NSW On Demand Buses

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boronia
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NSW On Demand Buses

Post by boronia »

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/sydney-commut ... xx4w5.html
Matt O'Sullivan

Published: August 16 2017 - 11:08AM

Sydney commuters will get the chance to book shuttle buses from or near their homes to a local transport hub within the next few months as part of a state government trial of on-demand public transport.

Pricing for a standard trip will range from $2.60 to $5.60, and customers will be able to book online, by phone or via an app on their smart device.

The eight trials of on-demand services starting as early as October will be carried out in Sydney's north west, south west and west, the eastern suburbs, northern beaches, Sutherland Shire and the Central Coast.

Ride-sharing legislation that passed early last year deregulated the booking market for buses of 12 seats or less. The latest trials will be run by private operators such as Keolis Downer, Transdev and Transit Systems.

Transport Minister Andrew Constance said the trials were just the start of the state's transport future and would transform daily commuting for people across Sydney.

"Imagine not having to check a timetable because you know your service will be there when and where you need it," he said.

The trials include on-demand mini-bus and mini-van services for people living within 15 kilometres of Macquarie Park in Sydney's north from early next year.

On the northern beaches, services will run from Palm Beach to North Narrabeen to bus stops on the B-Line service which starts later this year.

At Bankstown, on-demand services will be available 18 hours a day from October for visitors, patients and employees of Bankstown Hospital for a standard fare of $4.

The other trials include:

A service at Edmondson Park to pick customers up from home or a nearby location and drop them at the train station.
A Sutherland Shire service from November to collect people from home or a nearby location in Jannali West, Sylvania, Caringbah and Gymea and take them to transport hubs or local shops.
A Manly and eastern suburbs service from November to pick customers up at home or nearby location and take them to Edgecliff and Bondi Junction stations, ferries at Manly or Rose Bay wharves.
A service at Wetherill Park and Greystanes to connect employment precincts to T-Way bus interchanges from late 2017.
A service starting early next year on the Central Coast to transport people to Woy Woy station from locations on the Woy Woy peninsula.

Since holding a "Future Transport" summit last year, the Transport Minister has sought to stamp his mark on the portfolio by ramping up his focus on the use of technology to enhance public transport services in the state.

He has said he wants to "do away with timetables" and extend the trial of on-demand public transport services to trains and ferries.

This month the government began a two-year trial of autonomous vehicles, which involves operating a driverless shuttle bus at Olympic Park.

The $20 billion-plus metro train line under construction in Sydney will also not operate to a timetable; instead, driverless trains will run on the line every four minutes that will eventually extend from the city's northwest to Chatswood, the CBD, Sydenham and Bankstown.

This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/sydney-commut ... xx4w5.html
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Re: Sydney commuters get chance to trial on-demand buses

Post by GazzaOak »

hmm.... worth a shot to be honest ha ha
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Re: Sydney commuters get chance to trial on-demand buses

Post by Bus 400 »

If the unions didn't like a region going into private hands, how are they going to like private operators inside their region taking passengers from them?

At least union action can include doing multiple bookings so the on demand buses can't handle it.

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Re: Sydney commuters get chance to trial on-demand buses

Post by Swift »

Absolutely will not ever work. It's tedious enough when a bus service has to take a diversion to service a loop. How are people going to plan their journey of they don't know where the bus will travel day to day, on their way to the destination. It has failed overseas, what do they think this stunt will accomplish in Sydney's chaotic streets?
Last edited by Swift on Wed Aug 16, 2017 6:48 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Sydney commuters get chance to trial on-demand buses

Post by boronia »

A clip on Ch 7 News tonight showed a white KD bus 3413
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Re: Sydney commuters get chance to trial on-demand buses

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Re: Sydney commuters get chance to trial on-demand buses

Post by Route548 »

Swift wrote:Absolutely will not ever work. It's tedious enough when a bus service has to take a diversion to service a loop. How are people going to plan their journey of they don't know where the bus will travel day to day, on their way to the destination. It has failed overseas, what do they think this stunt will accomplish in Sydney's chaotic streets?
I dont think it will have a timetable the same way we know it judging by the fact that it has to be prebooked in advance. Think of it as Uber XL but significantly cheaper and using minibuses/vans that can go on suburban streets where a normal bus cant.

