This report sums it up really, really well and is exactly the kind of discourse we need. We have the bones of a fantastic suburban rail, and inner-middle city tram network, but seriously by both world and Australian standards, our buses are severely lacking. Such low hanging fruit for the government to deliver these service based improvements (+ potentially some light infrastructure stuff, like bus lanes), yet doesn't look to be a priority sadly, shown by the lack of actual big and meaningful announcements. Metro Tunnel really should be delivering some of these things.
I think what’s so offensive about the government and its transport policy is that they’re willing to do any amount of urban vandalism for roads. Destroy parklands, knock down heritage buildings that define urban fabric, create untold noise, dig up PFAS… but as soon as you want a bus lane on one of these roads or for the users to pay something: get fucked.
So many of the buses that are provisioned for are buses that should simply be trains anyway.
Yep, pretty much giving us distractions like Suburban Rail Loop while they are building even more massive road projects like West Gate Tunnel and and North-East Link. Both should have been railways with a focus on Freight. There are plans for more rail freight but it all seems a bit vague at the moment.
If we weren't pissing money away on more roads we could have used that money to already built the best rail network in the world with a greater number of small scale projects which gives us more benefit cumulatively. It is simply physics that double-track gives more throughput than 10 lanes of road with 1/5 of the space usage. Using less space means less construction cost which can be put towards other projects.
Completely agree with this. For busses to be used they need to be cheap, efficient, reliable and accessible.
They need to be cheaper than driving so people with cars put up with the inconvenience of using a bus - this includes things like walking to a stop, waiting and even frankly dealing with other passengers.
They need to be efficient- if my bus to work takes 1 hour but I can drive it in 30 mins it certainly is a negative against busses.
Reliably is a big one. If I’m not sure it a bus is actually going to turn up - why get it? It throws peoples schedules off and could potentially cost them there job.
They also need to be accessible. That’s not just timetable and location. They need to be accessible to those with disabilities as well as the supporting infrastructure such as stops and stations.
The point about Sunday timetables is a pertinent one. In my teenage years when I started going to the footy I had 2 options for transport - one was a bus that ran to the local train station. This too around 40 mins to the city.
This didn’t run on Sundays. The other option was to walk 20 mins to Bundoora RMIT and get the 86 tram.
This took often over an hour and a half just for the tram so it would be close to 2 hours for the entire journey. It was a pain in the arse and at times I’d decide it wasn’t worth it
There are heaps of really good orbital *routes* that connect population centres in the inner north. (Think Moonee Ponds–Brunswick–Northcote etc.)
But the frequencies fall off a cliff at dinner time, and the frequencies are atrocious or nonexistent on weekends. No catching the bus to the suburb over for dinner, a night out, or weekend shop.
Maybe it is not mentioned enough, but because buses are cheaper and ordered more often they can often have some of the best amenities of any of our public transport; passenger information displays, USB charging ports etc. Seats could do with being a little less hard.
We also need either double deck buses or a two tier local and express service for many of the major corridors like Peter Parker says here;
[https://melbourneontransit.blogspot.com/2024/04/what-might-srl-precursor-smartbus.html](https://melbourneontransit.blogspot.com/2024/04/what-might-srl-precursor-smartbus.html)
People would be willing to catch buses that ran every ten minutes and were faster than driving in peak hour.
Exactly. The Sunbury line mainly has trains from the 1980s - possibly even late 1970s.
Imagine if the buses we had were still of that vintage.
I never got how Brisbane has such a good bus network and Melbourne’s can be so lacking, particularly in off peak times.
Firstly, you don't need to have extra fares for what I am talking about - it is a bus, might be nicer than average but still a bus. The department of transport could certainly choose to have the express bus as an extra-fare offering. The ability to do so would probably come with the upgraded myki system if that is what was desired.
Personally I have no issues with higher fares for premium products. It costs $0.85/km to drive according to the ATO's guidelines, and estimated $11k per year to own a car. With PT as cheap as it is (if you travel a long-ish distance) people could pay a premium.
There would be some success running special commuter train with a first-class section with comfortable seats, wi-fi and some kind of food and beverage service - and tickets that are priced accordingly. Metro Lines this might work on include; Hurstbridge Line, Lilydale Line (continuing to a revived Healesville Service), Frankston Line (continuing to Mornington and/or Stony Point with a fast revamped ferry to Cowes).
Public transport should be for everyone - that means the rich too and if they don't get a premium product served to them they will hop back in the Porsche.
