How do we get more people to use Public Transport in urban/suburban areas?

[octave]

Much depends on where you live and where you are going but for me, a trip into the city by car is much less convenient and much more expensive.   If I want to go into the city tomorrow during the day, this would be the situation.

 

By car -  

 

So it could take 1 hour in perfect conditions put it could also take 1 hour and 40 minutes. If I had an appointment I would have to assume it was going to be 1:40. I would also have to add time to find a car park.

 

By train-

This would require a 10-minute walk to the station or a 2-minute drive with free parking. When I arrive in the city I can hop on a free tram to get anywhere within the city district.

 

The choice seems pretty clear to me.

 

There are of course sometimes reasons to take the car to perhaps pick up larger items.

 

[octave]

Just a minor correction in my screenshots.  The drive time was at 9 AM To compare apples with apples it should be the same time. so here it is

 

[onetrack]

I almost never use PT because it never goes to where I want to go in a reasonable time frame. and without incurring a vast amount of extra distance to travel, overall. Plus, PT is full of deadbeats and scumbags who are more likely to threaten, abuse or rob you, than simply travel harmlessly with you.

About the only time I have used PT is when I'm touring in a strange city, and the road network is foreign to me, or the language is foreign. I have ridden the suburban trains in Madrid and Milan at peak hour, and that's not an experience I'd want to repeat.

Most people on PT simply seem to be resigned a lower and more restricted form of transport. The sheer fact that the transit authorities need to employ huge numbers of security staff, cameras and even police, is not reassuring.

Then there's the poor facilities for those wanting to catch buses and trains. Many platforms offer little shelter from the weather, and many bus stops don't even have seats! - let alone cover from heat and rain.

The PT here is expensive, parking at stations is expensive, you have to be fit and able to be able to move between transport points and shops, and every area associated with trains is usually covered with massive levels of graffiti, thus lending credence to my thoughts that PT is the second home of deadbeats. 

I often wonder why our authorities aren't cracking down harder on criminal graffiti artists. I'd like to see more of the Singapore approach, our authorities are piss-weak on attacking the problem. And it IS a massive problem.

[octave]

7 minutes ago, onetrack said:

Plus, PT is full of deadbeats and scumbags who are more likely to threaten, abuse or rob you, than simply travel harmlessly with you.

 

This seems like an exaggeration unless your train system over there is vastly worse than ours. I can honestly say I or my wife have ever been hassled on the train.  My wife will happily travel at any time of the day on the train.  I am sure occasionally people do have bad experiences but likewise, people have bad experiences with road ragers.   I think sometimes those who seldom or never use public transport probably are not in the best position to judge.

[onetrack]

My stepdaughters partner is a train controller and he often shows us CCTV and train camera clips of the deadbeats they have to constantly deal with on the rail network. It is mind-boggling.

Fighting between groups of gangs in carriages, abusing other passengers, throwing food around - they even have CCTV of people sh***ing on seats!! Every train station stairwell stinks of urine, as these grubs piss everywhere they like.

And the number of idiots who risk their lives daily, jumping in front of trains, crossing lines between platforms, riding ("trainsurfing") on the backs of carriages, and graffitiing everything around stations and trains, is unbelievable.

They have these graffiti artists who sleep all day, and then spend all their time at nights, climbing over multiple razor-wire and even electrified fences to graffiti trains. So many idiots, and so little controls.

 

Edited January 8 by onetrack

[octave]

1 minute ago, onetrack said:

My stepdaughters partner is a train controller and he often shows us CCTV and train camera clips of the deadbeats they have to constantly deal with on the rail network. It is mind-boggling.

Fighting between groups of gangs in carriages, abusing other passengers, throwing food around - they even have CCTV of people sh***ing on seats!! Every train station stairwell stinks of urine, as these grubs piss everywhere they like.

And the number of idiots who risk their lives daily, jumping in front of trains, crossing lines between platforms, riding ("trainsurfing") on the backs of carriages, and graffitiing everything around stations and trains, is unbelievable.

They have these graffiti artists who sleep all day, and then spend all their time at nights, climbing over multiple razor-wire and even electrified fences to graffiti trains. So many idiots, and so little controls.

 

So why am I not seeing this as a regular train traveler? Or am I seeing it but pretending that it is not happening?    I can assure you that I have never had a significant problem. Once or twice there have been overly noisy people but that's life.  If these things are happening regularly and not exaggerated they never appear to happen when I am. traveling.  This is my honest experience.   

 

On a network with millions of trips per day, there will always be some problems just as there are in any city or other public venue.    

 

 

[onetrack]

You're not seeing it because you aren't in the train network control rooms, you don't get to see the camera footage, and you aren't travelling late at night.