The closest thing we have now would be your courtesy leagues club shuttles; they've got a timetable of some sort but so long as you are in the catchment of the shuttle, they will pick you up and drop you off at home or as close to where you want to get off as possible.
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Re: Sydney commuters get chance to trial on-demand buses

Post by Swift »

They will need to leave a decent time buffer then. It won't be for everybody.
The term door to door screams inevitable failure.
Club and airport service is more specialised clientele than general commuting.
Great Britain tried this concept decades ago and it failed but we treat this like it's the future.
A computer algorithm through smart phones to coordinate it might make it easier, but won't eliminate the drawbacks of trying to please multiple individuals.
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Re: Sydney commuters get chance to trial on-demand buses

Post by boronia »

Reminds of airport shuttle buses which pick up at hotels "on demand". You never know quite when they will arrive, and you could go all over the CBD before you get to the airport. Wasn't so bad a few years ago when they didn't have the traffic problems they do today.
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Re: Sydney commuters get chance to trial on-demand buses

Post by grog »

Taking Edmondson Park as an example, you can drive from anywhere in the suburb to the station in about 5 minute, so I would expect frequent short trips with a couple of people max each time. This would be commuter focused, trying to get people out of their cars.

When you are talking somewhere like the eastern suburbs I would expect the target to primarily be less mobile passengers that need a service closer to home, while regular frequent services can fall back to 800m coverage from the main roads rather than 400m coverage in the back streets. I'd expect services like 326/327 to potentially be replaced by this kind of service, while those in a hurry and able would walk to the main road for a frequent trunk service.
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Re: Sydney commuters get chance to trial on-demand buses

Post by rogf24 »

Less mobile passengers are generally older, very difficult to get a good chuck of the elderly population to use phone apps, the only way to get around this would be to have a voice-phone option and even then you could have trouble with elder migrants.
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Re: Sydney commuters get chance to trial on-demand buses

Post by boronia »

"On demand" buses may be feasible, but how do you do it for trains?
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Re: Sydney commuters get chance to trial on-demand buses

Post by Swift »

boronia wrote:"On demand" buses may be feasible, but how do you do it for trains?
You must be referring to Andrew Constance' claims about an on demand transport future with state provided transport becoming obsolete in ten years where everything will be wonderful and rosy under this revolution.
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Re: Sydney commuters get chance to trial on-demand buses

Post by grog »

rogf24 wrote:Less mobile passengers are generally older, very difficult to get a good chuck of the elderly population to use phone apps, the only way to get around this would be to have a voice-phone option and even then you could have trouble with elder migrants.
From the article:
customers will be able to book online, by phone or via an app on their smart device
boronia wrote:"On demand" buses may be feasible, but how do you do it for trains?
My read is that it would not be on demand in the same way (i.e. request a ride) but more a demand and incident responsive working timetable that is shielded from the public with a frequency guide along the lines of 'Trains every 6-10 minutes'.

Think of everything that goes into the creation of a working timetable - what if that could be done on the fly with advanced computer systems? You could realise that there is higher than expected demand on a certain part of the network and scale up the frequency, and have the working timetable system automatically work out how that impacts the timetabling of sets and crews and make sure that everyone and everything gets back to it's correct location at the end of a shift.

This could be particularly useful during an incident - rather than struggling to get back to timetable for hours after a major incident, a new one is generated and pushed out through the apps to users and the public is none the wiser as it still fits within the advertised 'frequency guide' of 'train every 6-10 minutes'.

