News & Discussion: Adelaide Metro Trains

[MT269]

As somebody who doesn't drive, and without a dropoff option, I'd say that it would be inconvenient. Living at Hillbank or somewhere in such a situation would not be favourable. I may be amongst the 0.02% who are in the aforementioned category.

Seriously, it is unrealistic to expect 100% of adults to have a full licence.

Anyhow, this is equivalent to banging a head againat a brick wall. The DIT cannot hear these remarks, and they couldn't give a stuff about what a minority has to say. Most of the time with my suggestions to them, I get either rude arrogant responses, or none at all.

[claybro]

Re the above, unfortunately not everyone drives. Try living 1.5kms in between those stations, whilst being 400-600 metres east/west of the track with minimal if any bus options. Until this void is filled, then the stations should remain where they are for now.

Try living 1.5km from a train station, is that supposed to be bad?
It will be something like 1% of all people of Adelaide live within 1.5km of a train station.
Almost everyone either drives or uses buses.
Salisbury Highway and Churchill Road have buses.

How can we need a station such as Greenfields for a minority of people but at the same time not need one to service the majority that live even further away.

The problem in Adelaide has always been that it is trying to run a COMMUTER train system like a METRO system. They are 2 different things. It does not have the coverage for a metro system, or the volume for a commuter system so they need to stop pretending it is either, or 99% of commuters will always have a substandard service. Like others have said, concentrate on the existing infrastructure, build it up, speed it up and feed into it. Once it has a critical mass of use-start expanding it with a cross CBD tunnel, and perhaps linking some lines as infill occurs. In the interim, we just need to get people on to it, and the best way to do that, is make the larger stations more user friendly/safe and accessible including interchange buses, and remove SOME of the low patronsied inaccessible stations.

[PeFe]

You are missing the point. That's why you are repeating yourself. The point is that whether or not any line remains heavy rail depends on it having stations spaced far enough apart that heavy rail's speed makes it the optimum mode. I was responding to a suggestion that as time went on, more stations would be added. If that happens, station spacings reduce...and along with it the reason for the line being heavy rail. As it stands, the Gawler line should be heavy rail. However, the more stations in place, the slower it runs. That's the point you are not addressing.

I still dont understand your argument.....so if you add stations to a popular heavy rail corridor and the station spacing falls below a certain distance then you should change modes (to light rail or brt by your logic) What a load of rubbish! Perhaps you write to the RATP and tell them that because the stations are really too close together the Paris Metro should be light rail ?!

The Gawler line could be sped up right now by.....closing North Adelaide (retaining the heritage building) and closing permanently Greenfields, Nurlutta, Womma and Gawler Oval. There you go instant quicker journeys and less stations to upgrade.

Sure in the future there may be some new stations on the Gawler line between Kula and Tambelin and then you increase train frequency accordingly.

The suburban Paris RER system can manage 1-2 minutes headways during peak hours on their 100 metre long trains heading to the banlieue.

[bits]

The Gawler line could be sped up right now by.....closing North Adelaide (retaining the heritage building) and closing permanently Greenfields, Nurlutta, Womma and Gawler Oval. There you go instant quicker journeys and less stations to upgrade.

It is hard to find stations on the Gawler line that are not in a terrible location servicing the smallest amount of users possible.

Nearly every station only has people coming from one side of the line. With the other side blocked by some huge land owner that doesn't even permit their own staff to access the train from their land.
Which to me makes it look like nearly all stations are 50% useless.

It is always a station tucked in a back street of nowhere with a slither of houses/businesses squeezed between the train line and a major road full of buses. The other side of that main road is sprawling suburbs of far more housing that are now all 5kms from a train station.


The train line appears to have historically repelled houses and businesses away.

[SRW]

concentrate on the existing infrastructure, build it up, speed it up and feed into it. Once it has a critical mass of use-start expanding it with a cross CBD tunnel, and perhaps linking some lines as infill occurs. In the interim, we just need to get people on to it, and the best way to do that, is make the larger stations more user friendly/safe and accessible including interchange buses, and remove SOME of the low patronsied inaccessible stations.

I agree that we should make interim investments, but I really think the system won't achieve 'critical mass' to justify substantial station upgrades until there's a city tunnel that makes the rail journey more relevant and more frequent for commuters than a peripheral terminus.

