News & Discussion: Adelaide Metro Buses

[claybro]

Rail is cheaper, lighter and relatively easy to re ballast. Re stumping those concrete sections and properly resurfacing the concrete guide tracks is not going to be a quick or easy task. The speed of the Obahn has already been significantly reduced from its original design speed, and will be slowed further in the near future. Safety aside, the ride is becoming uncomfortable. The original designers from what I have read are pretty chuffed it has lasted this long.. which makes me wonder why we purchased a system with a 30 year design lifespan. Not good value for money long term.

[SBD]

Rail is cheaper, lighter and relatively easy to re ballast. Re stumping those concrete sections and properly resurfacing the concrete guide tracks is not going to be a quick or easy task. The speed of the Obahn has already been significantly reduced from its original design speed, and will be slowed further in the near future. Safety aside, the ride is becoming uncomfortable. The original designers from what I have read are pretty chuffed it has lasted this long.. which makes me wonder why we purchased a system with a 30 year design lifespan. Not good value for money long term.

Does it need significant restumping? I had expected that it is only the upper part of the track that needs renewal, but I haven't travelled it recently to notice if there are bumps from stumps that have settled or out of alignment.

I thought the design life of structural concrete is usually much more than 30 years, but realise the first Blanchetown Bridge was only used for a little over 30 years. The Swanport Bridge is 40 years old, the Kingston on Murray Bridge is 50 years old. They are both predominantly concrete. We may have some other big projects coming up if they are going to fail soon too. How long do we expect to be able to safely use the South Road Superway?

[claybro]

More to do with how the concrete is used. The Obahn relies on precision alignment of the track vertical and horizontal so as not to throw the vehicles around too much. Buses are as ridged as railcars, they bounce around. There is also significant force on the curves which does not exist on a normal concrete structure. Use is highly concentrated on specific points and the load is not evenly spread.. thus the issue when the busses changed from the old Mercs to the new type with slightly different wheelbase. The same problems happen on rail naturally, but steel is stronger than concrete, and easier to grind, resurface or replace.

[ChillyPhilly]

More to do with how the concrete is used. The Obahn relies on precision alignment of the track vertical and horizontal so as not to throw the vehicles around too much. Buses are as ridged as railcars, they bounce around. There is also significant force on the curves which does not exist on a normal concrete structure. Use is highly concentrated on specific points and the load is not evenly spread.. thus the issue when the busses changed from the old Mercs to the new type with slightly different wheelbase. The same problems happen on rail naturally, but steel is stronger than concrete, and easier to grind, resurface or replace.

Steel, like bitumen, responds better to weather as well. Concrete does not.

[1NEEDS2POST]

More bus-train interchanges would be ideal. On the Gawler Line for example, an interchange at Islington could absorb a majority of citybound passengers on Churchill Road and Main North Road buses. Passengers continue into town via more epace-efficient trains, while that now-empty bus goes back out and retraces the route it just took. There can and will still be buses that continue into town, but the overall number will be less.

Passengers still get into town but there's less buses clogging city streets, plus those buses can then be redeployed on their local routes (a much nicer alternative to cutting them...) so bus frequency can increase on high-demand routes in peak times.

I don't see how expanding the bus network and completely disregarding the train and tram networks will make transport better. Buses are good, but they should absolutely not be the backbone of our public transport system.

The thing is, Adelaide's road network is laid out like a grid. Many main roads come near railway stations. If these bus routes were redirected to train stations, many routes could be made straight lines that pass through the station. This will make bus journeys faster, since they're not turning and the routes open up the possibility of travelling between suburbs without going through the city.

The biggest benefit of not sending all the buses into the city is that each bus route will be faster to complete. A faster route means the same bus can cover the route at a higher frequency, which means less wait times and easier connections to the trains.

[Aidan]

1NEEDS2POST and Spotto, there are a few problems with the above:
•Islington is a major detour from Main North Road. By the time a bus would get there, it could have travelled a third of the way to the City already. When the time waiting for the train and traveling on it is included, the bus wins easily.
• Buses serve the CBD very well, whereas trains currently only have a single stop which is right on its edge.
• Adelaide doesn't have the invasion and succession pattern of inner suburban development that many cities do, possibly as a result or our Parklands. Despite a few ongoing developments such as World Park, few people have a destination in the inner suburbs, whereas many have a destination in the City.

Even when our inner suburbs have more comercial development and we've built some tunnels to enable the trains to serve the City better, bus routes that come close to the City but not into it will be rare; where a route turns to serve the periphery instead of running straight into the City, there's still the question of where to go afterwards, and in most cases the City will still be the best answer. We will, though, see fewer bus routes terminating in the City.

[adelaide transport]

The Transport Minister keeps talking about more buses feeding into train stations or terminating there-yet 75% of Adelaide has no train service-how does he expect this to work?
A challenge for whichever providers win the new contracts starting in July 2020?

[claybro]

The Transport Minister keeps talking about more buses feeding into train stations or terminating there-yet 75% of Adelaide has no train service-how does he expect this to work?
A challenge for whichever providers win the new contracts starting in July 2020?

Depends on your definition of acces to a train service? Once buses are feeding into train stations, 75% of Adelaide will most definitely have access to a train station. It should not prove anymore of a challenge than every other city that feeds bus services into main train hubs.Only in Adelaide it seems this has been some sort of weird concept. Hopefully it will lead to major upgrades to the stations being fed into, and increased train frequencies.

[SRW]

As has been said frequently on this forum, the real gamechanger for our public transport system will be through-running of trains in the city that drops people off at more useful stops at more useful frequencies. Until then, we're polishing a turd.

[adelaide transport]

Transport Minister Stephan Knoll has announced this afternoon that he has signed a joint contract with Scania and Precision Buses(Bustech) to supply 340 new buses over the next 10 years(replacing existing buses as they become due for retirement). This contract will create 50 new jobs at Precision Buses.
It will include Adelaide's first Diesel Hybrid electric bus to be delivered in 2020.

[ginzahikari]

Just find that altered livery interesting..

Source: Kate Lambe @ Twitter

[Norman]

Just find that altered livery interesting..

Source: Kate Lambe @ Twitter

That's been in place for the new buses for years now.

[SRW]

Just find that altered livery interesting..

Source: Kate Lambe @ Twitter

That's been in place for the new buses for years now.

They mean the image in the bus window. Looks alright, but the side logo isn't necessary.

[SBD]

Just find that altered livery interesting..

Source: Kate Lambe @ Twitter

That's been in place for the new buses for years now.

They mean the image in the bus window. Looks alright, but the side logo isn't necessary.

The side logo might be a provision for paid advertising - nobody paid to be in this ad, so the logo is the Adelaide Metro, not any external advertiser.

[Nathan]

So how many similar, but pointlessly different, liveries are we up to across buses, trams and trains? It's a fucking dogs breakfast.