3/2/13 Service Changes (South Eastern)

This post, second in a number of posts describing the service changes occurring across the Transperth network, concentrates on the South-Eastern service area.

The most significant change here is to services heading south of Armadale, to Byford, Mundijong, Jarrahdale and other areas. The 251 will have extra trips and the 251, 252 and 253 will have time changes and will be routed further down South Western Hwy to serve the Byford by the Scarp development better, and the new 254 will be introduced.
The 254 will serve the new developments in Byford, to the west of the railway line. It operates along a temporary route, since the new road network in that area is incomplete, and is fully accessible. It runs Monday to Saturday, every 15 minutes during the peaks and hourly at other times.
The 251, 252, 253 and 254 will interline from Armadale along South Western Hwy until Larsen Rd for a 30 minute frequency during weekday middays and on Saturdays (during peak hour, the 254 alone will run every 15 minutes, as stated above). Unfortunately, Sundays will see the lone 251 running every 2 hours, a far cry from the half-hourly service on weekdays. I don't see why this happens given one bus on a Sunday can run both the 250 and the 251, but not the 245 as well (all run every 2 hours). You can run the 250 and the 251 hourly on Sundays and still only use one bus. This means that running the bus every 2 hours saves no money on labour (there are small savings on maintenance due to less wear and tear, but a pittance compared to the potential doubling of frequencies).

There are also minor time changes to the 100, 101, 210, 211, 212, 229, 506, 507, 508 and 509, as well as an extra 212 trip leaving the Busport at 4:30pm, and numerous extra 100s and 101s, such as an earlier first trip on weekdays, leaving Curtin University as 5:50am, and an increase in frequency of buses between Curtin Uni and Canning Bridge in the mornings from 12 buses per hour (bph) to 18 bph (these buses previously deadheaded back to Canning Bridge, as the frequency from Canning Bridge to Curtin University was and stays at 18bph).