[rubberman]

You are missing the point. That's why you are repeating yourself. The point is that whether or not any line remains heavy rail depends on it having stations spaced far enough apart that heavy rail's speed makes it the optimum mode. I was responding to a suggestion that as time went on, more stations would be added. If that happens, station spacings reduce...and along with it the reason for the line being heavy rail. As it stands, the Gawler line should be heavy rail. However, the more stations in place, the slower it runs. That's the point you are not addressing.

I still dont understand your argument.....so if you add stations to a popular heavy rail corridor and the station spacing falls below a certain distance then you should change modes (to light rail or brt by your logic) What a load of rubbish! Perhaps you write to the RATP and tell them that because the stations are really too close together the Paris Metro should be light rail ?!

The Gawler line could be sped up right now by.....closing North Adelaide (retaining the heritage building) and closing permanently Greenfields, Nurlutta, Womma and Gawler Oval. There you go instant quicker journeys and less stations to upgrade.

Sure in the future there may be some new stations on the Gawler line between Kula and Tambelin and then you increase train frequency accordingly.

The suburban Paris RER system can manage 1-2 minutes headways during peak hours on their 100 metre long trains heading to the banlieue.

Hmm. You say my reasoning is rubbish, and then proceed to do exactly as I suggest by getting rid of stations to effectively increase average speeds. Mkay.

Next, by all means, let's look at Paris. Now, those metro trains have lower top speeds, but higher acceleration than our trains. But we could do that. It'd slow the journey down though. Then, of course, the Paris Metro has huge loads: 4m passengers a day. Adelaide takes 3 months to do that. We couldn't justify the same size or numbers of carriages because of that. So, we could, if you think the Paris Metro is a good model, run vehicles with similar acceleration profiles, but smaller size to serve lots of stations. It'd be a tramway in reality, of course, if you do that.

[1NEEDS2POST]

Since Paris metro was brought up, practically all foreign metros accelerate faster than Adelaide metro trains. Our 4000 class EMUs have 1.6 MW of power on tap, do the drivers ever use it to accelerate out of stations? A small three carriage train should accelerate much faster than they do. It would be interesting to know if drivers are told not to use full throttle or if there is a limit in the software.

The Gawler line could be sped up right now by.....closing North Adelaide (retaining the heritage building) and closing permanently Greenfields, Nurlutta, Womma and Gawler Oval. There you go instant quicker journeys and less stations to upgrade.

It is hard to find stations on the Gawler line that are not in a terrible location servicing the smallest amount of users possible.

Nearly every station only has people coming from one side of the line. With the other side blocked by some huge land owner that doesn't even permit their own staff to access the train from their land.
Which to me makes it look like nearly all stations are 50% useless.

It is always a station tucked in a back street of nowhere with a slither of houses/businesses squeezed between the train line and a major road full of buses. The other side of that main road is sprawling suburbs of far more housing that are now all 5kms from a train station.


The train line appears to have historically repelled houses and businesses away.

Every station should have four entrances. Building new pedestrian infrastructure, even grade-separating pedestrian infrastructure, is orders of magnitude cheaper than rail infrastructure.

[rubberman]

Since Paris metro was brought up, practically all foreign metros accelerate faster than Adelaide metro trains. Our 4000 class EMUs have 1.6 MW of power on tap, do the drivers ever use it to accelerate out of stations? A small three carriage train should accelerate much faster than they do. It would be interesting to know if drivers are told not to use full throttle or if there is a limit in the software.

The Gawler line could be sped up right now by.....closing North Adelaide (retaining the heritage building) and closing permanently Greenfields, Nurlutta, Womma and Gawler Oval. There you go instant quicker journeys and less stations to upgrade.

It is hard to find stations on the Gawler line that are not in a terrible location servicing the smallest amount of users possible.

Nearly every station only has people coming from one side of the line. With the other side blocked by some huge land owner that doesn't even permit their own staff to access the train from their land.
Which to me makes it look like nearly all stations are 50% useless.

It is always a station tucked in a back street of nowhere with a slither of houses/businesses squeezed between the train line and a major road full of buses. The other side of that main road is sprawling suburbs of far more housing that are now all 5kms from a train station.


The train line appears to have historically repelled houses and businesses away.

