Guest Post: Is the bus faster than the tram from the City to Randwick in the afternoon?

Lachlan Drummond is a past guest contributor to this blog (you can read some of his other posts here and here). He has investigated the current bus network and timetables, comparing them to the new L2 light rail line that opened this past weekend. Below is part two of his findings.

In an earlier post, I compared the L2 line journey times in the AM peak inbound. I found that the L2 line compared unfavourably with most AM peak hour buses, including to Central – although for some journeys (including Chinatown and Town Hall), the L2 was superior.

But that’s only half the story. To complete the picture of whether the L2 will be useful as a commuter service, lets have a look at the journey home to Randwick.

Get ready for a surprise.

The comparison

Like last time, we are comparing the journey time to the same spot. The closest bus stop outbound to the L2 Randwick station is called “Belmore Rd at Avoca St” – look it up on Google Maps. All of these comparisons will compare the L2 light rail travelling to Randwick with buses travelling to this stop.

Firstly, let’s get the obvious one out of the way:

373 vs L2 from Circular Quay

Mode	Circular Quay to Randwick – PM Peak
373/377	29mins
L2	45-51mins

As has been well documented – the full journey from Circular Quay to Randwick is much faster on paper than the 373 bus in the morning – and it remains so for the evening.

This is because the 373 (and its express service, the X73) does a fundamentally different job – its role is to get people in and out of the Elizabeth St corridor north of Hyde Park as quickly as possible.

Realistically, nobody near Circular Quay, Macquarie St, St James, or Museum is ever going to prefer the L2 as a transport mode to the 373 all the way back to Randwick. They’d have to walk back into the city to George St (5-10 minutes) to get a slower journey (by 15 minutes).

This is not going to happen.

This reinforces my strongly held view that the 373 should not become a casualty of the L2 in any subsequent changes to the bus network.

Verdict: If you currently get the 373, you should probably stick with it.

L2 vs M50 from Town Hall

Secondly, lets look at the Town Hall journey.

Remember – in the morning peak, the L2 was about 4 minutes quicker than the M50 – but by getting a 373 to Elizabeth St and walking the remainder, the journey was a tad faster. We nonetheless concluded that the L2 to Town Hall was superior, especially for destinations west of George St, because it dropped you closer to your final destination.

So, does the same thing hold for the PM peak?

Mode	Town Hall to Randwick – PM Peak
M50	35mins
L2	32-34mins

 

In my view, yes. The T2 is still faster from Town hall.

Keep in mind two things:

• The M50 leaves the city via Central and Cleveland St, a notorious spot for traffic jams in the evening – something I’ll talk about in a moment.
• A tram will come every 8 minutes. The 373 and 377 are a tad more regular, but remember – if you walk 6 minutes back to Elizabeth St and then stand around waiting for 5 minutes at a bus stop, your 11 minutes might have been better spent on the tram if it had turned up straight away.

The “373 Town Hall hack” might work going into the city, but the outbound journey less so.

Verdict: The L2 is likely a superior way to get home from Town Hall, or origins west of George St.

L2 vs 372/376/M50 from Central  

And now, for the big one – the trip from Central back to Randwick.

What’s the result?

Drumroll please….

Mode	Central to Randwick – PM Peak
372	28mins (leaving Central at 17:15)
376	25mins (leaving Central at 17:25)
M50	22mins (leaving Central 17:20)
L2	22-24mins (leaving Central Chalmers)

Verdict: The L2 is superior from Central to Randwick.

Why is light rail faster than Central buses in the evening, but not the morning?

Well… here’s the thing. It isn’t faster. It runs the same – 22 minutes or so to Randwick from Chalmers St.

But in the evening peak, the buses take much longer to “get out of the city”. This is due to something I call “The Moore Park problem”.

To illustrate this, here is the AM peak journey into Central from Moore Park, showing how some of the buses beat the L2:

Inbound – AM Peak	Moore Park to Central	Tram Station/Bus Stop
372 – via Anzac Pde & Cleveland St	11mins	Anzac Pde before Cleveland St
374/376 – via Moore Park busway & Foveaux St	6mins	Moore Park busway at Lang Rd
M50 – via Anzac Pde & Cleveland St	9mins	Anzac Pde before Cleveland St, Moore Park
L2 – via Tunnel/Devonshire St	8mins	Moore Park Station

You can see in the morning how the bus that uses the busway and goes down Foveaux St wins… at least according to the timetable.

