lp_contact_number": "",
      "first_twitter_handle": "@T9SydneyTrains",
      "operator_name": "Sydney Trains",
      "tariff_type": "3002",
      "foreground_colour": "#D11F2F",
      "lp_email": "",
      "text_colour": "#FFFFFF",
      "mot_for_interchange": "Commuter railway",
      "region": "",
      "transport_name_id": "1"
    },
    {
      "transport_name": "Sydney Trains Network",
      "operator_id": "x0001",
      "contract_id": "",
      "efa_route_name": "Northern Line",
      "regional_trains": "",
      "background_colour": "#FFFFFF",
      "depot_name": "",
      "lp_weekday_hours": "",
      "route_type": "2",
      "mot_for_interchange_id": "1",
      "start_date": "",
      "my_timetable_route_name": "T9",
      "service_direction_name": "Hornsby to North Shore via City",
      "second_twitter_handle": "",
      "route_variant_type": "",
      "route_search_name": "Northern Line",
      "lp_contact_number": "",
      "first_twitter_handle": "@T9SydneyTrains",
      "operator_name": "Sydney Trains",
      "tariff_type": "3002",
      "foreground_colour": "#D11F2F",
      "lp_email": "",
      "text_colour": "#FFFFFF",
      "mot_for_interchange": "Commuter railway",
      "region": "",
      "transport_name_id": "1"
    }
  ]
}
I think it's pretty clever. But only metropolitan buses get grouped like that. All the ferries share one, the train lines have their own, light rail have none etc.
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Re: Organizing bus routes

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Lets give it a go and see what happens.
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Re: Organizing bus routes

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Today I have spent some time having a closer look at your website homepage and found that for nearly all Canadian and United States cities the list is already broken up either by further regions or operators so that the user can link direct to the section of routes required rather than have one gigantic list to link to which is very confusing. Also I did not find and any city which seems to have sch a large list of school routes which follow different rules to the normal routes - that seems to be quite a challenge.
As a result of the above I am expanding my suggestions so that instead of the home page just having Sydney listed, it should show links for five distinct areas with their own lists as four of them are not really part of Sydney as such.
*Sydney
*Wollongong/Illawarra
*Blue Mountains
*Central Coast
*Newcastle/Hunter.
This would be a lot clearer from an Australian perspective.
Each of the five areas could be further split into separate lists for each region direct from the home page or in the case of Sydney into the routes API as suggested by you above.

That would be a lot clearer than the " Northern Beaches | Northern Districts and North Shore | Eastern Suburbs | Inner West and Southern Suburbs | North West | Western Suburbs | Outer Western Suburbs | Outer South-Western Suburbs | St George/Sutherland and South West | Cessnock, Kurri Kurri | Maitland, Raymond Terrace | Port Stephens | Toronto, Wyee, Morisset | Wyong, Tuggerah, Gosford | Katoomba, Springwood, Penrith | Helensburgh | Wollongong | Newcastle | Shoppers" list which also contains a problem in that especially at night and over the weekend quite a few do not work if the first route in the group is not active at the time.
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Re: Organizing bus routes

Post by Stu »

Fleet Lists wrote: Thu May 13, 2021 5:32 pm Also found in the full list are Olympic Park routes:
2 Glebe
5A Castle Hill
5B Rouse Hill
7 Cronulla
8 Dural
These are rarely operated and I can not look up any current timetables. They have just operated for two weeks for the Easter Show but I have no idea when they are due next.
BUT not listed are routes:
1A Warriewood
1B Warriewood
4 Maroubra
6 Menai
Again I have no idea what is different about these latter four.
When they next operate I will see what subgroups the first five show in and if the other four show at all.
Again it looks like a bit of hit and miss.
There are a number of NRL games on although I think that the only one that will trigger the use of Major Event services will be State Of Origin Game 3 in July.
https://www.stadiumaustralia.com.au/whats-on/

Other events at Sydney Olympic Park.
https://www.qudosbankarena.com.au/Event-Calendar
https://www.sydneyshowground.com.au/events/
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