A well designed transit network is a safe network

Sydney Ferries has an excellent safety record. In the last eight years, with over 110 million passenger journeys, there have been no fatalities related to Sydney Ferry operations.

It would be wrong, though, to be complacent. Congestion on Sydney Harbour and the risks posed by passenger crowding on poorly designed wharves mean that a tragedy may not be far away.

An often neglected cause of safety risk is poor network design and timetabling. Timetables which are not periodic - where there is inconsistency in stopping patterns or departure times through the day - make it difficult for crews to develop safe muscle memory. As a vessel leaves Circular Quay for Mosman, for example, the movements of other vessels around them may be different depending on the time of day, so potential risks may not always be anticipated.

On its return to Circular Quay, the Mosman ferry may berth at Wharf 4 (east or west) or maybe somewhere else if the crew are about to take a crib break. This inconsistency simply adds to complexity at our main ferry hub.      

A ferry system is not a closed system. Other vessels using Sydney Harbour are impacted by ferry operations and they also are put at greater risk by the lack of a regular pattern in ferry movements.

A recently introduced "solution" to the problem at Circular Quay is a decision by Roads and Maritime Services (RMS) to fine ferry masters $500 for breaches of the code of conduct for navigation in Sydney Cove. A breach may include proceeding south of the knuckle at the northern edge of the Passenger Terminal before a berth has become available at Circular Quay. The problem with this solution is that, in some instances, the timetable does not schedule a sufficient buffer between departing and arriving vessels. This means passengers are inconvenienced by being forced to sit in motionless vessels at the Sydney Cove waiting line.

A more sensible approach would be to implement integrated regular interval timetables. In my proposal:

• all western lines, including Cockatoo Island/Woolwich, will hub at Barangaroo to free up berths at Circular Quay.
• all ferries on eastern lines, plus the Darling Harbour line, arrive at Circular Quay between 2-7 minutes before the hour and half hour; all depart Circular Quay 2-7 minutes after the hour and half hour.     

This means there is a minimum separation of four minutes between arriving and departing vessels from the Quay.

It also creates two 15 minute windows every hour when there are no ferry movements at Circular Quay, enabling other vessels, including cruise ships, to operate without interfering (or being interfered by) ferry movements.

This 30 minute periodic timetable would operate all day, but could be supplemented in peak periods on some lines if justified by demand (eg an extra Rose Bay service could run to create 15 minute headways in the peaks only) without disturbances to the underlying structure.

In a timetable designed this way, vessel movements become very predictable. What happens in one period also happens in all periods. The mitigation of a systemic risk in one period will also mitigate that risk in all periods.

Not only that, RMS would not have to fine ferry masters $500 for observing the timetable.      

   

 

   

The upgraded Cremorne Point wharf reviewed

I haven't always been a massive fan of the Roads and Maritime Services' wharf upgrade program.

The first upgrade was Milsons Point in December 2010. As new transport infrastructure goes, this wharf was a great disappointment. The pontoon is tiny, passenger ramps are confusing and it lacks the vital ingredient of a ferry terminal at this particular location - a second berthing face so two ferries can load passengers at the same time.

These shortcomings did not stop the Milsons Point wharf winning an architecture prize. The architect's description suggests functional considerations were not front of mind:

"The design responds to the varied and sinuous nature of the harbour's edge and its remnant forests by developing forms, material and colour selections that provide a sophisticated and complimentary group of elements."

Whatever happened to form follows function?

But RMS should not cop all the blame. The upgrade program would have been strengthened by earlier, more detailed planning for the network and fleet replacement. Sydney would then have wharf infrastructure that properly matched the fleet and network.

But let's turn now to the immediate.

The upgraded Cremorne Point wharf reopened yesterday. 
It is certainly impressive. And that's not just because of the crystal clear waters of Sydney Harbour lapping on the pontoon, the dappled shade cast by the fig trees on the shore or the views of the Opera House.

While it has the same look and feel of all the wharves in the upgrade program, it is the subtle changes which make a difference. RMS, and probably those who were consulted in the design process, have obviously learnt from earlier mistakes.

For a start, the pontoon is a generous size with the seating area located at the eastern end. As the seats are off to one side, they do not interfere with passenger ingress and egress as they do at Rose Bay, Neutral Bay and Thames Street Balmain. 

Fenders are widely spaced and the deckhands seem to have little difficulty tying lines or planking the gangway. The pontoon sits a little high in the water for a First Fleeter, but this can't be helped because of the unfortunate variation in freeboard in the Sydney Ferry fleet. 

I haven't seen the Lady Herron berth at the new wharf yet so don't know whether the hydraulic gangways on this vessel pose any problems.

The pontoon should be big and stable enough to withstand the gales that Cremorne Point is famous for.