[octave]

Just now, onetrack said:

You're not seeing it because you aren't in the train network control rooms, you don't get to see the camera footage, and you aren't travelling late at night.

 

I do travel at night. You are right that it may be a coincidence but it does suggest that if the instances are widespread and numerous, a regular traveler will eventually come across such instances. Doesn't it? Vic Rail transports around 450,000 passengers a day. A train traveling into the city in the morning is full of business people, school kids, pensioners etc. It is not the war zone you imagine, There are bound to be incidents just as there are incidents on city streets and in pubs and at sports events.  I could come across anti-social behavior at any of these locations.    I am just not afraid to travel on public transport.  Even if the events are widespread on very late-night trains (which I have been on) this does not mean that trains are 24/7 war zones, otherwise, why would anyone travel on the,?  

[facthunter]

I've had far more road rage incidents  and seriously deficient driving  incidents. I've never had anything on a train worth reporting.  A couple of kids I wouldn't want to know and someone sleeping a bit of grog off once.. I HAVE heard of incidents on the Indian Pacific and quite a few on Aircraft.. Some Pubs and nightclubs are worse and I would never walk around Melbourne like I did in the 60's-70's.  I recall one night driving in Central Melbourne .I had my drivers window down and someone alongside opened a cold beer and handed it  to me at the next set of lights .How friendly is THAT?  Nev

[octave]

We are in a situation where we have to visit my mother in aged care interstate.  We make at least 4 trips a year so 8 flights plus some more flights for the odd overseas trip.   The news and the internet are full of videos of air rage incidents.  There are probably other incidents that don't get videoed.     I would think in the last 5 years I would have done perhaps 50 flights and not one experience of an unruly passenger.  This does not mean it does not happen. It probably happens somewhere every day but this is not going to stop me from taking the most efficient means of travel for a particular trip.  I haven't been subjected to road rage either although it appears that it happens regularly.  

 

My next train trip, plane flight, or car drive might be the one where I have an unpleasant experience however it needs to be put in perspective.

 

In my post where I gave an example of how I travel into the city, it is pretty clear that is way quicker than the car and also cheaper.  There are other benefits in terms of less wear and tear on the car and stress.  I usually get into the designated quiet carriage pop my earphones in and listen to a podcast.

 

I am usually pretty rational about how I travel.  If I am traveling interstate for up to a week I usually drive to the airport.  Over a week and the long-term parking fee tends to far outway train and Skybus. With an overseas trip, I am more likely to take public transport. A car breakdown on the way to the airport could become very costly in missed flights.

 

I don't care what other choices others make however I don't usually see the people around me and think they are "deadbeats" They are usually people going to work or school or just on a pleasure trip to the city.

 

 

 

[willedoo]

Most of the security risk up here is not so much travelling on the train, but more so in the rail station car parks at night. Most people who get attacked do so in the car parks or trying to walk home from the station at night.

[willedoo]

5 hours ago, red750 said:

Speaking of disabled parking, I saw a Tik Tok video (from USA) of a young girl parking, outside the lines, in a disbled parking spot. A young male driver yelled at her pointing out the disabled sign. She effectively gave him the finger and stormed off. He pulled up, got out with a spray can and painted her car with "Not disabled", "Rich Brat"'  emogis, and other symbols, covering every panel and window. Then he sat back and waited for her to return, when she went ballistic.

Peter, where I live I'd estimate around 90% of the people parking in disabled parking spaces are young and fit. That's going by what I regularly see. A lot of them hop out of the car with their gym gear on, fit as a fiddle. My guess is that some of them are visiting Grandma and have taken her car (and permit) to the supermarket to buy some groceries for her, so feel entitled to use the parking space even though the permit holder is not with them.

[facthunter]

The Stations should be in the Part of the town that goes for 24 hours. In small towns everyone knows who the ruffians are.  IF you carry a knife you get locked up in my books.  Nev

[nomadpete]

2 hours ago, octave said:

So why am I not seeing this as a regular train traveler? Or am I seeing it but pretending that it is not happening?    I can assure you that I have never had a significant problem.

I do not doubt you Octave. But your personal experience is anecdotal. Do you travel on public transport daily? How many trips a year do you do? What time of day?

 

My experience is also anecdotal. I spent decades commuting by train & bus in Brisbane. However I have seldom used it since 2005.

 

In that time I only encountered a handful of frightening experiences. The worst was assault and robbery at 9pm (an unusual late finish for me).

 

The busy peak hour travel was safe as long as you don't mind standing crammed among the masses for 40 minutes.

