News & Discussion: Adelaide Metro Buses

[rubberman]

Well cookiemonster10 if you think that, "If You wanted a faster service pay the extra for taxi or chauffeur driven car or the skybus." you would be in agreement with the great majority of South Australians who do pay extra for taxis, skybus, and private car.

If OTOH, you might like to have less congested roads and more people using PT, then perhaps a better cross town service would suffice?

[The Scooter Guy]

In 2007, a Sydney Bus Volvo artic was also fitted with a genuine guide wheel system and tried on the O-Bahn!

[ozisnowman]

Theirs your answer as to why we dont have new OBahn buses yet. The Government
doesnt want to PrePay for the new buses.

[DM8]

Theirs your answer as to why we dont have new OBahn buses yet. The Government
doesnt want to PrePay for the new buses.

nice one!

Why replace the well established and flexible O-Bahn system with an inflexible and significantly more costly rail line

Well established, yes indeed. But it's not much point having a high-speed corridor that's "flexible" with bus routes that are not. Almost all of the bus routes along the full length of the O-Bahn either terminate at Tea Tree Plaza or continue to Golden Grove (obviously why an extension to Golden Grove has been a discussion topic for many years). The other services such as Fairview Park and Surrey Downs routes require passengers to transfer at Tea Tree Plaza - they didn't used to! The flexibility of the system was promoted as a key benefit when the O-Bahn first opened, but as the routes have been changed around over the years, with more services now terminating at Tea Tree Plaza (instead of continuing on to the suburbs or in to the city), the flexibility isn't as obvious any more. Similarly, the services that branch off the O-Bahn at Paradise - N.E. and Lwr N.E. Rd buses, Athelstone, etc.

At present, with the current bus routes, the O-Bahn is more or less being treated in a similar fashion to heavy rail, except the feeder buses are serving other buses instead of trains. With this comes the issue of capacity - hence why we need new artics at the very least. I don't see the government coming up with hundreds of millions to dump a railway line along the torrens (and given the poor quality of soil along the current O-Bahn route, it would be VERY costly!)

[Shuz]

How much would said possibility of a rail line to replace the O-Bahn actually cost? I'm estimating $1billion, but something tells me that's a bit conservative.

[The Scooter Guy]

Here is a slideshow of buses from other states being tried on the O-Bahn!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZLyMQEX ... p%3A%2F%2F

[AtD]

Why not post the actual photos rather than a video with cheesy pans and even cheesier music?

[The Scooter Guy]

Other than artics, they're also trying rigid buses!:lol:
Here's a Scania bus from NSW being tried:
(image courtesy of Eddy Howell)

[Hooligan]

Adelaide will be getting 70 new artics

[Hooligan]

Here's a Scania bus from Victoria being tried:
(image courtesy of Eddy Howell)

That bus was built in Adelaide and is now in NSW, not Victoria.

[The Scooter Guy]

Here's the bus that was from Victoria:

[monotonehell]

Well established, yes indeed. But it's not much point having a high-speed corridor that's "flexible" with bus routes that are not. Almost all of the bus routes along the full length of the O-Bahn either terminate at Tea Tree Plaza or continue to Golden Grove (obviously why an extension to Golden Grove has been a discussion topic for many years). The other services such as Fairview Park and Surrey Downs routes require passengers to transfer at Tea Tree Plaza - they didn't used to! The flexibility of the system was promoted as a key benefit when the O-Bahn first opened, but as the routes have been changed around over the years, with more services now terminating at Tea Tree Plaza (instead of continuing on to the suburbs or in to the city), the flexibility isn't as obvious any more. Similarly, the services that branch off the O-Bahn at Paradise - N.E. and Lwr N.E. Rd buses, Athelstone, etc.

At present, with the current bus routes, the O-Bahn is more or less being treated in a similar fashion to heavy rail, except the feeder buses are serving other buses instead of trains. With this comes the issue of capacity - hence why we need new artics at the very least. I don't see the government coming up with hundreds of millions to dump a railway line along the torrens (and given the poor quality of soil along the current O-Bahn route, it would be VERY costly!)

Not this fallacy again. The OBahn is flexible. You can run it like a train if you want in off peak to save costs, and you can run multiple high frequency services door to door in peak period. With a rail line you can ONLY have feeder services with every one forced to give up their seat and transfer. Rail cost far too much in off peak, which stops you having a decent frequency off peak.

I live on a route where during peak periods I get a door to door service every 7 to 10 minutes between 7am and 9am into the CBD, and then a similar frequency out of the city between 3pm and 6pm. My route only goes as far as Paradise on the track, then services the sprawl.

During peak periods, of the 26 or so routes that use the OBahn, 14 travel the full length. Of those 14 only 2 stop at TTP, the rest go on to serve the sprawl. Of the 26 around 10 leave at Paradise and one leaves at Klemzig.

That a hell of a lot of door to door trips where it matters: during peak periods.

There's NO way a rail service with feeder could service the NE sprawl as well. It's far too close, a forced transfer and wait for a train would negate the time advantage that the OBahn provides. It's been shown that the OBahn has the same capacity as light rail, with a better frequency, lower costs, and the advantages of flexibility and the attractiveness to passengers of a door to door service.

The only negatives with the OBahn are;
*The bottle neck that the Hackney Road approach currently sees (that's more to do with cars than buses). I'm not going to hold my breath but the current study on the OBahn corridor is supposed to cure that.
*The current lack of articulated rolling stock for peak periods and the running of off peak shuttle services (J buses etc) Which again is to be cured with the introduction of more vehicles.
* It's diesel. Which is a polluter.

Rail has its place in a holistic public transport system. As do buses. Unless everyone lives along a kilometre wide strip with a rail track down the middle you need buses to feed rail. 'Heavy' passenger rail should be preserved for long haul trips (the Gawler line for example, but with less stations than there currently is). Buses to feed those distant stations from the sprawl. Light rail for medium and high density areas -- but limited to short runs, otherwise it defeats the purpose as the Glenelg line demonstrates. And where a narrow corridor leads to a large area of close by sprawl, a bus 'shortcut' is a good idea to circumvent the battle down the road. As the NE suburbs, Main and Lower NE roads demonstrates.


The appropriate system for the appropriate uses. Rail is NOT the panacea some will have you believe.

[Shuz]

Not Mono's defense again....

[monotonehell]

Not Mono's defense again....

Defence. You know it makes sense.

[DM8]

My point was that, yes it is flexible. But its flexibility is not being utilised as much as it could/should be.