Why buses are unpopular

[Roderick Smith]

Roderick

Limited services, long waits and unreliability stops Melbourne from embracing buses.
Herald Sun June 26, 2017.
LIMITED services, long waits, and unreliability are three reasons why Victorians don’t like buses.
Unlike many other global cities Melbourne has failed to take to buses, shunning them in favour of more frequently running trains and trams.
But planning experts say the city must embrace buses if it is to have a truly integrated public transport system.
The Public Transport Users Association’s Daniel Bowen said more Melburnians would use buses if services improved.
WHAT’S WRONG WITH OUR BUSES? TELL US BELOW A bus on the Clifton Hill-Ormond route in 1954. Picture: Herald Sun archive.
West Brunswick’s "Titfield Thunderbolt" in 1969, a Morris mini-bus that ran the shortest bus route in Melbourne. Picture: The Herald.
He said the city should learn from London, which runs frequent around-the-clock services across a vast network, giving buses traffic priority and using dedicated bus lanes.
“Buses may not be as smooth as trains and trams, but the main reason people don’t use them much in Melbourne is that most bus routes have very limited services,” Mr Bowen said.
“You’ll rarely wait very long for a tram, but most buses run only every 30 to 60 minutes, and people are put off by the long wait. Reliability is also an issue for buses: traffic priority is important to solve punctuality problems,” he said.
Mr Bowen said buses had proved to be very popular on those few routes where they run frequently.
“Lots of people catch the university shuttles, as well as SmartBus services around the suburbs,” he said.
“Our own successful SmartBus services can show the way forward,” Mr Bowen said.
“Buses that run more like trams, along direct routes at frequent intervals, and with good connections to trains, would be a big hit with the travelling public.”
Passengers catching the bus in 1966. Picture: Herald Sun archive.
Public Transport Victoria’s Nicholas White said services had been improved on bus networks in growing areas such as Wyndham and Cranbourne.
More direct routes and more frequent services better connected passengers with trains, allowing for more integrated journeys, he said.
“Buses are increasingly playing a bigger role as they become smarter, more direct, and more frequent.
“Over the last decade, bus patronage has soared from 79.13 million to 122.5 million annual trips,” Mr White said.
“That’s a phenomenal 4.5 per cent annual growth.”
Public Transport Victoria said that almost 10,000 trips were taken each day on popular university bus shuttle services to the University of Melbourne, La Trobe University, and Monash University.
And Doncaster Area Rapid Transit (DART) bus services on routes 905, 906, 907 and 908 collectively accounted for more than 12,000 trips a day.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victor ... fcd5325f02

[tonyp]

He said the city should learn from London, which runs frequent around-the-clock services across a vast network, giving buses traffic priority and using dedicated bus lanes.

Or to save on the international travel expenses, the decision-makers should simply go and look at Perth.

[system improver]

Must be two Londons. London buses are like socks - they always come in pairs.

[Heihachi_73]

Complaints #1, #2, #3 and #6 is route bus operation 101.

* Rule 1: Buses MUST be infrequent as to not compete with private cars or the railways and tramways.
* Rule 2: Buses MUST go all over the place and loop-de-loop (e.g. 679) and take half an hour to go six kilometres up the road in order to serve as close to 100% of the nearby population as possible.
* Rule 3: Buses MUST avoid connecting with trains due to being old-time rivals (Rule 3.1: A bus waiting at a railway station must depart no less than 1 minute before a train is scheduled to arrive at a station; Rule 3.2: A bus which cannot depart 1 minute before a train arrives must arrive at a railway station no less than 1 minute after the train has departed, even if it requires the bus to crawl at 20 km/h through the side streets to keep time, as a bus is also not allowed to be more than 60 seconds in front of schedule).
* Rule 4: Buses MUST finish running somewhere between 1PM and 9PM.
* Rule 5: Buses MUST NOT sun on Saturdays, Sundays or public holidays (e.g. 680).
These rules can only be broken if ordered by the state or federal Government.

Complaint #4, #5 and #8 is solely VicRoads' fault. Lonsdale Street may as well be a dirt track or 19th century cobblestones (I wouldn't be surprised if cobblestones really were underneath the asphalt, they seem to be in other areas around the city and used as gutters and kerbs). Adding bus lanes and bus priority means that cars have to lose a lane to buses and might have to wait longer between the B light and normal green phase, and that is bad for VicRoads' business!

Complaint #7 actually is up to the bus companies. It took ages of constant complaining and nagging until they heeded my call for a shelter at Springvale Rd Nunawading (outbound 901 SmartBus stop), although it probably wasn't just me who was complaining about it.

Complaint #9 is what we get for privatisation (selling off local companies or simply closing them down in favour of "cheap" multinational corporations) and cost-cutting. The Transdev SmartBuses were practically spotless when Grenda/Ventura et.al. were running them - and Ventura's mostly identical fleet of buses are much cleaner, matching bus for bus (e.g. 8900-series Scania SmartBuses vs. Lilydale Depot's once-identical non-SmartBuses which have the exact same chassis, complete with Invicta seat covers and orange handrails, and Designline bubbles which were shared by both companies since the Ventura/National split).

Complaint #10 is not always the case - it's by far quicker to get from one suburb to another suburb on a different line by bus than taking a train into the city and another train out again, especially when the government and/or Metro has a love affair with stopping all stations and all trains only go to and from the city. The last time I went from Ringwood to Diamond Creek by train my myki trip expired before I got there and it touched me on (default fare) when I was exiting the platform! Even short lengths like Croydon to Bayswater can take nearly an hour by train, having to wait up to half an hour for a train at Croydon (if you just missed one and absolutely refuse to take a bus to Ringwood), get off five minutes later at Ringwood and then wait again for the Belgrave train (or sit in the train since if it was a Ringwood shuttle that is becoming a Belgrave in 20-something minutes) compared to about 15 minutes on the 664. That's assuming it's not after around 8 or 9PM, because by then you would have no choice but the train.

[system improver]

" Why idiot media headlines should be ignored."