 

Outside the rush hour was at times a worrying experience. Back in 1995 Brisbane rail was installing cameras in carriages and started putting security personnel on - for good reason.

[octave]

 

12 minutes ago, nomadpete said:

But your personal experience is anecdotal. Do you travel on public transport daily? How many trips a year do you do? What time of day?

 

When we moved to Melbourne I traveled 5 days a week to the music school I taught at in Footscray. I would finish work at 8 PM so some evening travel. Since retirement and moving to Geelong, I usually travel into the city for appointments or sometimes to go to a concert where we travel home late at night. I have been on a train where someone has been overly noisy. and I think perhaps on one occasion we moved to a different carriage.  The thing is though I honestly can't think of an occasion when we felt threatened.  I can understand that some people may be anxious about traveling late at night and that is fair enough although it doesn't bother me.   But there is this suggestion a few posts back that trains are full of deadbeats and this simply is not true. 

 

3 hours ago, onetrack said:

Plus, PT is full of deadbeats and scumbags who are more likely to threaten, abuse or rob you, than simply travel harmlessly with you.

 

 

It is mainly the above statement I disagree with. Traveling during the day the other passengers are not scumbags and deadbeats but business people school kids pensioners etc.  The above statement doesn't even state a time of day.  I think the statement above is wildly exaggerated. I travel on PT perhaps I am a scumbag and deadbeat.

 

Here is a carriage full of deadbeats on scumbags in Perth.

 

 

[spacesailor]

Perhaps that is the difference between ' Commuting '  by p t , 

And off- peak travel. 

My local station has morning & evening " high-speed " train that doesn't stop at All stations .

Including  my station , so I would need a car to get to a station to catch a ' high-speed ' train .

By bus to go from my suburb to the next city. ( Parramatta ( 1 1/2 suburbs away )) it took me 

Through at atleast four suburbs before I got off . 

Long ago those buses had ' place names ' on them , now it's numbers .

spacesailor

[red750]

1 hour ago, willedoo said:

Peter, where I live I'd estimate around 90% of the people parking in disabled parking spaces are young and fit.

You could be right, Willie. I have a disabled permit, but I look like I am fit and healthy. I can walk a few steps to get a shopping trolley to brace myself. I look like I'm drunk although I don't drink. I have chemotherapy induced vertigo, and can fall over at any time. Like the tee shirt I saw the other day - "I don't need to drink or take drugs, I can get that way standing up quickly". I have to get a doctors certificate yearly to renew the permit.

 

That's why I drive to Forest Hill, 4 km away, park on the middle level carpark (refer above). I can park next to the lift,  walk a couple of steps to grab a trolley from the trolley bay, do my exercise walking without any cars to worry me, then go up in the lift which opens near Aldi. I can walk around and do my shopping (with the trolley). Back to the car, load up the shopping and put the trolley in the bay. Back in the car and back home.

[spacesailor]

Yes ! .

If people Are  cheating with the. " disability permit " It is a very large fine , plus the permit is revoked.  I have called security,  a few times ,  who put the offenders licence plate number 

Out on the Intercom,   ( when not displaying their permit .

I am in the " walking wounded category " . But a collapsed disk ,then the hip problem that is almost fixed . Still has me in that " disabling category " . Were I need to get any weight off me ,

Including ' pushing the shopping trolley. 

AND THE LAWNMOWER. 

spacesailor

[red750]

This might be a bit self indulgent, but this map shows some of the things I have referred to above. M3 is Eastern Freeway/Eastlink.

 

[spenaroo]

Oooh,

 

there is a fun exercise.
someone find me a time efficient way to get from Box Hill to Dandenong. in a time comparable to a car?

Edited January 9 by spenaroo

[old man emu]

8 minutes ago, spenaroo said:

find me a time efficient way to get from Box Hill to Dandenong. in a time comparable to a car

[red750]

24 minutes ago, spenaroo said:

someone find me a time efficient way to get from Box Hill to Dandenong

If you can wait until 2050, the Suburban Rail Loop may help.

[facthunter]

Get an Uber. Nev

[octave]

26 minutes ago, spenaroo said:

someone find me a time efficient way to get from Box Hill to Dandenong.

I don't know the answer to that,  but the answer can be quickly and easily found. It may not be an easily doable trip.    For me it is public transport where it is cheaper and more convenient and the car in other cases.

 

https://www.ptv.vic.gov.au/journey/

Edited January 9 by octave

[spenaroo]

So there is a reason I chose those two points,

they are both main train stations on two lines.
both are large "satellite cities" east of the CBD complete with high-rises.
yet no direct connection between them

 

(the bus route was just dots with all the stops)

 

here is a comparison if you drive

Edited January 9 by spenaroo