Sometimes patronage growth in a PT system can temporarily plateau for periods of time and this has happened with Melbourne's buses (and also, I note from the annual report, in the metropolitan trains and trams over 2016-17). Seen in perspective though, the current bus plateau follows a period of significant growth, as with the trains and trams. The buses are still carrying over 30 million passengers a year more than they were 10 years ago.

PTV needs to be reviewing issues such as coverage, intensity of service and connectivity (interchange). I recall that when I was surveying those comparitive journey times in all cities recently, an example of a peak bus-train journey in each city revealed that the bus connection frequency was 15 minutes in the Sydney and Perth examples and 30 minutes in Melbourne for that suburban example. A 30 minute headway is not exactly going to attract patronage if this example is replicated in other areas of Melbourne.

What I do see in the statistics is that the Melbourne bus fleet is now approaching 90% accessible (low-entry/low-floor) whereas only about a quarter of the tram fleet and less than a quarter of the tram stops are (and even less a proportion when you consider the two don't always match up with each other). This is now nothing less than appalling even by world standards, as the Europeans have at least addressed it in the interim by the use of ramps while more level access platforms are built and large fleets of new low-floor trams are delivered.

The general performance indicators seem to be similar across all modes in Melbourne in 2016-17 but customer satisfaction with the metropolitan trains is lower than for the other two modes - all generally in the 70%s. This compares with overall rating of about 88-90% satisfaction range for any mode in Sydney and 90-99% for any mode in Perth. I note that those fast regional train services in Victoria have had a huge 20% patronage growth in 2015-16 and 10% in 2016-17 which is great, but surprisingly customer satisfaction rating is not that much higher than for all metropolitan PT services - still in the mid 70%s. Are the regional services really that bad or are Victorians just grumblers?

For comparison, I see that in the 2017 TfNSW customer satisfaction index detailed breakdowns, journey times for Sydney rail services rate low in customer satisfaction, the slower services (Bankstown and Carlingford lines and the interurban services) being down in the high 60%s to 70%s range. Sydney bus service journey times rate higher in customer satisfaction than train journeys - in the 80%s to 90% range.

Sydney's tram service overall rated 90% customer satisfaction, but frequency and journey time rate down in the low to mid 80%s and comfort/space rates down at 79%. Sydney's metropolitan buses on the other hand rate at 88% to 91% on seating and ride comfort and space! There's that same darned diabolical passenger attitude as on Gold Coast - the average punter just doesn't seem to see trams in the same light as tram enthusiasts!

Tony P

---InTramsDownUnder@..., <tressteleg@...> wrote :

http://www.news.com.au/national/breaking-news/vics-750k-bus-ads-fail-to-grow-fares/news-story/a199cc565b71fe2997dd7d1667166ef8 http://www.news.com.au/national/breaking-news/vics-750k-bus-ads-fail-to-grow-fares/news-story/a199cc565b71fe2997dd7d1667166ef8


Regards,