Re: Buses (Victoria)

[Peter Parker <parkerp@pcug.org.au>]

I was just looking for the webpage of Westbus (and National Bus Company) 
to find out more about their 'high frequency minibus services'.  I 
couldn't find anything apart from an address and telephone number.

I also experimented Vic Trip.  One of the problems is that you are asked 
to select which bus company you want.  From a passenger's perspective 
this is not very useful - you want to know the best way to get from A to 
B at a certain time, and you would also probably want to know the 
frequencies of services, running times, etc.  The company providing the 
service is only secondary.  This makes public transport different from 
goods at a supermarket because the system should be seamless (including 
access to information and the fares system) to attract patronage. 

The system in Perth where some routes are competitively tendered is 
pretty seamless, though again the private bus companies are slow in 
providing websites.  

All bus companies having websites would be an improvement but is not a 
panacea.  This is because of the above reason about people knowing their 
origins and destinations, but not necessarily the companies providing the 
service.  Therefore, like the fare system, it would seem desirable that 
each city have a single site with all timetables/maps and some sort of 
tripfinder facility for all public transport services operating in that 
city.  It's already done for telephone information lines - it's time it 
was done on the Internet as well.  This should actually save money, as 
fewer people would need to ring for assistance. 

Relevance to rail?  I suppose there is a risk of encountering these sorts 
of problems if the Melbourne tram/train system is broken up and 
privatised.  However, the fragmentation of information for passengers is 
not an inevitability of privatised systems. 

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Peter Parker   VK1PK                              parkerp@pcug.org.au
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URL: http://www.pcug.org.au/~parkerp/  

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