The case for metros and tiering

Train systems in Australia often come as one product to serve a whole metropolitan area, which I think is best described as a suburban railway. This means that governments only have to maintain one rail-based product, saving resources, but this can cause problems as cities grow and public transport use grows faster than population.
To make trains attractive to suburban passengers, railway lines often skimp on stop spacing in inner areas to get passengers from the suburbs to the CBD quicker. This does not serve inner city areas adequately, even of there is already a railway line in the area. For example, the Mandurah line does not make any stops between the city and Canning Bridge, despite passing through dense or significant areas like South Perth or Como.

To deal with overcrowding capacity can be increased by measures that make use of existing rolling stock such as replacing seating with space for standees, such as longitudinal seating (along the sides rather than in pairs). However, this is unpopular with long distance commuters from suburban areas to the CBD who may be forced to stand for long periods of time. This seating is already common on A series trains, which do not serve far destinations except for the Armadale Line, but this modification is present at the ends of B-series trains, and is being rolled out on other parts of those sets, which are used on the 70 km Mandurah Line as well as the 30 km Joondalup Line, which is constantly extended to follow suburbia.
The solution here is to split the suburban railway into two rail modes; the metro for inner areas, and the commuter railway for outer areas. Metros will have close stop spacing to serve inner suburbs thoroughly. Their use will be higher and service will be more frequent (TUAG) because inner areas are more conducive to public transport use, being built when cars were not available or not widely used. The trains may be driverless, or operated automatically by computer, to provide this service cheaply, and will feature full longitudinal seating, because average trip length will be shorter.
On the other hand, commuter rail will have much wider stop spacing, for quick journeys from the outer suburbs to the city centre. Their frequency will be dictated by levels of use, which likely aren't as high as further in. But, of course, users of commuter rail will usually get a comfy seat.
Perth is part-way there, with the two tiers operating on the Armadale corridor (commuter to Armadale, metro to Thornlie) Monday to Saturday 6am to 12am, and supplemented on Sundays by an all stops service to Armadale. However, the rollingstock is still the same on both lines, the metro section (at least) should be grade separated, and of course the tiering should be full time, with the Thornlie line a bit more frequent.
The Midland and Fremantle lines are probably short enough to be metros, despite the express running in the peak, but again, grade separation is needed, and frequency could be better.
The Clarkson and Mandurah lines have inner tiers to Whitfords and Cockburn Central operating on the peak shoulder (formerly off-peak and the height of the peak before service cuts and fleet expansion respectively). This is completely grade separated but the stations are in freeway medians, and so are widely spaced and pedestrian/bike-unfriendly, the tier is part-time only and frequency needs a boost.

If I ran Transperth ... I'd lengthen off-peak services.

While most peak hour services are now six-car trains, trains at other times are still only 3 cars. I took the train today on the Joondalup Line, and the three car trains had some standing passengers on the journey in at about 1:30pm, and nearly full on the trip back at 5:15pm. Standing isn't necessarily a problem, while it can be inconvenient, it is a reality of public transport, and most cities with great public transport have lots of standing, because standing means the service is popular. However, during off-peak times like this plenty of spare sets are available to make six car services, and add more services if the six car sets are full. In fact, I think off-peak services should have been six-car before peak services, because we wouldn't need to add more train sets to our fleet.

Analysis of Northern Suburbs Service Changes (Part 3)

This is the third part of a two-part series, here Parts 1 and 2 are available

In this third and final part of my analysis on the service changes that Transperth will be implementing from 6^th of November, I will look at the changes in place for Mirrabooka’s buses. Previous parts 1 and 2 have looked at changes on Wanneroo Rd, feeder buses from Stirling, Warwick and Whitfords train stations, Alexander Dr, and two buses from Morley, one going through Alexander Heights and Ballajura. The Transperth page for these changes is here, and a map is here.

Services from Mirrabooka Bus Station will be given huge improvements, with increases in weekday off-peak and Sunday frequency, a simpler network with after-hours combined service reduced in favour of more service on regular routes, and simplified bus times for one route. The 354’s weekday off-peak frequency will be increased to every 15 minutes, extra peak services will operate, there will be an addition Saturday trip from Mirrabooka to Perth, and it will be serviced exclusively by low-floor accessible buses. The 870 will also receive extra peak services and TUAG (quarter-hourly) off-peak services on fully accessible buses, and there will be an earlier bus from Mirrabooka and later buses from Perth. Route 370 will have some small timing adjustments on Saturdays, will operate on Sundays co-ordinated with route 354 for half-hourly service between Mirrabooka and Perth, will be served only on disability accessible buses, and will have stand changes at Mirrabooka to Stand 1 and at Wellington St station to Stand 5.