Every station should have four entrances. Building new pedestrian infrastructure, even grade-separating pedestrian infrastructure, is orders of magnitude cheaper than rail infrastructure.

Most metro systems have relatively closer stations compared to heavy rail such as Gawler for example. So the metros hurtle out of their stations and top out at about 80kph. Heavy rail otoh might get to over 120kph, but need a lot more time to wind up. That's why heavy rail needs long distances between stations to be effective.

Nonetheless, it does seem that both electric trains and trams in SA are operated rather slowly in SA.

[UEX]

Here's what I think is a rather great example of station rationalisation making a lot of sense.

This map shows a 10 min walking radius catchment for the current Marion and Ascot Park Stations (at average walking speed). You can also see how neither station allows for easy transfers with the substantial number of bus routes traversing Marion & Daws Roads.

And this map shows a new interchange station above Marion Road, replacing the two existing stations. As the new station would have a higher frequency than either of the two existing stations, both a 10 min and 15 min walking radius is included - that's because generally people will walk further for a faster and more frequent service. The new station also allows for seamless transfers from all buses traversing Marion & Daws Roads.

And that's even before we consider the resulting travel time saving of 2 minutes, and the large additional catchment delivered by intersecting bus routes (not shown on this map).

[Llessur2002]

Speed and frequency aren't the only factors which will determine whether someone will be convinced to ditch their car for public transport - I think one factor that's always quite overlooked in this context is the summer heat which is only likely to get worse. Even if PT can get you to your destination faster and cheaper than driving, a 10-15 minute walk to the station in the middle of summer is still likely to tip many people towards using their private vehicle for the trip instead.

I think this adds some weight to the argument for closer spaced stations to minimise the amount of time spent walking in the sun - regardless of whether heavy or light rail would serve that use the best. Time spent waiting for a service is a bit of a red herring - I know exactly how long it takes me to walk to my local station and with a quick check of Google Maps before I leave the house I normally get to the platform within one minute of the train arriving.

Most PT users are commuters who follow the same route at the same time each day - I can't see that small increases to frequency or shaving 5 minutes off the journey time are as big a factor as some might suggest. I would argue that station proximity, reliability, affordability and comfort are more likely to attract patronage. Station proximity covers both ends of the journey - having a single point for termination of rail services at the very northern end of the CBD must put off so many CBD-based commuters. A 10-15 minute summer walk through (hopefully) tree-lined suburbs in the morning is one thing, a sweaty 10-15 minute walk through the heat-soaked bitumen CBD streets at 5pm is another.

I suspect that adding a city rail tunnel would immediately boost patronage purely from the ability to add additional CBD stations.

[[Shuz]]

What software did you use to produce those maps UEX?

[rubberman]

Speed and frequency aren't the only factors which will determine whether someone will be convinced to ditch their car for public transport - I think one factor that's always quite overlooked in this context is the summer heat which is only likely to get worse. Even if PT can get you to your destination faster and cheaper than driving, a 10-15 minute walk to the station in the middle of summer is still likely to tip many people towards using their private vehicle for the trip instead.

I think this adds some weight to the argument for closer spaced stations to minimise the amount of time spent walking in the sun - regardless of whether heavy or light rail would serve that use the best. Time spent waiting for a service is a bit of a red herring - I know exactly how long it takes me to walk to my local station and with a quick check of Google Maps before I leave the house I normally get to the platform within one minute of the train arriving.

Most PT users are commuters who follow the same route at the same time each day - I can't see that small increases to frequency or shaving 5 minutes off the journey time are as big a factor as some might suggest. I would argue that station proximity, reliability, affordability and comfort are more likely to attract patronage. Station proximity covers both ends of the journey - having a single point for termination of rail services at the very northern end of the CBD must put off so many CBD-based commuters. A 10-15 minute summer walk through (hopefully) tree-lined suburbs in the morning is one thing, a sweaty 10-15 minute walk through the heat-soaked bitumen CBD streets at 5pm is another.

I suspect that adding a city rail tunnel would immediately boost patronage purely from the ability to add additional CBD stations.

