Well that took about two weeks longer for people to work out than I expected.
In summary:
- The 630A is being absorbed into the 601.
- Four buses will operate the 601 service (up from three previously)
- An additional bus will be repainted into 601 livery (not sure if it will be ready for 22 April, but will be pretty soon as order has been placed).
- This will allow the 601 to have access to two bays at Monash (the 601 and the old 630A bay - this provides some benefits)
- By running four buses in a loop it will resolve some of the issues associated with the 630A departing to a timetable (eg. you can end up with simultaneous departures of 601 and 630A which isn't really desirable - you want to keep the buses evenly spaced).
- By removing the timetable from the 630A - and the longer layovers that were provided for this route - it should mean more services are able to be completed in peak times.
- The 630A was kept separate initially because it was thought that the vehicle might be able be redeployed elsewhere if the 601 was able to cope with patronage, but the patronage growth has been so large that it will be required on this corridor. Bit of a shame really - there were lots of places we could have used that bus!
Victim of our own success.
- The above decisions were made after reviewing the patronage from March whch is the busiest time of the year for this bus service (or about three weeks from decision to implementation which is kinda cool).
- PTUA were told about the proposed change and did not raise any objections.
- Don't pay any attention to the timetables on the Metlink website, they are there so that the journey planner can calculate trips. In practise, the four buses will complete as many trips as they can. The service does not have a timetable.
- Patronage has been above expectations. Monash said it was 17,000 per week. New figures are higher than that
- Patronage is always highest in March.
I *think* (not absolutely sure) that it is also true that:
- 601 buses carry more people per vehicle per day than any other buses in metropolitan Melbourne
- the patronage of 601 will exceed 401, even though it has half the number of buses (shorter route, more return trips)
I can't think of any other route where a vehicle would carry more than a thousand passengers per day...in fact I can't think of anything that comes close.
Any finally, we will be asking the 900 bus drivers to stop again around the corner at peak times if they have space, and there are people waiting at the stop.