Ballarat's bus network desperately needs a route and timetable review, experts say, as usage statistics show exactly how and where people are taking buses across the city.
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Average daily estimated boarding is measured monthly, with weekdays, weekends, school holidays, and public holidays measured separately.
While the statistics, from the Department of Transport, do not show individual trips, which direction people are travelling, or how many stops they are travelling for, they are useful for indicating how people use buses to get across town.
Each bus route in Ballarat begins and terminates at the Ballarat train station except for Route 31, which goes from Wendouree to Miners Rest.
The CBD buses loop through Little Bridge Street and Curtis Street as they head in and out of the city.
The numbers reveal the busiest route, by far, is between the Ballarat train station and Buninyong via Federation University, with about 1100 average daily estimated boardings for 2019 weekdays.
However, the numbers also show a number of routes which struggled to break 100 boardings each month - these include Route 13, to Invermay Park, and Route 23, to Mount Pleasant. Route 31 is also lightly used.
The month with the highest number of average daily trips boardings was September 2019, with 5897.
Interestingly, the data shows a difference between routes heading to the same location - for example, more people take the route between Ballarat and Wendouree train stations via Howitt Street, Route 11, than via Forest Street, Route 12.
Similarly, the more direct route to Alfredton, Route 26 which follows Sturt Street past schools, is about three times more popular than Route 10, which heads north along Norman Street to Wendouree station past Lucas.
Bus routes are determined by the state government, in partnership with other stakeholders including bus companies, local government, and experts.
A review of Ballarat's bus networks is expected to begin when the new bus interchange is complete at the Ballarat train station - work on this project began in December.
There are fears the review could take some time, as it's understood regional local buses are at the bottom of the totem pole for new timetables after metropolitan trains, trams, and buses, and regional trains.
The Committee for Ballarat has made improving connectivity in the city a priority, and chief executive Michael Poulton among other things, the data showed more direct routes were needed to get people to where they need to go.
This will drive more usage, which will in turn get more cars off the road to reduce congestion, particularly in Ballarat's booming southwest.
"The concern for me is that the data shows the bus network is not providing for the capacity, or potential, for public transport because people just choose not to use it because it doesn't deliver for them," he said.
"At the moment we've got traffic volumes and congestion going up, and passenger rates going down on our public transport system.
"The critical piece is that the bus routes are delivering people to and from activity centres and residential centres."
He suggested express routes, running alongside buses stopping at each stop, could encourage more people to leave their car at home.
"As an example, the issue with the route out to the university, you just don't do it because it's such an inefficient way to get there," he said.
"If I'm a student with plenty of time on my hands, okay, I can do that, but I know dozens of people who would travel from Buninyong to the station to go to Melbourne, and none of them take the bus because it's a 35 minute trip, but it's 10 minutes in the car.
"The experience for students would certainly be enhanced with an express route out to the university.
"What the data tells us is where those key stops are and where people want to get to, so let's look at a mix of express services to those destinations."
Public Transport Users Association Ballarat convenor Ben Lever concurred - "the routes that run in fairly straight lines, and run to higher frequencies, tend to get much higher passenger numbers than the routes that are more squiggly or run less frequently," he said.
"There is also a bit of a feedback loop, because if a service isn't attracting many passengers, the planners will struggle to justify spending more money on it, which means it will stay low-quality and the passenger numbers will stay low.
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"To break this cycle, we need the government to be proactive in investing in public transport upgrades - as we've seen with the trains, if you build it they will come.
"Measures like joining routes on opposite sides of town together, to make for a less squiggly path through the CBD, and tightening up timetables to cut unnecessary wait times, wouldn't cost extra money - in fact by making the service more efficient they would save money, at the same time as making the service more attractive to passengers.
"These efficiency savings could be reinvested into running services more frequently, making it even more attractive."
City of Ballarat mayor Daniel Moloney said council's Integrated Transport Plan, released in August 2020, recommended an urgent review to connect activity areas, like shopping districts.
"It is important that updated models for routing and timetabling of buses are considered for regional councils like Ballarat, as the network could much better service local needs and local destinations," he said in a statement.
"Ideas for change and service improvement have been put forward by both City of Ballarat and the local branch of the Public Transport Users Association over recent time.
"Whilst integrating bus and train timetables is important in Melbourne , most bus trips in Ballarat are to other local destinations and the current system needs to provide for that majority of trips in a much more convenient way.
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"The City of Ballarat looks forward to continuing to work with the state government on improving public transport services across the municipality and regional areas."
Mr Poulton said a major change was needed in designing bus routes - he said local councils should play a leading role, not agencies in Melbourne, so routes could adapt as cities grow.
"The state government talks so much about place-based planning, and it's right," he said.
"A key part of the connectivity of our city and the fabric of our community (is) taken out of our hands.
"For example, in the centre of Buninyong, they want to move a bus stop essentially 100 metres - that's driven by community demand, and money from the community, saying we want to improve out streetscape.
"(Public Transport Victoria) has sat idle on that for so long.
"It's a demonstration of where place-based decisionmaking is not being carried through."
Responding to detailed questions about the data, a Department of Transport spokesperson said the network's performance is being continually monitored, "to ensure that they keep communities connected, with a focus on delivering services where and when they're needed most."
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"Any changes to Ballarat's bus network will be timed to coincide with the opening of the Ballarat bus interchange, making it easier for people to access the station precinct and change between transport services," they said in a statement.
Early works at the new bus interchange, which will see the removal of bus bays from nearby residential streets and deliver 12 new bus bays for local buses, are now complete, according to a VicTrack spokesperson.
"The contractor appointed to construct the interchange, BMD Constructions, is scheduled to begin major works in the autumn. Works are expected to take around five months to complete."
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