On to feeder buses, Route 365 will have major timing changes with off-peak buses every half-hour, Sunday and extra weeknight service to replace the 363, and will become a fully accessible route, the 372 will have major timetabling changes done, with off-peak frequency upgraded to every 30 minutes on accessible buses only and Route 375 will also have major timetabling amendments with services every 2 hours, again only on accessible buses. 376 buses will receive major time changes, additional weekday off-peak and Saturday daytime services every half hour, and buses on Sundays, Route 377 will have major timing changes, with off-peak frequency upgraded to every half hour, the 378 will again have major time changes and an extra trip in each direction replacing, along with the 376 some withdrawn services on route 379, the after-hours service.

The increased frequency is clearly a plus for serving this busy area, and promoting further gains in PT use, where previously few feeder buses across the metropolitan area operated every half-hour. Frequency still won’t be up to the standards on Wanneroo Rd and Alexander Dr, but this is because every 15 minutes two buses will leave, the all stops 354 and limited stop 870, and although this isn’t felt at Mirrabooka, further down the route where the 870 has made a reasonable gain on the 354, waiting times will be shorter, in some cases better than on Wanneroo Rd and Alexander Dr.

In conclusion, all the changes such as frequency increases, more service on regular routes instead of combined after-hour routes and moves to more low-floor disability accessibility buses will drive increases in PT patronage in the northern suburbs, on a frequent, simpler, fairer and more attractive bus network.

Analysis of Northern Suburbs Service Changes (Part 2)

This is the second part of a three-part series, see here for parts 1 and 3

From 6 November Transperth will be implementing service changes on buses across the middle northern suburbs (Wanneroo Rd, Alexander Dr, Stirling , Warwick , Whitfords , Mirrabooka , Morley , Ballajura and Alexander Heights). The network will be made simpler, with some new routes and trips added, increasing frequencies, and after-hour routes cut back or removed, replaced with more services on regular routes (The Transperth page for these changes is here, and a map is here). This second part of the analysis on northern suburbs bus improvements covers changes on Alexander Dr, Alexander Heights, Ballajura, Mirrabooka and Morley service changes.

The service changes to Alexander Dr buses aim to provide frequencies south of Yirrigan Dr up to every three minutes during peak hour on the 886, 887, 888 and 889, every 15 minutes until 8:30pm and on Saturdays using the 887, 888 and 889, as well as services up to midnight and every half hour on Sundays up to Beach Rd with the 887 and 889. This is in addition to the 10 minute frequency on weekdays off-peak already achieved.

To achieve this the 885 will have some minor time changes with an extra trip, 886 will have some small timing changes with a few extra peak trips, the 887 and 889 will have some minor timetabling adjustments and additional peak, night and Sunday trips, to operate every hour until midnight and on Sundays, slightly earlier and later too and route 888 will have some minor timing changes with extra early morning and weekend trips, and Saturday service every half an hour.

The frequency and service span increases are obviously a very big plus to current passengers and to increase patronage, adding Alexander Dr along with Wanneroo Rd into the group of corridors with buses every 10 minutes on weekdays and 15 min on Saturdays, or TUAG standard. The time changes will hopefully correct the current situation where an extra ten minutes of travel time is just lumped in at each end rather than evenly spread out (Perth to Mt Lawley ECU takes only 9 minutes but Mt Lawley to Perth is 19 minutes, and Beach Rd to the terminus takes 20 minutes, but from the terminus to Beach Rd takes 10 minutes (midday), although timetables aren’t available yet.

The 344 from Morley to Warwick via Alexander Heights and Ballajura will have extra services for services every 10-20 minutes in the peak, half hourly during off-peak (up from hourly) and hourly on weekends, with some short services now travelling the whole route, and buses from Warwick running earlier and later. The 345 from Morley to Bennett Springs will become a fully accessible route. A higher frequency and more full length services for the 344  are certainly a plus, making the route simpler and more convenient, and accessible buses are better obviously for disabled passengers but are also preferred by most able-bodied customers.

I have previously said that this will be a two-part series, however I have found that I will need three parts for this analysis, and the next part will analyse Mirrabooka’s changes.

The case for good off-peak public transport

Public transport is often used as an alternative to peak-hour traffic, but it should be embraced just as much during off-peak times.

Getting more passengers on off peak and weekend services gets the most out of capital investments already spent, such as railway lines, bus stops and vehicles. A bus has already been purchased so there is no extra cost to run it during off-peak times except for the driver and fuel, but the trip will earn money from fares.

Good off-peak services also gives peace of mind to peak hour commuters that should they need to come to work earlier or later, go home early, stay behind or do an errand that services are available for them at that time.

It also offers an alternative to driving to the city because while traffic isn’t bad, it will become an issue in the future, and parking is still a problem. The city is easy to serve well by public transport.

Trains run every 15 minutes all day everyday and some trips are standing room only, but most buses only run every hour during off-peak and so are unattractive to travellers with cars. Even major bus routes have a long way to go on weekends with only services along Beaufort St and on the Circleroute between Fremantle and Southlands running every 15 min on weekends.

In conclusion, off-peak public transport is a good use of infrastructure and fleets that have already been bought, and although Perth is doing well on this matter with its trains, we could improve, especially on buses.