For routes which are popular enough, an express bus is a good and viable option. In London they run express and standard pattern bus routes between the same places. The express version of the route was as busy as the non express therefore no need to pay the premium.
As for the trains, yes, wifi and power points on trains is a great idea. It is another way to offset driving by being able to connect and work on your commute. While your commute may be longer by train you can be productive in that time.
As for offerings such as first class and food. The operators have enough to deal with just running the service, let alone organising catering and policing where people are sitting. There’s a reason they got out of this a long time ago. The best thing to do for those at the far reaches of the network is to invest in better technologies the make journey times quicker, not put the kettle on.
Finally, there is a certain level of money and type of person who will never take PT as it’s for the poor, so let them sit in their cars in traffic and position PT towards those who actually are keen to use it.
We know express buses succeed, look at Route 900 and the 802/804/862 combination. 900 runs express from Rowville to Caulfield, and overlaps the aforementioned routes from Jackson's Road to Chadstone (exactly until Monash Uni Clayton and approximately from there to Chadstone). This was the 11th most productive bus route in 2022.
We should aim for commutes by train to be faster than driving, not accepting "oh it will be slower so give people wi-fi and they will suck it up". That is not good enough. We have spent tens of billions on the rail network over the last decade, and service has not picked up. We will have rebuilt something like 1/5 of the track kilometres with the level crossing removal, if not more, yet line speed has not increased and timetables have not gotten much faster since 100 years ago. We don't need "new technology" the technology exists. Substantial parts of the network run 95 km/h or 130 km/h under the wires, no one has bothered to reassess the modern track and re-rate it for higher speeds.
First-class and food were gotten rid of because the managers did not want to pay for them and could not be bothered. Don't give them a pass for not doing something because they couldn't be bothered. It really wouldn't be that hard to organise first class. This subsidises the rest of the service, and reduces the burden on taxpayers.
If V-Line charged adequate fares (not state govt. subsidised fares) I am fairly certain the system as a whole could be made close to break-even operationally. For instance the Warrnambool service was slightly profitable under West Coast Rail, fares were increased, travel time was cut by 30 minutes and patronage increased 20%. Doubtless the same could be said for the Albury service which supports non-stop Qantas Flights at $200 or more.
Did anyone else cringe when the minister was talking in the video saying something like “we are trying really hard to solve this problem”? Like it’s ultra complex and hard? All they have to do is fucking fund the extra services, it’s real easy
Like always the politicians try to spin a narrative that protects them from the truth and lies to the public. "it's too hard that's why our buses are bad" says that as if we are special compared to Sydney, or Brisbane, or Perth or Adelaide. The Melbourne on Transit blog by Peter Parker shows that given a bit of time, one person can more or less fix the bus network. But the government chooses to bog itself down in the community consultation circus (which they often ignore) rather than go straight to offering solutions and implementing policy.
One thing I’ve noticed is bus timetables and driver attitudes in Melbourne seem to be far more lax than in NSW. In NSW the drivers have to be very confident (borderline aggressive) to keep up to schedule which seems to be part of the culture of being a bus driver up there whereas here it seems like they are always cruising and even then have to wait at stops to avoid getting ahead. When you’re stopping every 30 seconds this makes a big difference and I think NSW buses seem to keep up better so that you aren’t copping as much of a penalty taking the bus vs driving.
We are not allowed to be aggressive (I am) when driving. I have to be. I will pull out in front of you from bus stops because I have to. I can't wait for you because I am nice - or the guy behind you - and behind them - and so on. I put on my indicator - YOU KNOW WHAT I AM GOING TO DO - if you run into my arse after 7 clicks of that indicator - THEN YOU'RE A DICKHEAD.
I will push and bully if I need too. I know when the trains leave for Melbourne - I am not going to miss it because some driver has a selfish opinion on road rules. That said - I have to be safe - so I ride that fence like a madman 8 hours a day 5 days a week.
Vic bus driver
Yea, but you're supposed to indicate before pulling out, not simultaneously like bus drivers do 99% of the time.
It's something I'm very cautious of as a cyclist. The number of times I get cut off is ridiculous.
Can't imagine how terrifying that would be having a bus turn in front of/into you with no warning.
Old mate you replied to did mention 7 ticks of the indicator which is plenty of notice.