But by contrast, here is the timetabled outbound journey in PM peak:

Outbound – PM Peak	Central to Moore Park	Tram Station/Bus Stop
372 – Cleveland St	17mins	Anzac Pde, after Lang Rd
374/376 – Albion St	14 Mins	Moore Park busway, after Lang Rd
M50 – Cleveland St	13mins	Anzac Pde, after Lang Rd
L2 – Devonshire St/Tunnel	8mins	Moore Park Station

As you can see- the L2 zooms down the tunnel, while the buses get stuck in traffic. The light rail ends up getting to Lang Rd 5-8 minutes faster… assuming the buses run to timetable. And anyone who gets these buses knows that this can be a heroic assumption.

Why the “Moore Park Problem” slows down the buses

In the afternoon, traffic from three “feeder” roads – Oxford St, Albion St, and Cleveland St – are all trying to make a right turn to get onto the same road – Anzac Pde (or its extension, Flinders St).

It causes a big congestion problem, and as a result – timetabled journey times can double, and on-time reliability goes down.

The 374 and 376 have to go up Albion St (because Foveaux St is one way inbound), and then turn right onto Flinders St for a short section, before reaching the Moore Park busway. This takes 14 mins on the timetable to Lang Rd. Services coming from Oxford St, like the 373, also run into this traffic and get slowed down.

The 372 and M50 fare little better. They get clogged at two notoriously bad intersections –

• Cleveland St and South Dowling St, where there are only two traffic lanes (one of which turns right and backs up the traffic)
• The terrible right turn intersection on Cleveland St at Anzac Pde, where Southbound traffic on Anzac Pde gets the majority of the traffic light priority.

As a result, their journey times blow out too, by over 50% on the timetable. And as anyone who ever catches them knows – their service reliability goes to trash.

The L2 suffers from none of these problems for one simple reason – it never has to make that right turn at Anzac Pde. It runs under Anzac Parade in a tunnel and ends up on the other side. When I rode it on Sunday, it was given traffic light priority all the way, and it took only 8 minutes to “leave the city”. Even if the light rail was delayed by two minutes, it would still beat every other bus (except for the M50 if it ran exactly to time).

To put this in perspective, by the time the L2 makes it to Wansey Rd Station, the 372 has only just turned the corner at Anzac Pde… if the 372 runs to its timetable. And that’s a big if.

While the buses do eventually crawl some of that time back, the tram is so far ahead that only the M50 has a chance of beating the L2 to its terminus… if it doesn’t get stuck on Cleveland St, that is.

The Verdict – In the evening, L2 is faster than the bus from Central and Town Hall

So the verdict is in – if you’re going back to Randwick from Central or Town Hall in the PM Peak – get on the tram.

On the timetable it’s already faster, and when considering the on-time running challenges faced by existing bus services, it could cut your regular journey time significantly.

Or, to use an expression commonly heard at Randwick Racecourse – The L2 wins by a length, followed by the M50, with the 376 and 372 bringing up the rear.

In my third and final post – we’ll look at how the L2 might fix journeys to UNSW and major events at the SCG. Stay tuned.

Guest Post: Is the bus faster than the tram from Randwick to the City in the morning?

Lachlan Drummond is a past guest contributor to this blog (you can read some of his other posts here and here). He has investigated the current bus network and timetables, comparing them to the new L2 light rail line that opened this past weekend. Below is part one of his findings.

So now that the L2 is open and the fireworks are flying in the media, it is a good time to sit down and actually analyse whether the whole thing was worth it.

Here’s a simple question: Is the tram better than the bus? The government and light rail advocates will say yes. If you believe the Daily Telegraph and the Labor opposition – the answer is no.

The best way to make a judgement is to ignore the hype and just look at the timetables. Lets’ break it down, bit by bit, starting with journeys at the AM peak. Some of these answers might surprise you.

The comparison

For these comparisons, I have decided to compare the light rail at the Randwick High St terminus with an equivalent bus service from the nearest bus stop on Belmore Rd Randwick (which for those wondering, is called “Belmore Rd opp Randwick Shopping Centre” on the timetable – it’s near the corner or Arthur St).

We are going to compare the L2’s current speeds as recorded by Bambul (this blog’s regular author) and myself this past weekend with times from equivalent bus timetables that will go into force from the 19^th of December this year.

To factor in possible variations for peak hour, and the fact the tram timetable won’t be finalised for six months, I am going to give a “range” of possible tram speeds.

