New bus network arising from SMNW opening

[swtt]

Part of the article is covered by this thread, so I'll post it here:

Source: https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/alm ... 52535.html


Almost 3000 new weekly bus services to help plug transport gaps

An extra 2850 weekly bus services will be put on routes in Sydney, the Hunter and the South Coast progressively over the next year, hundreds of which will connect commuters from suburbs in the city's north west to the new $7.3 billion metro rail line.

The additional weekly services are part of the Berejiklian government's election pledge to add more than 14,000 services to the bus timetable over the next four years.

The state government will invest $25 million to provide the 2850 additional services, almost 2000 of which will operate on routes in Sydney's north west and south west where the availability of public transport has been poor in comparison to inner city areas.

In the north west, a new bus route will extend from Box Hill to Rouse Hill, where commuters can switch to the new Metro Northwest train line to Chatswood. The major shake up to the bus network in the north west of the city will begin from July 28.

The government has said express bus services along the M2 motorway from the north west to North Sydney and the CBD will continue to operate. However, commuters wanting to travel to areas such as Chatswood will need to catch metro rail services.

With bus services increasingly linked to the metro line, a number of routes will cease including the 610 from Rouse Hill to the CBD via Castle Hill, the 618X from the CBD to the Norwest Business Park and the 621 from Castle Hill to the CBD via Cherrybrook and Macquarie Park.

In Sydney's north, about 200 extra services a week will be put on route 194 from St Ives Chase to the CBD, and about 40 on the B-Line route from Dee Why to the central city.

More than 1000 of the additional weekly services over the next year will be devoted to routes in Sydney's south west, including about 400 services for route 859 from Carnes Hill to Edmondson Park and around 300 for route 840 from Oran Park to Campbelltown Hospital.

In the east of the city, about 200 extra weekly services will be added to the bus timetable, including about 50 for route X74 from Coogee to the CBD.

Transport Minister Andrew Constance said the additional bus services were part of a "bigger transport picture" for Sydney aimed at providing an "integrated way" for people to travel across the city.

"The large bulk ... will be created in the north west and south west to really connect some of our fastest-growing areas," he said.

The Parliamentary Budget Office estimated the total cost of the Coalition's election promise of 14,000 extra weekly bus services at $191 million over four years. The costing was based on the need for 123 additional buses – including the purchase of 39 – to support the extra services.

[gld59]

The costing was based on the need for 123 additional buses – including the purchase of 39 – to support the extra services.

?? So where are the other 84 meant to come from?

[moa999]

At a guess released from Metro and CSELR openings

[gld59]

The numbers don't really balance, though, with almost 2000 out of 2850 not affected by CSELR, and more than 1000 of that almost 2000 not affected by either CSELR or Metro. Probably get "realler" numbers eventually.

[burrumbus]

And does not take into account the numbers of services deleted from the mainly withdrawn CBD and Chatswood routes.
The politicians only want to communicate the numbers of "new services:,not the whole picture.
Would be fascinating to know the change in Hillsbus PVR.
I still hold the view the new bus route network will not attract the punters to use the buses from the surrounding suburbs to the metro stations or to the Busway.
The services just are not frequent enough at the right times and are generally too long,convoluted and winding so as to affect reliability and punctuality.On relatively low frequency feeder routes(30-60 minutes)that just will not attract the punters and cars will fill up the metro stations car parks and surrounding streets.
Too much of old hat -one size fits all thinking.
Follows the time honoured STA approach of bogging together as many routes as possible with standard rigid buses.

[tonyp]

And does not take into account the numbers of services deleted from the mainly withdrawn CBD and Chatswood routes.
The politicians only want to communicate the numbers of "new services:,not the whole picture.
Would be fascinating to know the change in Hillsbus PVR.
I still hold the view the new bus route network will not attract the punters to use the buses from the surrounding suburbs to the metro stations or to the Busway.
The services just are not frequent enough at the right times and are generally too long,convoluted and winding so as to affect reliability and punctuality.On relatively low frequency feeder routes(30-60 minutes)that just will not attract the punters and cars will fill up the metro stations car parks and surrounding streets.
Too much of old hat -one size fits all thinking.
Follows the time honoured STA approach of bogging together as many routes as possible with standard rigid buses.

