Brisbane Transport

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Brisbane Transport

Operator Overview
Service Region	Brisbane
Hub/s	Queen Street, Carindale, Chermside, Garden City, and Indooroopilly
Depot/s	Bowen Hills, Carina, Garden City, Richlands Toowong and Virginia
TransLink zone/s	1-5
Total number of bus routes	Around 200
Route Number allocation	101-239, 300-314, 316-462, 464-479, 598, 599, N100-N226, N330-N464
Train transfer	Yes, at various places around Brisbane
10 Trip Tickets	Yes
NightLink/Late night Service	Yes*, most N-prefixed routes
Wheelchair Access	Yes, most services

Brisbane Transport is a division of the Brisbane City Council. It operates suburban, and urban bus services in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, under the TransLink integrated public transport scheme. Metrolink Queensland operates ferry services, including CityCat catarmarans, and Cityferry on the Brisbane River on behalf of Brisbane Transport since 1996. (Although Brisbane's CityTrains are not managed by the Brisbane City Council, they also use the TransLink integrated public transport scheme.)

1 Fleet
2 History
3 Post-Corporatisation developments
4 Bus Depots
- 4.1 Former Depots operated by the BCC Transport Department or Brisbane Transport
5 Current Operational Arrangements
- 5.1 Route Numbering
- 5.2 Services
6 References
7 External links

[edit] Fleet

Brisbane Transport is a business unit owned by the Brisbane City Council. Many of its services use the South-East Busway and the Inner-Northern Busway, which are grade separated from other roads and are served by large stations. The fleet is being steadily replaced with low-floor natural gas buses such as 217 Scania L94UB models, with 180 new MAN 18.310 low-floor gas buses to come, with a further option for 120. It currently operates just over 800 buses and provided 53.1 million passenger trips in the 2004/2005 financial year, reportedly the highest since 1974.

For more information regarding Brisbane Transport's bus fleet, visit Brisbane Transport on the Internet.

Brisbane Bus, CityCat and Cityferry information For a list of routes and timetables, see:

[edit] History

Double deck horse tram at the northern end of the first permanent Victoria Bridge, Brisbane Australia c. 1890

Brisbane Transport's origins can be traced back to the Metropolitan Tramways and Investment Company, which established a small horse tramway under franchise from the Queensland government in Brisbane in August 1885. This company was purchased by the Brisbane Tramways Company, which electrified and expanded the tram system from 1897. Brisbane's tram system remained in private hands until 1922, at which time the Queensland government established the Brisbane Tramways Trust, which compulsorily acquired the tram network and supporting infrastructure. In 1925 the state government created the Brisbane City Council and transferred responsibility for the tram network from the trust to the council.

The Brisbane Tramways Trust experimented with providing bus services in the 1920s but these proved impractical due to mechanical unreliability and very poor road surface quality throughout Brisbane. The first permanent bus services were introduced in 1940 as a supplement to Brisbane's excellent and frequent tram services.

For further information on Brisbane's tram system, see Trams in Brisbane.

On the left is bus No722, a Leyland Panther, introduced in 1968; on the right is bus No80 an AEC Mk III Regal, introduced in 1948

In 1948 the City Council "municipalised" a number of privately run bus operators and expanded its own fleet of buses.

The first tram lines to close were the Lower Edward Street - Gardens route and the Upper Edward Street - Gregory Terrace route in 1947 the latter due to the very steep grades on that line. Initially diesel engined buses replaced tram services on these lines, however these were replaced by Trolleybuses on 12 August 1951.

The City Council had also intended to introduce a trolley-bus service to the new University of Queensland campus at St Lucia and purchased enough trolley-bus chasses from the United Kingdom for the Gardens route and this project. However, it was vigorously opposed by residents and the St Lucia plan was abandoned. The City Council found itself with surplus trolley-buses but no route on which to run them. The Council decided to run the trolley-buses from Herston to Stanley Bridge, East Brisbane, with this service commencing in 1952.

Several other trolley-bus routes were subsequently established in the eastern suburbs. The first of these replaced a tram route, along Cavendish Road, in 1955. Other trolley-bus routes to Seven Hills and Carina did not involve tram route closures.