The one nagging concern is whether the pontoon should be just that little longer to accommodate dual berthing at a future point in time. It works fine now with a five minute separation in departures for inbound and outbound vessels, but if we are to have a big pontoon, why not make it that little bit longer so two First Fleeters can berth bow on bow? It might come in handy with future timetable changes.  

But this is nit picking. Well done Roads and Maritime Services!

Connecting Buses and Ferries

Achieving reliable bus and ferry connections can be a challenge, but it pays off handsomely when they work well.

There are examples in the Sydney Ferry network of both good and bad connections.

Cremorne Point on the Mosman line generally works well. The off peak frequency of both the ferry and connecting 225 bus line is 30 minutes. The 225 bus terminates at  Cremorne Point with a 13 minute layover. It arrives five minutes before the inbound ferry to Circular Quay departs at :05 and :35 past the hour. It leaves three minutes after the outbound ferry is due to arrive from Circular Quay at :10 and :40 past the hour. This allows one bus to connect with both the inbound and outbound ferry.  

Because the 225 bus line is generally reliable, with just a short section of its route on a congested main road, the bus is well patronised with transfers from the ferry.

It is also a highly legible transfer, because every bus you catch in the direction of the wharf connects with the ferry. And every ferry arriving at Cremorne Point connects with the bus. 

Simplicity and reliability make effective connections.

A connection point that does not work well is Balmain East. On first blush, you might expect it would. On week-days, the ferry operates at 30 minute intervals all day. The ferry outbound from Circular Quay departs Balmain East just two minutes before the inbound ferry. This means one bus should be able to can connect with both ferries.

But the connections are neither reliable nor legible.

To appreciate the problem, some understanding is needed of the Balmain peninsula. By Sydney standards, it is densely populated with two main transport corridors:

• Darling Street, which runs from the ferry wharf at the eastern end to Victoria Road at the western end.
• A second corridor runs from Birchgrove in the northern corner to the intersection of Robert Street and Victoria Road in the south.

The two corridors cross at the Balmain shops, adjacent to the Post Office.

 
Four main bus lines operate on these corridors (there are actually more but I won't complicate the story more than I have to), all at 20 minute intervals on week-days off-peak:

• 445 bus runs the length of Darling Street from Balmain East, continues across Victoria Road and terminates eventually at Campsie in Sydney's south west.
• 442 bus also starts at the ferry wharf, but turns south at the Post Office towards Mullens Street before crossing the ANZAC Bridge and terminating in the Sydney CBD.
• 441 bus starts at Birchgrove and runs south, also following Mullens Street down to the ANZAC Bridge and terminates in the CBD.  
• 433 bus starts part way along Darling Street at Gladstone Park. It follows Darling Street to Victoria Road, where it turns south, then west along the A4 before turning off to Glebe and finally the CBD.

In addition to these four lines, numerous buses operate at high frequency on Victoria Road.

The line structure is complex. It's complex because it suffers from what could be described as the "Australian disease" - an habitual preference for avoiding transfers in the bus network, especially for CBD commuters.
 
Despite the number of buses operating, the connections to the ferry do not work well:

• all the bus lines can be subject to traffic delays, so reliability is poor. 
• a 20 minute bus interval does not mesh well with a 30 minute ferry interval. If a transferring ferry passenger wants to travel to Rozelle in the western end of the peninsula, only every second service connects with the appropriate bus (445).

There is a simple way to fix this problem, without increasing capacity. There should only be two bus lines on the Balmain peninsula - the 441 and 445 - but operating at a minimum of 10 minute intervals all day. That's twice the current off peak frequency.

Passengers on the 445 line east of Balmain shops who need to go to the CBD can transfer to the 441 bus where the lines intersect adjacent to Balmain Post Office. Those who need to go to Glebe can take the 445 and transfer at Lilyfield for a Glebe bus.
 

As both lines have minimum headways of 10 minutes (and could be five minutes in the peaks), waiting time at the transfer point at Balmain shops is short.

And passengers who disembark from the ferry have only a short wait for the connecting bus, with consistent access to anywhere on the Balmain peninsula.
 
The good news is that fixing the ferry/ bus connections can also lead to a high frequency/ more legible timetable for all bus users, not just those transferring from a ferry. 

A Swiss Perspective on Regular Interval Timetables

Source: Tzieropoulos, Emery and Buri (2010) Regular-interval timetables: theoretical foundations and policy implications. 

If anyone wants to read a good overview of the Swiss approach to timetabling, a paper presented at the World Conference on Transport Research in 2010 "Regular-interval timetables: theoretical foundations and policy implications" is a good place to start.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8oNGOYNGBBwSTJPelNGV2dvV2s/view?usp=sharing
Co-authored by Panos Tzieropoulos, Daniel Emery and Jean-Daniel Buri, it describes what a regular interval timetable is and how passengers benefit, operations are simplified and safety is improved.