Dare I say it, but perhaps they need to take a look at Perth where a feeder-based system has been established apparently very successfully. Frequency seems to be a key factor and the routes I've ridden don't seem to be too convoluted, although that could depend too on the respective patterns of suburban settlement in the two cities.

[Fleet Lists]

For changes to be made 28th July 2019 see http://www.busaustralia.com/forum/viewt ... =3&t=89700 which also covers other changes on that day.

[neilrex]

Some further thoughts about bus services in the north-west area.

Lots of people over the years have been forced to make bus-train-bus journeys. and I say "forced", because anyone with experience of having to make such trips will know that anyone who could possibly avoid it would drive instead.

There are relatively few cases where it is necessary or desirable to make train-bus-train journeys. The new Metro however introduces this as a plausible scenario. If you wanted to go from Cherrybrook to St Marys, for example. There is no connection between the Metro and either branch of the T1 western line.

There should be a bus connection somewhere, and there really isn't.

Since buses are lucky to make 20 km/hr and Sydney trains vary between about 37 and 55 km/h, the bus connection should be as short as possible.

The best they can do, is an HOURLY service between Seven Hills and Norwest. This is reasonably direct, but hourly!

I guess the Government is not really serious about reducing congestion or the benefits of intra-regional connectivity within the west and northwest region.

[tonyp]

A well planned and run system of bus-train connection should be a pleasure to use and there are many examples around. Frequency of service and ease of interchange are key factors. In terms of connection of the metro with T1, at a quick glance (because the regional bus map on NSW Transport won't open for me), there is for a start 751, Rouse Hill to Blacktown via Tallawong and Schofields. The frequency could be better (it is between Schofields and Tallawong/Rouse Hill) but it's there. Since the metro runs at an average speed above 55 km/h at the minimum, the fastest trip would be to go out to Rouse Hill or Tallawong and interchange to the bus.

[iamthouth]

Cherrybrook to Castle Hill on 626, then 730 from Castle Hill to Blacktown, train to St Marys.

Could do bus from Norwest Bvd to St Marys too, instead of train, using 745. Thus saving the mode penalty.

The southern connector in terms of frequency between Metro and T1 is 611 between Blacktown/Seven Hills and Macquarie Park. 15 min service off peak, 5 in peak, which is pretty good.

The central connector is 730 between Norwest and Blacktown, 30 min service off peak, 20 min peak, not so good, but it works.

The northern connector is services between Rouse Hill/Tallawong and Schofields, like 751, 30 min off peak, 15 min peak, which is ok.

[neilrex]

A well planned and run system of bus-train connection should be a pleasure to use and there are many examples around. Frequency of service and ease of interchange are key factors. In terms of connection of the metro with T1, at a quick glance (because the regional bus map on NSW Transport won't open for me), there is for a start 751, Rouse Hill to Blacktown via Tallawong and Schofields. The frequency could be better (it is between Schofields and Tallawong/Rouse Hill) but it's there. Since the metro runs at an average speed above 55 km/h at the minimum, the fastest trip would be to go out to Rouse Hill or Tallawong and interchange to the bus.

The problem with this bus route is its sheer length and circuitousness. All the frequency in the world is not going to help. You could just about WALK from Bella Vista station to Seven Hills station faster than you could get there by catching that bus.

[burrumbus]

And that is exactly the problem with much of the network.

[Ted]

Through routing of a number of bus routes through the Castle Hill interchange has I guess been dictated by the lack of 'layover' facilities at Castle Hill.

It is to be hoped that Hills Bus will make a concerted effort to insure that through routed services do not depart from the Castle Hill interchange before the advertised departure time.

Pennant Hills Station now has four different bus routes servicing Castle Hill 600, 626, 632 and 633. Unfortunately all do not depart from the same bus stand).