Trolley-bus routes in 1961

A Brisbane City Council trolley-bus in Edward Street shortly after the service commenced in 1951

Trolley-buses ran on the following routes:

24 - Prospect Terrace (Herston) to Stanley Bridge (East Brisbane)
23 - Botanic Gardens to Gregory Terrace (Spring Hill)
8A - City to Seven Hills
25 - City to Cavendish Road (Holland Park East)
8C - City to Carina

The Trolley-bus depot and workshops were located on Milton Road, Milton, between Hale and Castlemaine Streets. The former depot was demolished to make way for the redeveloped Suncorp Stadium.

The tramway closure was notable for the speed with which it was carried out. Several hundred replacement buses were purchased from British vehicle manufacturer Leyland, at the time the largest single bus purchase in the world. The sudden acquisition of so many buses was to have repercussions in later years. Initially the Leyland Panther buses proved unreliable and as a result older, front-engined mounted buses, such as the Leyland Mk III Regals dating from the 1940s were retained well past their normal replacement date. Once the problems with the Panthers were ironed out, overall fleet numbers and maintenance requirements were reduced. Nevertheless the fleet retained many older buses from the 1950s and early 1960s.

In 1975 the Australian Federal Government led by Gough Whitlam made $80 million available to the Queensland state government which was intended to be passed to the Brisbane City Council for the purchase of replacement buses. The Queensland Government refused to transfer the funds to the City Council and instead used the money to construct the Parliamentary Annexe Building and to restore Parliament House.

As the replacement bus fleet aged, their maintenance requirements steadily increased, at a time when labour and spare parts costs had risen sharply. Further, as the tram replacement buses started to wear out at about the same time and needed replacement, the council was faced with another large capital outlay. Subsequently in 1976 the City Council was able to negotiate some federal funding, enabling them to purchase Volvo B-59M buses, the first fleet acquisistions in seven years.

Patronage on the buses continued to decline, despite the best efforts of the Transport Department, hampered by rising fuel and labour costs, together with tightening budgets which led to further cuts in services. An ageing bus fleet, some of which had been in service since the 1940s, made the service increasingly unattractive.

A further hindrance was the City Council's own aggressively pro-car 1964 city plan, which required all developments to include car parking, but did not require the provision of any facilities that might advantage public transport.

By the 1980s bus patronage had dropped to approximately 40,000,000 passenger journeys per annum.

However, this was not to say that the City Council completely failed to invest in public transport. New depots were constructed at Carina and Toowong. Modern workshops were also constructed at Toowong and the former tram workshops at Milton decommissioned. A network of express routes, called "cityxpress", using buses with comfortable, high-backed seating bolstered patronage, particularly in outer suburbs. The underground Queen Street bus station, opened in 1988, facilitated passenger movement. The Transport department's administration was relocated to the Brisbane Administration Centre (BAC) along with most of the City Council's other administrative units. Slowly the decline in patronage was halted, although costs continued to outstrip ticket revenue.

[edit] Post-Corporatisation developments

In the 1990s Brisbane City Council corporatised its transport services to form Brisbane Transport, a Council-owned enterprise managed along business lines at arm's length from the Council of the day. Brisbane Transport's ferry services have been contracted out to a private operator, Metrolink Queensland.

The fall in patronage has been reversed in recent times by the introduction of a single integrated ticketing system for all of South East Queensland's public transport operators known as TransLink. The construction of grade-separated busways and the introduction of several high-frequency express routes known as bus upgrade zones (BUZ) has also seen patronage rise substantially for the first time in decades. The rise in the cost of petrol is also making public transport a financially more attractive option for many commuters.

On 14 November 2005, Queensland authorities shutdown bus and train services whilst a bomb-related security alert was investigated. Premier Peter Beattie told the public that authorities were being cautious in light of terror raids in Sydney and Melbourne the week prior. ^[1]

According to a press release on the 3rd of July 2006, Patronage on bus services has risen by 24% in a 2 year period - from 46 million in the year prior to the introduction of TransLink to more than 57 million in the second year of operation. This is leading to problems of overcrowding of buses, particularly during morning and afternoon peak hours.^[2]

[edit] Bus Depots

Currently Brisbane Transport operates its service from 6 different depots. Each depot has its own symbol consisting of a letter of the alphabet. Generally each bus allocated to a particular depot displays the symbol for that depot on its body. There are instances of buses not displaying symbols, or where a bus is reallocated to a new depot and the symbol is not immediately changed. Many of the depots share routes with other Depots.

