Where the State fails and Local Government steps in - a study of the Bayside City Council buses

Outline
Melbourne's bus system is the poor cousin of the public transport offering, and it has long been a point of contention between the State and most Local Governments (MTF 2018). This is particularly true for areas outside the operating radius of the tram system, because the tram network (at route length x 400m either side of the track) has a density of 2.35 vehicles per km² while the amalgamated bus system only has 0.71 buses per km² (the remaining area in the Melbourne Urban Growth Boundary); and the ratio between these values approximately matches the typical service frequencies (vicsig.net; busaustralia.net; Public Transport Victoria 2019).
Bayside City Council is on the southern edge of the tram system, so it experiences this differential more sharply than, say, Dandenong, which is entirely dependant on the pathetic bus offering without being teased by something better just over the horizon. To take just one example, at time of writing the Route 64 tram runs 561 trips per week, compared to the paltry offering of the combined 811/812 buses at a mere 167 per week (Public Transport Victoria 2019).
The State has generally refused to step up and fix the oversights of the bus system (Bayside City Council [1]), despite producing a review of the system in 2010 (Public Transport Users Association 2010). In Victoria the bus network patronage has almost flatlined and cost recovery has reduced on a per-passenger basis, while in New South Wales patronage has increased by an average of around 5.6% compounding per year for most of the last decade (Victorian Government 2018; Rawsthorne 2019).
Project Objectives and Background
Bus map
Bus route map for the Bayside trial.
In order to overcome the State's lack of interest in fulfilling their responsibilities, on October 29th 2018 Bayside City Council began what was supposed to be a six-month pilot program of free buses running in the local area around Middle Brighton Station (Herald Sun 2018 [1]). The services were targeted at commuters, running for an hour in the morning peak and two hours in the evening peak (Bayside City Council [2, 3]).
The primary objective was to reduce parking demand at Middle Brighton station; the area only has around 300 car parking spaces including the adjacent shopping centre parking areas, but as of FY13-14 (Public Transport Victoria 2015) nearly twice that number were driving to the station per day.
When the service was first being considered, Council officers advised against the trial. While the local Leader newspaper was initially supportive of the concept that tone quickly changed, citing residents' concerns about property values due to traffic increases without mentioning that a loaded minibus removes 10-15 cars from the road (Herald Sun 2018 [1, 2]).
Governance Impacts
http://www.hawthorntramdepot.org.au/papers/img/pmtt05.jpg
Prahran and Malvern Tramways Trust No.1

While traditionally Local councils have provided shuttle services to residents with specific requirements, this could well be the first Council-operated service aimed at the general population in almost a century, with shades of the Council-operated tram lines which had been amalgamated into the Melbourne and Metropolitan Tramways Board shortly after World War I (Melbourne Tram Museum, 2004).
As Spiller outlined in 2015, State Governments are better suited to handle broad-brush approaches to governance rather than local area issues (Spiller 2015, 2:34-2:41), and that is part of why Local Governments have to exist. In that vein, I have long argued that councils are better suited to provide feeder/local type transit services than State governments, given better access to finer-grained information regarding how the local community functions and interacts with its surroundings. However, that transition of power is predicated on the transfer of authority and responsibility only being made when funding is included, and the new system must still be integrated with relevant State-managed resources such as Public Transport Victoria’s journey planner and Google Maps timetable submissions, and if fares are charged, they should be integrated with the Myki ticketing system. This is critical to enforce the idea that all public transport should act as a single cohesive multi-modal system, rather than being broken up into silos with poor communication. Without that legislative background, the Bayside CC experiment could well set a dangerous precedent, as the State could argue that all councils should be funding local bus services within their own dwindling resources.
Outcome
The bus services were terminated by the City of Bayside on 8th March 2019, before the planned end of the six-month trial, citing lack of patronage and increased costs (Herald Sun 2019 [3]). Despite this, the trial was an innovative attempt to provide a service for residents where the State Government has failed to do so.
However, had the trial continued for the full six months it could have set a dangerous precedent, as most councils are not financially equipped to provide good-quality bus services.
On the other hand, the State could choose to reinforce the principle by formally handing over responsibility for local and feeder-type services to the Councils, allowing each to organise its own operational contracts and establish its own service expectations, and providing increased funding or taxation powers to provide a good service outcome.
References
[1] Bayside City Council, Better Buses, accessed 31 March 2019, <https://www.bayside.vic.gov.au/better-buses>
[2] Bayside City Council, 2018, Commuter Shuttle Bus Service, accessed 25 March 2019, <https://www.bayside.vic.gov.au/commuter-shuttle-bus-service>
[3] Bayside City Council, 2018, Commuter Shuttle Bus Trial, published 27 August 2018, accessed 25 March 2019, <https://www.bayside.vic.gov.au/news/commuter-bus-trial>
Busaustralia.com, Australian Bus Fleet Lists, viewed 21 August 2017, <https://fleetlists.busaustralia.com/index-vic.php>
[1] Herald Sun, 2018, Bayside Council to launch free commuter shuttle bus service, 23 August, accessed 31 March 2019, <https://www.heraldsun.com.au/leader/inner-south/bayside-council-to-launch-free-commuter-shuttle-bus-service/news-story/dfdc046e037cf0e3f419e5a2ec688df1>
[2] Herald Sun, 2018, Bayside Council free commuter bus service under fire and facing potential legal action, 1 November, accessed 31 March 2019, <https://www.heraldsun.com.au/leader/inner-south/bayside-council-free-commuter-bus-service-under-fire-and-facing-potential-legal-action/news-story/9a0b82ba89db66fe695648aba3d897e3>
[3] Herald Sun, 2019 (listed as 2017), Bayside Council free commuter bus: shuttle service scrapped due to lack of passengers, 12 November, accessed 31 March 2019, <https://www.heraldsun.com.au/leader/inner-south/bayside-council-free-commuter-bus-shuttle-service-scrapped-due-to-lack-of-passengers/news-story/b94e123e876b8108d77369d752a6c650>
Melbourne Tram Museum, 2004, Fares Please! An economic history of the Melbourne and Metropolitan Tramways Board, accessed 31 March 2019, <http://www.hawthorntramdepot.org.au/papers/ecohist/ecohist2.htm>
Metropolitan Transport Forum, 2018, Billions 4 Buses, accessed 26 March 2019, <http://www.billions4buses.melbourne/>
Public Transport Users Association, 2010, Bus Reviews ignored, second-rate services prevail, 25 October, accessed 26 March 2019, <https://www.ptua.org.au/2010/10/25/bus-reviews-ignored/>
Public Transport Victoria, 2015, Station-by-station-fact-sheet-accessible-version-2015.xls,  published 14 May 2015
Public Transport Victoria, 2019, Timetables, accessed 31 March 2019, <https://www.ptv.vic.gov.au/timetables>
Rawsthorne, S., 2019, NSW Government promises Sydney and surrounds 14,000 extra bus services, Sydney Morning Herald, 2 March, accessed 3 Mach 2019, <https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/nsw-government-promises-sydney-and-surrounds-14-000-extra-bus-services-20190302-p511be.html>
Spiller, M., 2015, Urban Conversations: 'Metropolitan Governance' by Marcus Spiller, UNSW Built Environment / Youtube, 22 April, 2:34-2:41, accessed 28 March 2019, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USRvejMY5rI>
Vicsig.net, Melbourne’s tram fleet, viewed 21 August 2017, <http://vicsig.net/index.php?page=trams&section=rollingstock&fleet=all>

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