Trip planner 'departures' for Bus Route 632 Pennant Hills towards Castle Hill (Saturday services) has not been updated (Saturday 3rd August, 2019). All other details for this Route are shown correctly.

Cheers.....

[neilrex]

And that is exactly the problem with much of the network.

Not exactly the same problem. On most bus-train-bus trips, the bus trips are likely to be shorter anyway. And, for travellers likely to be time-sensitive, many of them have options for replacing one of the bus journeys if it too slow , for example, by driving, walking or cycling to to their local station. Or even getting someone to pick them up. One of my colleagues has a bus=train-bus journey to work, which she saves over half an hour on by getting one of the people in the office to drop her off at the station after work, avoiding a bus trip going home.

On a train-bus-train trip, the bus trip should be short, because it is going to waste a disproportionate amount of the travellers time, in relation to the total distance travelled, because of the inherent slowness of buses. even compared to the slower train lines ( the all-stops train lines, in Sydney ).

Modern foreign urban rail networks ( whatever the pointless classificationists want to call them ) are designed to intersect all over the place, so you actually get a "network" and not a bunch of radial lines. In theory, Sydney can do this better than Melbourne or Brisbane, but the current sad orphan state of the lines near Regent's Park show that this is not necessarily the case.

[swtt]

In another thread - I remember someone mentioned that it's going be a long process to work out the loss of revenue kilometres travelled for TSA when the Light Rail becomes operational.

Wondering now how many kms have Hillsbus lost in this latest series of reshuffles? There's a petition around that is circulating to demand some of the cuts be retracted (especially with little or no off peak service to even the closest metro station - where previously there may have even been an off peak service direct into town).

[neilrex]

one of the Hornsby shire councillors has drawn my attention to the apparent lack of buses between actual Cherrybrook and Cherrybrook metro station, which is certainly a bit surprising, if true.

[Fleet Lists]

How close does the 626 go?

[swtt]

How close does the 626 go?

Right next to it. It travels on Bradfield Parade.

But the 626 is wayyyy too circuitous. Seems to be another one of those routes that want to please everybody but ends up pleasing nobody, plug every 400 m gap routes.

[Fleet Lists]

Yes, I thought as much.

[iamthouth]

The problem with Cherrybrook is the road network though.....which is what lets down many a bus route. There are three entries to Cherrybrook (shops area), being Purchase, Shepherds and Francis Greenway Dr, with only County Dr linking directly towards the station. The other two roads on the western side of New Line Rd is David Rd at the north, and Castle Hill Rd right at the bottom of New Line Rd.

Everyone wants a straight line to THEIR house, but for suburban forest peninsulas like Cherrybrook, Westleigh, Berowra Heights you end up with these types of routes.

You can of course have many more direct routes that loop back on themselves and duplicate, but frequency would suffer with limited resources.

600 links to Castle Hill and Pennant Hills for a fairly direct route.

[marcnut1996]

I was looking at this recently-outdated bus route guide of Rouse Hill Station (https://transportnsw.info/document/4164 ... -guide.pdf) and I realised 752 had somehow become a 608 on the map. Also T63 was also supposed to be T61 at Blacktown. Hopefully these are fixed when this guide is updated to reflect yesterday's changes.

[Fleet Lists]

This was reported here previously and TfNSW is aware of it. I am surprised there are no new maps available as yet for the changes in the past weekend where I was hoping this would be fixed.

[Fleet Lists]

I cant find any T63 at Blacktown.

[marcnut1996]

Sorry, I meant the T63 labek was not supposed to be at Blacktown.

[tonyp]

This was reported here previously and TfNSW is aware of it. I am surprised there are no new maps available as yet for the changes in the past weekend where I was hoping this would be fixed.

I had a look at the maps on the NSW transport info website to check this and see generally how the NW feeders were laid out and I was surprised to find that TfNSW's bus maps are still only operator maps - that is, they aren't truly user-friendly regional maps that enable one to get an overall picture. They end at the operator boundary with notes at the edges saying something like the other side of the road is in such and such operator's territory. The customer is interested in the overall view of their journey which may cross more than one region, not who operates what.