Clarkson service changes

On Sunday 18th December (tomorrow) there will be some changes occuring to the bus services north of Clarkson train station. A new route will be created as a short run of the long and underserved 490 to Two Rocks, and the latter will be bolstered in frequency. There will be some other minor changes and an extension to a new development at Alkimos. These will increase the utility of the bus network in that area.

Route 480 will be introduced, which will follow the 490 until its terminus on Marmion Av before Santorini Prom (the limit of suburban development in Butler for the moment). Services will operate 20 minutes in  peak hour, hourly during off-peak on weekdays and every 2 hours on Sundays (no Saturday service). 490 to Two Rocks via Yanchep will have many extra services, with buses every 20 min during peak hour, hourly during weekday off-peak and Saturdays and every 2 hours on Sundays. These two services will be co-ordinated to provide buses every 10 min during the peak, 30 min on weekday off-peak and hourly on weekends on  the common section between Clarkson station and Butler. This frequency is (slightly) better than what is normally provided and better public transport on Marmion Av will spur growth in PT usage.
 Route 482 will have some minor timing changes. There will be extra trips to Clarkson at 5:15am and 9:05am.
Route 483 will also have some changes. The first bus at 5:17am which deviated to Clarkson Community High School to serve 484 passengers will no longer do this and will now depart at 5:22am , and an early 484 will be provided. An additional 483 from Clarkson will depart at 6:01 pm.
Route 484 will also get some changes. It will be extended north into the Trinity Estate in Alkimos, and the service explained previosly will depart Alkimos at 5:14am, and there will also be a new 9:35am bus from Alkimos.
These small changes will in general increase the quality and ridership of public transport in the area, and reduce the pressure on the very popular Park n'Ride at Clarkson

Not a personal trainer

Well it's Sunday and we still haven't moved over to the new site... because it's already used, by a Scottish personal trainer. I'd forgotten to actually check the address I wanted. So I think we'll be moving to ptforperth.blogspot.com on Wednesday 14th December, and yes, at this time the address is available.

Mandurah, Silver Sands, San Remo and Madora Bay bus changes

Many changes will be occuring to Transperth’s bus network on Sunday 18^th of Deember. Some of these changes will be to the Mandurah area. In short the deviation to the Mandurah foreshore and Mandurah Centro shopping centre made by the current 588 and 589 will be removed, with a more direct path for buses from that area, and two circular routes (one in each direction) will serve the shopping centre and foreshore area.

The current 588 (serving Silver Sands) and 589 (serving Madora Bay and Silver Sands) will be replaced by the 583 and 584. They will travel straight from Mandurah Tce along Peel St and Alnutt St to Mandurah train station, making travel to the station quicker (by about 5 minutes).

Passengers from Silver Sands or Madora Bay to the foreshore or shopping centre will lose out on a direct trip, but this will be mitigated by an easy transfer at Mandurah station to the two new Mandurah Shuttle loops, both serving the Mandurah foreshore and Mandurah Centro. These will take on the 588 and 589 route numbers, the former for the clockwise direction and the latter for the anti-clockwise direction. These routes will also be operated wholly on low-floor accessible buses, improving the experience for both disabled and able-bodied passengers.

There will be no changes to the other bus routes from Mandurah station (558, 586, 587, 591, 592, 594, 597 and 598), but the proposed changes are on the whole an improvement to Mandurah’s bus services. Timetables for the 583 and 584 are available online now. The 588 and 589, according the Transperth’s article, will be placed on the Southern 135 timetable, but this contains unrelated routes, and no updated version is available, so this is hopefully a typo. Physical timetables will be available from the Tuesday 13^th December.

P.S. If you have sharp eyesight you may have also noticed that the 590 is on the map of the changes, although it is to be replaced by the 588 and 589. Transperth really hasn't double checked this time.

New Name!

I've changed the name of this blog to Public Transport for Perth, which is more appropriate given Perth is the subject of just about all my posts by now.

The blog will continue to be found on www.transportgeekinhighschool.blogspot.com for another week (until about the 10th of December) From then, the blog can be accessed on www.perthpt.blogspot.com, a nice small  address

Second thoughts on Park n' Rides

Previously I said that Park n' Rides, or car parks at stations were a bad idea, but the reality is we need them now and in the near future. People use them. My family uses them. Most of them are at freeway stations that are hard to walk to and offer little redevelopment opportunity anyway. But they can be improved.
For one, the concept of partly free parking and partly paid parking is a good one. However the paid bays are at the back, so those who paid are further inconvenienced by walking further, while those who got free parking also get parking close to the station, so the only way to get convenient parking is, well, to arrive early. Or at least this is the set up at Stirling train station; I haven't seen the other stations but I suspect the situation is the same. It would be better to have paid parking at the front and free parking at the back, so people can pay for the convenience of parking near the station.

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.

More thoughts on northern suburbs service changes

Major service changes came into effect yesterday in the northern suburbs, and while I have done a three-part analysis of the changes already, I did not have access to timetables. With services to and from Mirrabooka, I have found some further improvements but also a few gripes

On Saturdays the 888 is coordinated with the 354 and 370 to provide TUAG services every 15 min from Mirrabooka to Wellington St bus station, and provides 371 connections. On Sundays however, while services run every half hour, there are still no services past 8pm, despite the second last bus being half an hour before the last bus at 7:50pm.

In terms of feeders, there is still a gap in afternoon inbound service on the 376, so school students at Mercy College or John Septimus Roe who miss the bus still need to wait for an hour, despite a service 30 min before and 30 min after that gap.

Talking about long gaps, I apologise for my sparse posting, because as the name of this blog suggests, school has kept me busy. (Disclosure: My school is served by the 376, so the latter paragraph effects me and so there is reason to think there is bias, but the problem is still real).