We will then compare the tram to the bus on three journeys – from Randwick to Central, Randwick to Town Hall, and Randwick to Circular Quay.

L2 vs 373/377 to Circular Quay

First, let’s start with the one that the opposition has been screaming about – the trip to Circular Quay.

Mode	Randwick to Circular Quay – AM Peak
373/377	30mins (to Philip St, Museum of Sydney)
L2	45-51mins

The opposition has been saying that a trip from Penrith to Central on heavy rail takes as long as the current trip from Randwick to Circular Quay. They aren’t wrong. At the moment, the tram takes 51 minutes to travel its full length – although this is expected to fall closer to 45 minutes as service reliability is improved.

Let’s get one thing out of the way – if you need to go to Circular Quay from Randwick – the L2 is not faster. Not even close. By why is this?

Well – it’s simple. The L2 was never intended to replace the 373. The 373 does a very different job – it bypasses Central and goes to Circular Quay via Anzac Parade, Oxford St and Elizabeth St. This makes it 8-15 minutes faster than any bus that goes to Circular Quay via Central.

Some opposition politicians and light rail skeptics point to the 373 timetable and use it as proof that the L2 line was a waste of money, or that light rail is naturally slower than buses.

That isn’t the full story.

L2 vs 374 vs T2/T3 Between Central and Circular Quay

Here’s a question. Are buses quicker than trams on CBD streets?

To judge this, we have to compare apples with apples. And the 373 isn’t an apple, it’s an orange.

Currently, only two buses from Randwick stop at Central before continuing further into the city. One of those is the 374, and the other is the M50.

The 374 doesn’t go down Belmore Rd at Randwick, so to be clear – we aren’t comparing the 374 from Randwick, because it services a different part of Randwick.

But by looking at the 374 timetable, we can compare whether or not buses are faster than trams on a similar CBD corridor – a Northbound journey on surface roads deeper into the city.

The 374 stops on Foveaux St near the corner of Elizabeth St in the morning. It then turns right and goes up Elizabeth St, re-joining the 373 route at Hyde Park, and terminating at Philip St, just one block from Circular Quay. This is somewhat similar to what the L2 does. It arrives at Central, goes down Eddy Avenue, turns right on George St and then heads up to Circular Quay.

So what’s faster?

Mode	Central to Circular Quay – AM Peak	Central to Circular Quay – AM Off Peak
374	23mins (to Philip St, Museum of Sydney)	15mins (to Philip St, Museum of Sydney)
L2	20-25mins	20-25mins
City Circle Line Train	8mins	8mins

 This table illustrates the problem facing buses in the CBD very well.

During the off-peak, when the CBD roads are clearer, the 374 northbound does beat the L2 to Circular Quay (or rather Philip St, which is one block away).

But… during the AM peak, congestion through the CBD (caused partly by too many buses going down Elizabeth St) slows the bus journey between Central and Philip St to 23 minutes – an 8 minute delay.

When you take into account that it’s a few minutes walk from Philip St to Circular Quay, but the L2 goes all the way – the L2 is likely faster from Central than the 374 in peak hour, despite having to cross the city to go up George St.

This is a perfect illustration of what transport planners already know. You can add more bus services in the suburbs, but as soon as they hit the city at once, the city streets can’t handle them all, they get stuck, and the journey times blow out.

L2 vs M50 to Central and Town Hall

Here’s another example. The M50 bus goes first to Central via Cleveland St, then up Elizabeth St to Hyde Park, before it turns left to go across to Town Hall, and finally exiting the city out the other end to Drummoyne. Unlike other bus routes, at Randwick it avoids Cook and Cowper St and turns left from Belmore Rd, going straight down Alison Rd. This does shave a minute or two off the journey to Central.

So does it beat the tram in the morning peak?

AM Peak	Randwick to Central	Central to Town Hall	Randwick to Town Hall
M50	21mins	15mins	36mins
L2	22-24mins	10mins	32-34mins

 To Central? Yes… just.

To Town Hall? The L2 wins.

And that’s right now – before we even see any service speed improvements.

One caveat needs to be made here – in the AM peak the 373 gets to the stop at Elizabeth St Hyde Park from Randwick in roughly 23 minutes, and then a walk across to Town Hall takes about 6 minutes – so the 373 might actually be faster than both of them in the AM peak.

However, lets think about this. Would you be prepared to have a 2 minute slower journey to be dropped right at the doorstep, instead of having to get off a bus and walk for 6 minutes? My guess – a lot of people, especially those with mobility issues – would happily take that deal.