Bowen Hills (Symbol - A) - Serves some northern routes and operates all routes between New Farm and West End.
Toowong (Symbol - T) - Serves South Western and North West Routes from Brookside and The Gap to Inala and Forest Lake.
Richlands (Symbol - R) - Is a satellite depot of Toowong (T), it shares services on western routes and does some services to Parkinson and Browns Plains.
Virginia (Symbol - V) - Serves the majority of northern routes from Nudgee Beach and Brighton to Brookside and the Gap.
Carina (Symbol - C) - Serves all eastern routes and some south eastern routes from Garden City to Wynnum and Bulimba.
Garden City (Symbol - G) - Serves the South Eastern Routes from Browns Plains and Sunnybank to Wishart and Coorparoo Areas. This depot is also the location for the Brisbane Transport Head Office.

Garden City, Toowong & Virginia depots are also CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) depots, which enables the operation of CNG-powered buses.

[edit] Former Depots operated by the BCC Transport Department or Brisbane Transport

The former bus depot at Milton Road Milton in 1951, prior to its modification for trolley bus operation

Bracken Ridge (Former Symbol - B) - Was only ever considered a "short term" depot by Brisbane Transport and it was closed with the opening of the Virginia Depot.
Cribb Street, Milton - Although never a formal depot, this area of land was occasionally used by the Brisbane City Council as temporary storage for buses, owing to its proximity to the Milton bus and tram workshops. Last used in 1983.
Ipswich Road, Buranda (closed prior to the adoption of depot symbols) - The depot was shared with trams, with buses parked in the depot forecourt and at the rear (eastern end) of the tram sheds. Between 1969 and 1974 the depot was used solely by buses. The site was subsequently sold by the Brisbane City Council for commercial redevelopment. One bay of the depot building was dismantled and re-erected at the Brisbane Tramway Museum at Ferny Grove.
Light Street, Newstead (Former Symbol - L) - Closed for commercial redevopment. First used as a transport depot in 1885, when it was the main tram depot for Brisbane's horse tram network. Until 1968 the depot was shared with trams with buses parked along the western (Wickham Street) frontage and north of the tram shed. When the tram shed was demolished buses were parked where the shed once stood.
Milton (closed prior to the adoption of depot symbols) - The Milton depot was shared with trolley-buses and closed when the trolley-bus network was abandoned in 1969. The former depot site is now part of the expanded Suncorp Stadium.

[edit] Current Operational Arrangements

Main article: TransLink (South East Queensland) services

[edit] Route Numbering

The route 184.

Routes are numbered according to TransLink bus route numbering system: ^[3]

Brisbane north : routes 193, 195, 196, 197, 199, 300-398, 470
Brisbane south : routes 100-199
Brisbane east : routes 200-236
Brisbane west : routes 100-110, 115, 122, 123, 402-476
Brisbane inner city : routes CBD Loop, 109, 199, 197, 196, 193, 195, 323, 470
Great Circle Line - Consists of 2 routes 598 (Anti-clockwise) & 599 - (Clockwise) which connects major suburban shopping centres without going through the CBD.
Loop - A free service running on 2 routes (clockwise and anti-clockwise) in the CBD from approximately 8am till 5pm every 10 minutes on weekdays.
NightLink - These services run on various established although they start at Fortitude Valley. Operating on Saturday and Sunday Mornings between 12am and 6am. All NightLink services have the prefix "N" added before the actual route number.

Some routes are operated by other private bus operators for Brisbane Transport.

[edit] Services

Brisbane Transport operates a number of different public services. Most of them runs to the City while some operates as feeder services to train stations. It also provides school bus services which are usually similar to normal routes with variations to/from schools. In additional to above mentioned services they also operate to/from stadiums before and after matches and concerts, and during major exhibition like EKKA.

[edit] References

Brimson, Samuel, "The Tramways of Australia", Dreamweaver Books, 1983. ISBN 0-949825-01-8
Brisbane City Council Annual Reports (various between 1925 and 1974)
Clark, Howard R. and David R. Keenan, "Brisbane Tramways - The Last Decade", Transit Press, 1977 (Reprinted 1985). ISBN 0-909338-01-9
J.R. Cole, "Shaping a City: Greater Brisbane 1925-1985", Brisbane 1984
R. Deskins, P. Hyde and C. Struble, "Slow at Frog - A Short History of the Brisbane Trolleybus System", Brisbane Tramway Museum, 2006. ISBN 0-9597322-2-5