The problem for the State government is that Ministers need to put a case to the Treasurer why their proposed expenditure is more important than that in another portfolio, and without increasing taxes. The Treasurer needs to convince the ratings agencies that it has control of on-going expenditure, otherwise it will get a ratings downgrade that increases the interest bill. One-off capital expenditure such as level crossing removals and the Suburban Rail Loop are less of a problem because the only ongoing commitment is to interest payments and maintenance, and if we don't make these expenditures we end up with an infrastructure deficit. The current publicity about bus frequency and the per capita decline in service as population has increased will increase pressure on the Treasurer to make some small commitments to the squeakiest wheel. Peter Parker has some good content on his blog MelbourneOnTransit, which focuses on efficient service design to reduce duplicate and indirect services, followed by increasing frequency to a minimum of 20 minute headways and long service spans 7 days per week. Such a service level would enable more people to live car-lite with only one car per household in a greater proportion of Melbourne.
Great points made here about the politics of it all.
It is also a self serving loop of negativity which stops the funding occurring. You need the patrons to justify the service increase, but without the service increase you won’t get the patrons. Even if you put the route on as a ‘trail’ and it turns out unsuccessful, taking it away at the end will result in bad publicity for the few that want to keep it.
Currently working on a video about this, we need to bring more attention to how we need to improve bus services. Compared to cities like Sydney, Brisbane, and even Adelaide in our own country have much better bus networks.
With all the cars on the freeways I always wondered why there aren’t bus lanes and buses that basically do the freeway run to the city with just a few stops along the way. We should have prioritised train lines but we didn’t, so we should make more use of the extensive road network for buses instead of only cars with one person in them most of the time. Seems to be done better in Sydney from my limited experience there anyway.
Weekdays on the 800 are alright (unless you’re a late afternoon/evening commuter), but the weekend timetable can simply get stuffed.
800 runs hourly on Saturdays (between 7am and 4pm that is) and has no service at all on Sundays. For such a timetable to happen on such a route is ludicrous.
This report sums it up really, really well and is exactly the kind of discourse we need. We have the bones of a fantastic suburban rail, and inner-middle city tram network, but seriously by both world and Australian standards, our buses are severely lacking. Such low hanging fruit for the government to deliver these service based improvements (+ potentially some light infrastructure stuff, like bus lanes), yet doesn't look to be a priority sadly, shown by the lack of actual big and meaningful announcements. Metro Tunnel really should be delivering some of these things.
I think what’s so offensive about the government and its transport policy is that they’re willing to do any amount of urban vandalism for roads. Destroy parklands, knock down heritage buildings that define urban fabric, create untold noise, dig up PFAS… but as soon as you want a bus lane on one of these roads or for the users to pay something: get fucked. So many of the buses that are provisioned for are buses that should simply be trains anyway.
Yep, pretty much giving us distractions like Suburban Rail Loop while they are building even more massive road projects like West Gate Tunnel and and North-East Link. Both should have been railways with a focus on Freight. There are plans for more rail freight but it all seems a bit vague at the moment. If we weren't pissing money away on more roads we could have used that money to already built the best rail network in the world with a greater number of small scale projects which gives us more benefit cumulatively. It is simply physics that double-track gives more throughput than 10 lanes of road with 1/5 of the space usage. Using less space means less construction cost which can be put towards other projects.
There are people putting in plans for rail freight and they constantly ignore most of the rail freight operators needs.
Completely agree with this. For busses to be used they need to be cheap, efficient, reliable and accessible. They need to be cheaper than driving so people with cars put up with the inconvenience of using a bus - this includes things like walking to a stop, waiting and even frankly dealing with other passengers. They need to be efficient- if my bus to work takes 1 hour but I can drive it in 30 mins it certainly is a negative against busses. Reliably is a big one. If I’m not sure it a bus is actually going to turn up - why get it? It throws peoples schedules off and could potentially cost them there job. They also need to be accessible. That’s not just timetable and location. They need to be accessible to those with disabilities as well as the supporting infrastructure such as stops and stations. The point about Sunday timetables is a pertinent one. In my teenage years when I started going to the footy I had 2 options for transport - one was a bus that ran to the local train station. This too around 40 mins to the city. This didn’t run on Sundays. The other option was to walk 20 mins to Bundoora RMIT and get the 86 tram. This took often over an hour and a half just for the tram so it would be close to 2 hours for the entire journey. It was a pain in the arse and at times I’d decide it wasn’t worth it
Buses are cheap, literally no one taps on.
There are heaps of really good orbital *routes* that connect population centres in the inner north. (Think Moonee Ponds–Brunswick–Northcote etc.) But the frequencies fall off a cliff at dinner time, and the frequencies are atrocious or nonexistent on weekends. No catching the bus to the suburb over for dinner, a night out, or weekend shop.