L2 vs 372/376 to Central

And now, for the all important Randwick-Central route.

The 372 goes from Randwick Belmore Rd, via Cowper St, and then up Cleveland St to the City.

The 376 does the same to Moore Park, but then follows the 374 and enters Central via Foveaux St.

How does the tram compare?

Inbound	AM Peak
372 – Central via Cleveland St	22mins
376 – Central via Foveaux St	17mins
L2 – Central via Devonshire St	22-24mins

Poorly.

The 376 beats the 372, the L2, and the aforementioned M50 from Belmore Rd to Central by at least 5 minutes.

The 372 runs five minutes slower than the 376 – which is an indication that Cleveland St is a substantially more congested option to get to Central.

Sadly, the tram, despite going down a dedicated corridor, runs no more quickly than the 372 bus at the moment. If the government wants to truncate the 372 bus at Randwick, and force a mode change, they must demonstrate that this will save commuters time. At the moment, it doesn’t.

In fact, if 372 commuters could pull off an interchange to the 376 bus in under 5 minutes, they’d still beat the tram.

So if the tram is slower on some journeys in the morning, why didn’t they just put on more buses?

Simple – more buses equals CBD traffic jams, and slower journey times.

The tram is not faster on a lot of the journeys on paper. But remember – the L2 tram carries way more people – 450 people on dedicated lanes. A typical Sydney bus can only carry 70 down the street.

To put this in perspective, one L2 tram coming every 8 minutes does the same job as a bus coming every minute. A tram every 4 minutes, which is what will happen when the L3 line opens, does the same job as a bus coming every 30 seconds.

A bus every 30-60 seconds, weaving in and out of lanes, will completely stuff up CBD traffic.

Go back and look at the 374 comparison above for proof. During non-peak times, it takes 15 minutes from Central to Circular Quay. During the 8am peak, when hundreds of buses (from both Randwick and Bondi) and other vehicles are trying to use Elizabeth St at the same time, it blows out to 23 minutes… and that’s assuming it runs on time.

The 376, 374, and 373 buses are clearly fantastic, and in my view we should resist any attempts to privatise or remove them. But they don’t come every minute from Randwick to the city…. and they never could. If you double the amount of half-empty buses using Elizabeth St, you would double the gridlock, and blow out the journey times.

So the idea that you can build a “30 minute city” with buses alone is complete nonsense.

Cities don’t just put in Light Rail because they think the journey times will be faster. Very often they aren’t. But if that’s the only way we measure success, then we are missing half the story.

Trams are not about speed, they’re about higher capacity and reducing congestion.

Cities will put light rail in when they conclude that the city streets are incapable of taking any more buses without causing a great big traffic jam… which is exactly what George St used to be like before 2015.

Summary

So, with that little rant aside, is the L2 worth taking instead of your regular bus service from Randwick?

In some cases, yes.

Here is where we see the tram being superior in the AM Peak:

1. Journeys from Randwick Terminus to Chinatown and Haymarket

No Randwick buses currently go directly to Chinatown, and the Tram will drop you closer than any bus stop, which will be at least a 5-10 minute walk away. The Tram only takes a few minutes to get there from Chalmers St – it’ll be faster and save you the walk.

2. Journeys from Randwick terminus to Town Hall

The L2 beats the M50 to Town Hall by about 5 minutes. A 373 journey to Elizabeth St, plus a walk to Town Hall, will technically beat the Tram by a couple of minutes, but the fact the tram drops you directly at the door is certainly a mode advantage.

3. A journey from Randwick, to somewhere west of George St

The tram is mostly better because it drops you closer. You’ll have a shorter walk from the L2 station to your workplace than getting a 373 to Elizabeth St. One caveat might be the M50, to destinations near Druitt St west of town hall, so check the timetables.

4. A journey from UNSW or Wansey St to Central

I will cover the reasons why in a future post, but in short – if you live closer to the UNSW light rail stop or Wansey St stop than you do to a bus stop on Belmore Rd or Cook St – the L2 will take 18-20 minutes to central and might be slightly quicker than your current bus to Central. Maybe.

And here is where the tram is a disappointment in the AM Peak:

• Journeys from Belmore Rd to Central station are currently no quicker than the bus in the AM peak – in fact some of the buses, especially the 376 – are faster.
• To Circular Quay, the 373 bus reigns supreme.