This is rightly the sort of conversation to have up front. Decide what sort of service is needed by stop spacing, service speed, acceptability of transfers etc etc, THEN based on that detemine the mode. What you are describing seems to lean towards light rail rather than heavy rail. If so, so be it. I personally advocate traditional heavy rail because Adelaide is so spread out, and it's really only heavy rail with stations at longer distances that have any hope of delivering fairness to people in outer suburbs trying to reach the CBD. Closer spaced stations in the inner suburbs disadvantage people in the outer suburbs. Especially when people in the inner suburbs mostly have other options such as buses that get them to town quicker than people from outer suburbs.

[UEX]

Speed and frequency aren't the only factors which will determine whether someone will be convinced to ditch their car for public transport - I think one factor that's always quite overlooked in this context is the summer heat which is only likely to get worse. Even if PT can get you to your destination faster and cheaper than driving, a 10-15 minute walk to the station in the middle of summer is still likely to tip many people towards using their private vehicle for the trip instead.

Frequency, speed and access are the three main contributors to ridership.

Where weather doesn't permit or you're either unable or don't want to walk 10-15min, that's where busses come into play.

Local shuttles acting as feeders to stations at decent frequencies fill this gap, alongside existing bus routes realigned to focus more on getting people to key nodes (i.e. high frequency stations) allowing for seamless interchanges. Not too far down the track, such local shuttles will be able to be operated by Autonomous Vehicles.
And of course, if you have a car, you have yet another option - park and rides.

Travel and total journey time are absolutely crucial to getting mode shift. Less but better stations with better access to more people means faster journeys, higher frequency for every station and more efficient operations.

This is all about offering a better service proposition to the maximum number of people possible - not handfuls of people who currently live across the road from a station. We must stop treating train lines as 'mega bus routes', it's simply not what they're designed to do, and makes for wasteful, inefficient operations on a per person basis and a far less attractive option for those you need to attract for growth.

What software did you use to produce those maps UEX?

It's pretty handy, right? Here's the link: https://app.traveltime.com/search

[Llessur2002]

Travel and total journey time are absolutely crucial to getting mode shift. Less but better stations with better access to more people means faster journeys, higher frequency for every station and more efficient operations.

I can only speak from my experience but if someone closed my local station that's a 5 minute walk away and replaced it with a 'better' station with higher frequency trains 15 minutes walk away I'd be significantly less likely to use it - especially if it was hot or raining or if I had stuff/children to carry. I'm pretty sure I'm not alone on that front. I love PT but I really don't enjoy getting on a rattly bus to sit in traffic and pull over every 45 seconds. I know I'm far from alone there.

In the above scenario I would therefore probably use my car more often.

The question would be whether changing to a more dispersed station network would attract more people who value frequency, station amenity and sub-10 minute on-board time savings than those it would lose because they prefer hop on, hop off convenience. With the CBD's low parking costs and the relatively low peak hour driving times I'm not convinced it would. Just my two cents though.

The equation may shift slightly if the CBD had more stations or more expensive parking but until then there's almost certainly a $15 Wilson closer to most offices in the CBD than the station is.

That said, the dynamics would shift depending on the line. I live on the Outer Harbor line - there's never going to be a critical mass of people living at the far end of the line to warrant prioritising a high speed service over maximising the patronage catchments in the middle and inner suburbs through easy access to local stations. In that respect it would probably be much better serviced by light rail with additional branches to West Lakes, Semaphore etc. The Seaford and Gawler lines with propsect for significant developments at the outer ends of the lines would be a different story.

[bits]

I can only speak from my experience but if someone closed my local station that's a 5 minute walk away and replaced it with a 'better' station with higher frequency trains 15 minutes walk away I'd be significantly less likely to use it - especially if it was hot or raining or if I had stuff/children to carry. I'm pretty sure I'm not alone on that front. I love PT but I really don't enjoy getting on a rattly bus to sit in traffic and pull over every 45 seconds. I know I'm far from alone there.

The few locals lost will be far outweighed by the huge population that currently have poor access.

There is no sound argument that says the tiny amount of Adelaide that are close to a train station need to keep their train station while the massively larger portion of the population that is not close have no need to be close to one.

There is not a slight difference of people that are close vs not close. The difference in size of these 2 groups of people is absurdly large.

The o-bahn is by far the most successful PT in Adelaide so there is no hesitation for mass take up of a bus service with very high frequency and close to destination stops.