BT Fleet size and impact of SEQ Network changes

[daveeyh]

Is there any information available on the impact on BT from the Network Review changes on 14 October 2013? For example, how many fewer driver runs there are now, how many fewer buses are needed during weekday morning peak?

It may be commercial in confidence but thought I would ask anyway.

Using information on www.btbuses.info, BT now has a total fleet now of 1208 which is 24 fewer over the calendar year so far (65 deliveries and 89 withdrawals).

The 1208 is effectively 1182 as the website lists 8 buses at Workshops, 1 bus Withdrawn (560 - does BT still have the old CitySights unit?), 9 Non-Operational buses and 8 buses still listed at Richlands.

At the start of 2012, there were 1169 buses at BT so the effective fleet has changed little in two years which, though not unexpected, doesn't report well for increasing public transport usage.

[simonl]

Probably the reduced service km is more than compensated by increased dead running km, and therefore a thinner spares ratio.

[chuboy]

You may be able to request access to this information under the Right to Information Act as BT is a QLD government entity (I think). There is $41.90 application fee plus an hourly rate if finding your info takes more than 5 hours of someone's time. But you will certainly be able to get an answer that way, straight from the horse's mouth (BT would be obliged by law to tell you ).

[Hornibrook]

You may be able to request access to this information under the Right to Information Act as BT is a QLD government entity (I think). There is $41.90 application fee plus an hourly rate if finding your info takes more than 5 hours of someone's time. But you will certainly be able to get an answer that way, straight from the horse's mouth (BT would be obliged by law to tell you ).

Brisbane Transport is local government, not state.

As far as I'm aware the BCC does have similar Right to Information methods.

[08 XDi]

TransLink will have the figures but contractual payments and specifics are likely to be commercial-in-confidence and therefore would not be given.

My take on all this is very simple.

1. BCC assumed a certain amount of funding and new buses would be delivered each year by the State, without consequence.

2. State wanted to maximise patronage and minimise cost by making the network more in accordance with world's best practice (reducing and simplifying the number of different routes to make a more legible network, more high-frequency services, leveraging more capacity out of the rail network by forcing interchanges etc).

3. BCC had a hissy fit, exacerbated by poor consultation and engagement by TransLink and lack of political leadership by Emerson and his boss.

4. State turned off the money tap and forces BT to find efficiencies in some other way (effectively get them to run a badly designed network as leanly as possible). For some reason this involves closing down depots located closer to where services terminate than the replacement...

The worst part of this is that the inefficient network design BCC is operating is sucking up money from other metropolitan regions and the Gold and Sunshine Coasts, which are run more efficiently and have been cut to the bone with no or only limited local government funding to top up what the State provides. Fortunately the State's proclivity to send haps of money down the BT plughole without insisting it be used better has been reduced a bit, but it is still an issue.

The next year will be certainly be interesting as the bus service contracts all expire in June 2014 and TransLink has been advertising for contract managers recently...

I suspect putting BT out of the picture completely is the only real long-term solution, so we end up with a properly managed Perth style system where the politics is limited to things like people occasionally arguing for a route diversion or new bus stop, instead of at high levels about the entire philosophy behind how the system is planned and operated.

[simonl]

Very simplistic.

[08 XDi]

^ Inaccurate?

[simonl]

I believe point 2 is inaccurate in its inference.

Also funding to bt is being increased, but that's just a nit pick.

[08 XDi]

I believe point 2 is inaccurate in its inference.

Also funding to bt is being increased, but that's just a nit pick.

It's difficult to draw any other conclusion given that the resources are not being diminished and only marginally increased from now on.

I note with some bemusement that the project flyer for UBAT spruiks the notion of the network having fewer different bus route numbers in it. Adding a new stretch of busway tends to have the opposite effect in Brisbane.

[simonl]

Why is it world's best practice to have one stopping pattern on any given road? You don't see Gold Coast trains calling in at every station on the Beenleigh Line or is this a mode specific requirement? You don't see New York, Ottawa or even Sydney operating that way. All have express services.

Regarding the "more frequent routes", currently there are 18 BUZ services and 2 Gliders. Even if you ignore the routes which are nearly there now like the new 66, 169, 375 and 204, you are still only talking about 6 more frequent routes at a significantly lower threshold for calling them that. I for one would have found the service far less useful if those changes had gone through and I'm glad that they didn't. Very annoying to have consultation on a proposal to then have it discarded for a different one which also had consultation.

Also, I don't see the minimising cost angle either, from slowing down services??

[Maladjusted]

Interesting to see comments, perhaps Translink didn't have all the "facts" the people advising them in the SEQ network changes could have given them.
Would there also be more serviceability and equality if the trains were made to deliver as little as half the value per dollar that buses do?
There are still more numbers to go reducing in Brisbane if the publicly accessable documents are digested.

[moreton]

Most of the money is wasted in getting concession passengers in and out of the University of Qld, no rail to Uni, so buses have to be used,all buses funneled into the Uni which loses the most money in Aust. If the Uni and Hospitals were built on the Rail corridors like almost all other cities, there would be more buses for other people in the suburbs, many years of bad management,City planning and infrastructure is what is killing public transport in the South East Qld.
More buses will not make any improvement to the system peak services is at it limits for a long time now, buses are full at peaks and stuck in each others way because they do have has priority right of way on the roads, intersections choked with private cars with one person in each. 90 buses lined up on Victoria bridge,50 buses waiting in the South East Busway waiting at peek hour while one person wants to buy a paper ticket with a $50 note is not going improve anytime soon. Passengers carried on buses in SEQ is more than any trains at this point in time so, please lets see if we could get the buses moving, the choke points are killing bus services. The recent Cricket Test at the Gabba showed the limits of the system last week. Moreton

[simonl]

^ Umm, I think you'll find around half of the OPEX money is spent running QR.