fabricator wrote:The point is long bus routes generally have problems with on time running.
But that's only one point. Another point that's even more important than that one is that long bus routes can attract a lot more passengers.
"The 600-601 bus for example which is an east west route, Blackwood station to Tonsley via Flinders Uni and Hospital. Slow enough but then continues to Oaklands (Noarlunga train), Glenelg (tram) and then all the way to West Beach."
If you ranked all the stops on the route according to how many passengers got on or off, I doubt Tonsley would be in the top twenty. Marion Shopping Centre is where most of the passengers go.
I think that Blackwood to Tonsley and on to Oaklands would be enough, and include the Flinders Uni and Hospital as well. This means it can be increased in frequency without needing multiple additional buses.
To justify increasing the frequency, it helps to have strong demand. Cutting it as you suggest would mean people along that route would lose their direct access to places such as Glenelg, Harbour Town and West Beach - and people from those places would lose direct access to Marion, Flinders and Blackwood - so it would attract fewer passengers.
The J1 bus is another example, Glenelg to Elizabeth via Adelaide Airport, Adelaide, Obahn, Modbury, Golden Grove. A complete mess and never runs of time, nor meets with the train at Elizabeth.
Long routes are indeed often bad for scheduled connections. IMO the best solution is to increase the frequency so that unscheduled connections can be made.
As for the reliability issue, I think a big part of the problem is that it stops at every stop west of the City. If it were limited stop between the airport and the City, running times would be far more predictable.
If it were simply a transit link from Elizabeth to Modbury via Golden Grove, they would not need to use an articulated or O-Bahn bus nor have such useless infrequent running.
If they
need to use an articulated bus then do they really need to have
such useless infrequent running??
The J1a which terminates at Golden Grove which makes the other 50% of the buses run, can also be done away with. Run a separate bus for the airport bus, which terminates at Golden Grove as the J1a does now.
???
In one sentence you suggest doing away with it, then in the next sentence you suggest running it!
There is quite a lot of passenger traffic between Modbury and Golden Grove anyway, usually things like the C1x etc which have the same express route.
How do passenger loadings between Modbury and Golden Grove compare with those on the O-bahn itself?