3/2/13 Service Changes (Southern)

This post will detail the service changes to the Southern area occuring on 3rd February.

The 514, 515, 516, 520, 525, 526, 530, 531, 532, 543, 551, 552, 558, 559, 561, 584, 592, 594 and 600 will have time changes.

The 514 will have time changes, and the last Sunday trip from Murdoch (which left at 10:22 pm and did not have a corresponding trip from Murdoch prior to it) will be cut. It's a shame PT finishes early on Sundays, but there are trunk routes that don't have this service, so an hourly feeder finishing before 9:30pm isn't very important.
The 515 will have time changes, and more weekday services deviating to Jandakot Airport, and also more counter peak services (from Murdoch in the morning and to Murdoch in the afternoon, this is a very cheap enhancement, as the buses already ran something similar to that service, just not revenue service). I don't really understand the rationale behind running the 515 every 2 hours in the middle of the day. Yes, it may be a low-ridership route, but when a round trip on the 515 takes an hour, and there are no other buses running every 2 hours at Murdoch, so the bus doesn't do anythging for an hour and it would be very cheap to increase service to an hourly frequency(similar to the 251 on Sundays I talked about in the previous post).
The 516 will have time changes and a new deviation to Jandakot Airport every weekday morning, on the 7:43 bus from Murdoch (there's no corresponding return service, so I'm not sure what this is for. Those who take the bus in the morning but get lifts to the station in the afternoon?).

The 520, 530, 531 and 532 will begin to deviate to Cockburn Gateway Shopping City on Sundays because of Sunday trading, where previously they hadn't. The 531 will also deviate to Phoenix Shopping Centre.

The 564 will run two additional short services. One leaves its Baldivis terminus (Smirk Rd/Regency Av) at 7:30 am and concludes in Warnbro at 7:50am, and the other leaves Warnbro at 3:16pm arriving in Bladivis at 3:34pm. There will also be extra 568s, one leaving Warnbro at 7:56am, and terminating at Baldivis Secondary College, the other departing Nairn Dr/Kingaroy Dr at 8:17 am and deviating via Stocklands Baldivis SC, arriving at Warnbro at 8:39 am on school holidays, and 8:46am on schooldays due to a deviation to Baldivis Secondary College (Transperth sneakily refers to 'three additional weekdays services' on the 568, but in practice there are two services, just one that varies depending on whether school is in).

The 592 will have a route change. The bus will turn off Dawesville Bypass (when approaching from Mandurah) earlier, at Ocean Dr rather than Bailey Blvd, and use the new Dandaragan Dr to better serve new developments in Dawesville West.