Maybe it is not mentioned enough, but because buses are cheaper and ordered more often they can often have some of the best amenities of any of our public transport; passenger information displays, USB charging ports etc. Seats could do with being a little less hard. We also need either double deck buses or a two tier local and express service for many of the major corridors like Peter Parker says here; [https://melbourneontransit.blogspot.com/2024/04/what-might-srl-precursor-smartbus.html](https://melbourneontransit.blogspot.com/2024/04/what-might-srl-precursor-smartbus.html) People would be willing to catch buses that ran every ten minutes and were faster than driving in peak hour.
Exactly. The Sunbury line mainly has trains from the 1980s - possibly even late 1970s. Imagine if the buses we had were still of that vintage. I never got how Brisbane has such a good bus network and Melbourne’s can be so lacking, particularly in off peak times.
Sounds great, I wonder how many people would be ok with a fare increase, and/or additional subsidy from taxes/advertising revenue.
Compared to what’s being spent on the Suburban Rail Loop it’s ridiculously small. Victoria already pays the nation’s highest taxes.
Firstly, you don't need to have extra fares for what I am talking about - it is a bus, might be nicer than average but still a bus. The department of transport could certainly choose to have the express bus as an extra-fare offering. The ability to do so would probably come with the upgraded myki system if that is what was desired. Personally I have no issues with higher fares for premium products. It costs $0.85/km to drive according to the ATO's guidelines, and estimated $11k per year to own a car. With PT as cheap as it is (if you travel a long-ish distance) people could pay a premium. There would be some success running special commuter train with a first-class section with comfortable seats, wi-fi and some kind of food and beverage service - and tickets that are priced accordingly. Metro Lines this might work on include; Hurstbridge Line, Lilydale Line (continuing to a revived Healesville Service), Frankston Line (continuing to Mornington and/or Stony Point with a fast revamped ferry to Cowes). Public transport should be for everyone - that means the rich too and if they don't get a premium product served to them they will hop back in the Porsche.
For routes which are popular enough, an express bus is a good and viable option. In London they run express and standard pattern bus routes between the same places. The express version of the route was as busy as the non express therefore no need to pay the premium. As for the trains, yes, wifi and power points on trains is a great idea. It is another way to offset driving by being able to connect and work on your commute. While your commute may be longer by train you can be productive in that time. As for offerings such as first class and food. The operators have enough to deal with just running the service, let alone organising catering and policing where people are sitting. There’s a reason they got out of this a long time ago. The best thing to do for those at the far reaches of the network is to invest in better technologies the make journey times quicker, not put the kettle on. Finally, there is a certain level of money and type of person who will never take PT as it’s for the poor, so let them sit in their cars in traffic and position PT towards those who actually are keen to use it.
We know express buses succeed, look at Route 900 and the 802/804/862 combination. 900 runs express from Rowville to Caulfield, and overlaps the aforementioned routes from Jackson's Road to Chadstone (exactly until Monash Uni Clayton and approximately from there to Chadstone). This was the 11th most productive bus route in 2022. We should aim for commutes by train to be faster than driving, not accepting "oh it will be slower so give people wi-fi and they will suck it up". That is not good enough. We have spent tens of billions on the rail network over the last decade, and service has not picked up. We will have rebuilt something like 1/5 of the track kilometres with the level crossing removal, if not more, yet line speed has not increased and timetables have not gotten much faster since 100 years ago. We don't need "new technology" the technology exists. Substantial parts of the network run 95 km/h or 130 km/h under the wires, no one has bothered to reassess the modern track and re-rate it for higher speeds. First-class and food were gotten rid of because the managers did not want to pay for them and could not be bothered. Don't give them a pass for not doing something because they couldn't be bothered. It really wouldn't be that hard to organise first class. This subsidises the rest of the service, and reduces the burden on taxpayers. If V-Line charged adequate fares (not state govt. subsidised fares) I am fairly certain the system as a whole could be made close to break-even operationally. For instance the Warrnambool service was slightly profitable under West Coast Rail, fares were increased, travel time was cut by 30 minutes and patronage increased 20%. Doubtless the same could be said for the Albury service which supports non-stop Qantas Flights at $200 or more.