For the L2 to be fully utilised as an AM peak time service, I believe the L2 line must run quicker to Central in the morning – ideally 20 minutes. It has already been stated in a previous post on this site that traffic light priority needs to improve for this to occur.

Conclusion

So that’s the AM inbound peak… and that’s only half the story.

Are outbound journeys better? Is the PM peak different? And does the L2 do better than the 891 University bus to UNSW?

I’ll give you a hint – the L2 is substantially more useful as an outbound service than an inbound one – including in the PM Peak.

I’ll explain why in a future post.

Why Sydney Light Rail (L2) is slow and how to fix it

VIDEO: Heads up! Play it safe around Sydney’s new light rail (Transport for NSW)

Sydney’s new light rail line, L2 between Randwick and Circular Quay, opened this weekend. The line saw fare free days on both Saturday and Sunday, with 80,000 trips taken on the first day. For comparison, first day patronage figures for other rail lines opened in NSW/ACT during 2019 were 76,000 for Sydney Metro, 17,000 for Canberra Light Rail, and 4,000 for Newcastle Light Rail.

A major complaint about the new line has been the long journey duration, with an end to end trip lasting about 50 minutes. Meanwhile, a direct 373 bus from Randwick to Circular Quay can complete a similar trip from Randwick to Circular Quay in a little over 20 minutes. The Transport Minister, Andrew Constance, has explained that the long journey durations should only be expected in the first 6 months or so and to expect those times to shorten down to the 40 minutes initially promised.

The author of this blog rode the light rail three times: on Saturday from Randwick to Circular Quay, on Sunday from Randwick to Circular Quay, and on Sunday from Circular Quay to Central. Trip times were measured on the two Sunday journeys to gain a better understanding of what is currently contributing to the long durations. The first Sunday trip (from Randwick to Circular Quay) took 51 minutes end to end while the second Sunday trip (between Circular Quay and Central) took 21 minutes. A breakdown of the second Sunday trip is included in the table below, showing that the tram spent 11 minutes in motion (55% of the total trip time), 6 minutes stopped at stations (27%), and 4 minutes stopped due to traffic delays (17%).

The main contributors to long trip durations would appear to be: (1) long dwell times at stations, (2) traffic delays at intersections, (3) flow on effects of slow trams holding back other trams behind them, and (4) low speed limits, particularly on George St.

Dwell times

Trams currently look to be dwelling for 40 seconds at each station to drop off and pick up passengers. Some stations had shorter dwell times (such as Chinatown Station with 24 seconds), but more often than not the time spent at stations was at least 40 seconds. For comparison, Sydney Metro has dwell times of 20 seconds. With 12 intermediate stations between Randwick and Circular Quay, even a 10 second reduction of dwell times down to 30 seconds would represent a time saving of 2 minutes.

Traffic delays

A lack of traffic light priority, where signals change to allow trams to pass through intersections either without having to wait or with short wait periods, does not currently appear to be in place. The documented trip from Circular Quay to Central was delayed by 3 minutes 35 seconds due to traffic delays, primarily having to stop at red lights. Anecdotal evidence suggests this was on the lower end of traffic delays on the line. Introducing traffic light priority just on this section could reduce travel times by over 3 minutes.

Flow on effects

High frequency services heighten the problem of a slow or delayed tram impacting trams behind it. This was particularly the case at Central Station, where this blog’s author noted dwell times of 3 minutes and 5 minutes while the track ahead was cleared by the previous tram. However, there was also a delay of over 1 minute at the QVB Station, during which the tram ahead could be seen to be dwelling at the Town Hall Station. These are no doubt deepened by the dwell time and traffic delay issues mentioned earlier. Fixing those would aid in providing consistency, reducing the instance of flow on effects. Had this been the case, each trip measured would have been at least 4 to 5 minutes shorter.

Speed limits

George St currently imposes speed limits as slow as 10km per hour. This would seem to be attributed to pedestrians having gotten used to a pedestrianised George St and not yet used to trams . A higher speed limit of 30km per hour, still in line with a pedestrianised zone, would reduce trip durations in the critical Central to Circular Quay section of the line. A hypothetical increase in average speeds in this section, for example from 10km per hour to 15km per hour, could result in a time saving of 4 minutes.

Conclusion

Taking the sum of the observations above gives a total time saving of at least 13 minutes. This could achieve the government’s stated goal of reducing the total trip time from 50 minutes to 40 minutes. Therefore, this goal does appear to be a realistic one.