Re: Re: Impact of Sydney Metro project will ‘shock everyone’, NSW Transport Minister Andrew Constance says | Gold Coast Bulletin
  TP

It's a funny world nowadays. In my day, a faster, more frequent commuter
service was considered to be progress; nowadays, to some (but I suspect not
the vast majority) it's apparently not. The metro will cover
Bankstown-Central in 28 minutes, stopping at every one of eleven
intermediate stations. I imagine the initial timetable will be every 4
minutes in peaks and 10 minutes off-peak, with six-car trains with a
capacity of 1,100 including seats for 378. The system has a design capacity
for eight-car trains (1,500 passengers including 504 seats) every two
minutes. So, just in terms of seats (which represent only about 1/3 of
total capacity), the service will initially deliver 5,670 seats per hour
(15 trains) in peaks and 2,268 seats (6 trains) per hour off-peak (bearing
in mind off-peak trains are usually far from full), with a design maximum
capacity of 15,120 seats per hour.

Let's look at the current service and I'll choose the 0730 to 0830 time
slot to assess peak figures and after 0900 to assess off-peak. The
eight-car trains have about 900 seats.

Now, the first thing you have to do is choose where you want to live very
carefully, because not every train serves every station. If you want the
best possible service, you need to live at Bankstown, Sydenham or Redfern.
These suburbs get 9 trains an hour in peak and 6 off-peak, which is 8,100
and 5,400 seats per hour respectively. Your journey takes between 26
minutes (on trains that only stop at four stops) and 35 minutes for trains
that stop at all stops. The catch with the fastest trains is that you have
to wait a bit for them - about 10 minutes in peak and 30 minutes off peak,
which sort of cancels the journey time gain. In addition, if you want to
get off at a station along the line that is bypassed by the semi-expresses,
all calculations go out the window. It's Central or bust.

On the other hand, if you live at Wiley Park, Canterbury or Hurlstone Park,
you're waiting about 15 minutes for a train and then the trip takes 35
minutes - about 3,600 seats per hour. Between those two extremes there's a
random mixture of stations that the faster trains stop at, almost like
somebody blindfolded randomly tossed darts at a map of the SW suburbs, but
Lakemba, Campsie and Marrickville are the most favoured. Journey times and
seats are obviously in a range between the two extremes.

So the outcome is that the discrepancy in seating per hour is not anywhere
as extreme as made out by metro opponents and is more than compensated by a
faster journey, at greater frequency and with the convenience of stopping
at all stations. I think you'll find, as in the NSW, most people will be
more than happy on the basis of these extra benefits.

Tony P

On Tuesday, 12 January 2021 at 12:13:30 UTC+11gnhan...@... wrote:

> I wouldn't be happy if I was a regular Bankstown line user.

>

> Regards Geoffrey

> ------------------------------

> *From:*tramsdo...@... tramsdo...@...> on

> behalf of TP histor...@...>

> *Sent:* Monday, 11 January 2021 10:33 AM

> *To:* TramsDownUnder tramsdo...@...>

> *Subject:* [TramsDownUnder] Re: Impact of Sydney Metro project will

> ‘shock everyone’, NSW Transport Minister Andrew Constance says | Gold Coast

> Bulletin

>

> Two to be exact: faster journey and more trains per hour.

>

> Tony P

>

> On Monday, 11 January 2021 at 17:24:56 UTC+11 Richard Youl wrote:

>

> I’m sure the Bankstown train travellers will be shocked in more ways than

> one!

>

>

>

> https://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/impact-of-sydney-metro-project-will-shock-everyone-minister-says/news-story/5ea44be3c908ab098e3a5a955e520bc3

>

>

> Regards,

>

>

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