This would require simplification of branching and stopping patterns, but I think we are going down that road already.
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Re: Sydney commuters get chance to trial on-demand buses

Post by GM »

I thought this was tried in Wollongong some years ago and did not work. GM
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Re: Sydney commuters get chance to trial on-demand buses

Post by Swift »

What if the computers crash Grog? That is leaving a lot in the hands of something we all know fails on a regular basis in our increasingly computer dependent devices.
It won't be as simple as rebooting your PC!
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Re: Sydney commuters get chance to trial on-demand buses

Post by stajourneyman »

This mob has GOT to be joking!

So people are going to stand around for an indefinite time waiting for a bus to eventually turn up.

This bus will then continue to ferret around the suburb picking up passengers here and there before eventually reaching everyone's destination!

No idea of the precise pick up time. and no idea of the destination arrival time!

So much for opal, it seems to be back to cash fares ...that's progress Andy !!!!!

They are starting to sound like Labor did in their dying days ....no matter how nutty, just come up with something that superficially sounds good !!
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Re: Sydney commuters get chance to trial on-demand buses

Post by 1115 »

Rubbish really.
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Re: Sydney commuters get chance to trial on-demand buses

Post by rogf24 »

grog wrote:Think of everything that goes into the creation of a working timetable - what if that could be done on the fly with advanced computer systems? You could realise that there is higher than expected demand on a certain part of the network and scale up the frequency, and have the working timetable system automatically work out how that impacts the timetabling of sets and crews and make sure that everyone and everything gets back to it's correct location at the end of a shift.
This is basically describing how artificial intelligence might work for driverless trains. It's not "on-demand" but a computer will automatically respond to shifts in demand and automatically activate extra trains. If artificial intelligence works out for trains, we might not even need human controllers.
Last edited by rogf24 on Thu Aug 17, 2017 9:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Sydney commuters get chance to trial on-demand buses

Post by grog »

Swift wrote:What if the computers crash Grog? That is leaving a lot in the hands of something we all know fails on a regular basis in our increasingly computer dependent devices.
It won't be as simple as rebooting your PC!
I understand that people don't trust technology, but I work in IT for an organisation where if systems fail bad things happen. It is normal to design systems to tolerate significant outages without affecting end users. This just requires the will of the system owner.
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Re: Sydney commuters get chance to trial on-demand buses

Post by Swift »

grog wrote:
I understand that people don't trust technology, but I work in IT for an organisation where if systems fail bad things happen. It is normal to design systems to tolerate significant outages without affecting end users. This just requires the will of the system owner.
Trouble is Andy talks up this technology as though it's sliced bread when all he really cares about is absolving government of responsibility to deliver services wherever he can find it. It's all about the money.
I hate the hidden agenda behind his so called passion for technology, as though we can't see through it.
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Re: Uber to hubs?

Post by Roderick Smith »

Melbourne Express: Monday, August 21, 2017
This is very novel! Would you like to see it in Melbourne?
Ride-sharing giant Uber is in talks with the NSW government to subsidise trips for Sydneysiders between their homes and public transport hubs, AAP report.
The partnership would see government subsidised Uber rides to-and-from train stations to "fill the gaps" of existing public transport.
An Uber spokesman said the plans for a partnership between the Californian tech company and the NSW government were "probably the most positive signs we've seen across Australia".
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Re: Sydney commuters get chance to trial on-demand buses

Post by Tonymercury »

Swift wrote: I hate the hidden agenda behind his so called passion for technology, as though we can't see through it.
I suspect he is still having problems getting the DVD player to connect to the TV.
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Re: Sydney commuters get chance to trial on-demand buses

Post by jake_s_258 »

A Sutherland Shire service from November to collect people from home or a nearby location in Jannali West, Sylvania, Caringbah and Gymea and take them to transport hubs or local shops.
I'm wondering if there will be a single bus that operates for all these suburbs, or multiple vehicles. If someone in Jannali West wants to go to Jannali station, and someone in Sylvania wants to go to Miranda station or Westfield at the same time, if there's only one bus available then someone will be waiting a long time. The suburbs specifically mentioned aren't exactly next door to each other.
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Re: Sydney commuters get chance to trial on-demand buses

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