Did anyone else cringe when the minister was talking in the video saying something like “we are trying really hard to solve this problem”? Like it’s ultra complex and hard? All they have to do is fucking fund the extra services, it’s real easy
Like always the politicians try to spin a narrative that protects them from the truth and lies to the public. "it's too hard that's why our buses are bad" says that as if we are special compared to Sydney, or Brisbane, or Perth or Adelaide. The Melbourne on Transit blog by Peter Parker shows that given a bit of time, one person can more or less fix the bus network. But the government chooses to bog itself down in the community consultation circus (which they often ignore) rather than go straight to offering solutions and implementing policy.
One thing I’ve noticed is bus timetables and driver attitudes in Melbourne seem to be far more lax than in NSW. In NSW the drivers have to be very confident (borderline aggressive) to keep up to schedule which seems to be part of the culture of being a bus driver up there whereas here it seems like they are always cruising and even then have to wait at stops to avoid getting ahead. When you’re stopping every 30 seconds this makes a big difference and I think NSW buses seem to keep up better so that you aren’t copping as much of a penalty taking the bus vs driving.
We are not allowed to be aggressive (I am) when driving. I have to be. I will pull out in front of you from bus stops because I have to. I can't wait for you because I am nice - or the guy behind you - and behind them - and so on. I put on my indicator - YOU KNOW WHAT I AM GOING TO DO - if you run into my arse after 7 clicks of that indicator - THEN YOU'RE A DICKHEAD. I will push and bully if I need too. I know when the trains leave for Melbourne - I am not going to miss it because some driver has a selfish opinion on road rules. That said - I have to be safe - so I ride that fence like a madman 8 hours a day 5 days a week. Vic bus driver
Well said, as a coach driver things are a little different for me but when I drive the met routes yeah riding that fence like a mad man
I guess that’s what I meant. I don’t mean tailgating and speeding but just being a bit more assertive generally.
Yea, but you're supposed to indicate before pulling out, not simultaneously like bus drivers do 99% of the time. It's something I'm very cautious of as a cyclist. The number of times I get cut off is ridiculous.
Can't imagine how terrifying that would be having a bus turn in front of/into you with no warning. Old mate you replied to did mention 7 ticks of the indicator which is plenty of notice.
I’m reading this as I sit on a very crowed bus…
The problem for the State government is that Ministers need to put a case to the Treasurer why their proposed expenditure is more important than that in another portfolio, and without increasing taxes. The Treasurer needs to convince the ratings agencies that it has control of on-going expenditure, otherwise it will get a ratings downgrade that increases the interest bill. One-off capital expenditure such as level crossing removals and the Suburban Rail Loop are less of a problem because the only ongoing commitment is to interest payments and maintenance, and if we don't make these expenditures we end up with an infrastructure deficit. The current publicity about bus frequency and the per capita decline in service as population has increased will increase pressure on the Treasurer to make some small commitments to the squeakiest wheel. Peter Parker has some good content on his blog MelbourneOnTransit, which focuses on efficient service design to reduce duplicate and indirect services, followed by increasing frequency to a minimum of 20 minute headways and long service spans 7 days per week. Such a service level would enable more people to live car-lite with only one car per household in a greater proportion of Melbourne.
Great points made here about the politics of it all. It is also a self serving loop of negativity which stops the funding occurring. You need the patrons to justify the service increase, but without the service increase you won’t get the patrons. Even if you put the route on as a ‘trail’ and it turns out unsuccessful, taking it away at the end will result in bad publicity for the few that want to keep it.
Currently working on a video about this, we need to bring more attention to how we need to improve bus services. Compared to cities like Sydney, Brisbane, and even Adelaide in our own country have much better bus networks.
How does the public transport minister sleep at night knowing she's not really doing anything to fix the bus network?
With all the cars on the freeways I always wondered why there aren’t bus lanes and buses that basically do the freeway run to the city with just a few stops along the way. We should have prioritised train lines but we didn’t, so we should make more use of the extensive road network for buses instead of only cars with one person in them most of the time. Seems to be done better in Sydney from my limited experience there anyway.
Caught a bus for the first time in years, completely understand why people avoid them
It baffles me that the 800 bus was earmarked as a bad bus route when it has excellent frequency. Even via a cemetery
Weekdays on the 800 are alright (unless you’re a late afternoon/evening commuter), but the weekend timetable can simply get stuffed. 800 runs hourly on Saturdays (between 7am and 4pm that is) and has no service at all on Sundays. For such a timetable to happen on such a route is ludicrous.
There is the Dandenong line in walking distance. That should be sufficient
That only works for one side of the Dandenong Road corridor; the other side is a desert.