The paper also highlights some important differences between traditional approaches to transport planning and the Swiss way:

• rather than attempting to tailor transport supply to demand at an individual service level, the Swiss approach is to offer a consistent and balanced supply across the day. This conveys a message to passengers that "public transport is there and available at any time, much like the private car".
• Swiss transport planning starts with service planning, from which infrastructure and rolling stock (or vehicle/ vessel) needs are determined.

The level of detail in service planning would surprise an Australian audience. Detailed timetables are developed 20 years in advance. Service planning takes place first because the timetable is viewed as being centrally important to the customer. And as there is little flexibility around the rules for creating regular interval timetables, it is easier to make the infrastructure fit the timetable than the other way round.   

The Inexact Science of Fair Fare Determinations

Sydney's public transport has long resisted world trends by maintaining a fare structure which differentiates between modes.

Ferry travellers, for example, pay more per kilometre travelled than either bus or train passengers. In some cases the differences are staggering. The 1.2 km ferry ride from Balmain East to Darling Harbour attracts a full adult Opal fare of $5.74. As a comparison, the Opal adult off peak train fare from Newcastle (Hamilton) to Sydney (Central), a distance of 165 km, is $5.81. 

Even on peak services, the fare per km travelled to Newcastle by train is about one hundredth of the fare paid by Balmain East ferry commuters.      

The introduction of the Opal card has extended the modal differentiation:

• Opal users who transfer between services on the same mode do not pay extra, but if the transfer is made between modes, a separate fare is charged.
• since August 2014, "go anywhere" monthly, quarterly and annual travel passes are no longer available.
• the remaining weekly MyMulti ticket zone rules are applied differently across modes. Someone travelling from Manly to Sydney can use the cheaper MyMulti 1 ticket on a bus but must use a MyMulti 3 if taking the ferry.    

A common justification for fare "modism" is that it is fairer. Why should bus travellers, for example, pay the same fare as passengers on a more costly ferry trip?

So what is the difference in operating cost per passenger journey of ferries, trains and buses? According to the NSW Auditor General, rail services were the most expensive at $13.28 in 2014, followed by ferries ($9.27) and buses, which were the cheapest ($7.46).

But a more meaningful way of looking at this is to compare cost per passenger km. The average distance travelled varies between modes, so this tells a slightly different story.

(1) Source: NSW Auditor General's Report Financial Audit Volume 7 2014 (p.17)

(2) Train and bus average distance sourced from BTS Household Travel Survey 2012-13. Ferry average distance estimated from data supplied by BTS from November 2013 Ferry Census.
(3) The Auditor General's Report does not provide details of what costs are included in its analysis. The assumption made here is that the comparisons are like with like.

As the average train journey is more than twice the length of average bus trips, train operating costs are more favourable, 31 cents per km less than buses.

Average ferry trips are also longer than the bus average, which means buses are just eight cents cheaper to run per passenger km than ferries.

There are also modal differences in the directness of journeys. Trains offer the most direct point to point journeys, but ferries are also far more direct than buses. The 1.2 km ferry ride from Balmain East to Darling Harbour, for example, compares favourably with the alternative, tortuous 6.5 km bus journey. 

No comprehensive data is available to compare bus and ferry journey distances as the crow flies, but it is not unreasonable to conclude that, if this was done, the operating cost of ferries per passenger km is actually less than buses if journey distance is measured directly, point to point.

The agency responsible for reviewing transport fares in NSW is the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART). In making its fare determinations, IPART acknowledges that fare subsidies can be justified because public transport has external benefits enjoyed by non users. These include reduced road congestion and less air pollution. From time to time, IPART attempts to measure these external benefits by mode, which later feed into its fare determinations.

To put the best possible spin on this, a careful reading of IPART reports reveals that measurement of external benefits must be an inexact science, if it is a science at all.

In August 2014, IPART published an issues paper "Estimating the External Benefits of Public Transport Used in Setting Maximum Fares for Rail, Bus and Ferry Services". Based on IPART's current model, the paper estimates the external benefits of ferries are tiny compared to other modes:

Source: IPART Issues Paper Estimating the External Benefits of Public Transport (table 3.1), August 2014

The limited external benefits of ferries were due to a combination of reasons, including higher air pollution and IPART's belief that passengers have the option in most cases of using a lower cost bus service as an alternative to ferry travel.  

Later in 2014, IPART released another report, revising its methodology and assumptions about what to include as external benefits.  One change was to "focus on estimating the external benefits associated with an extra passenger using an existing service". The previous method assumed services (and therefore costs) increase in proportion to patronage growth.

Another change was to widen the external benefits measured, including reduced road accidents and improved health outcomes.

The revised method made surprising changes to the estimate of external benefits by mode:

Source: IPART Report: Review of External Benefits of Public Transport, Table 1.1 p.8 (December 2014)

The new report provides the estimates as a range of possible values. In the case of ferries the range is very large: between one and 21 cents per passenger journey. As students of statistics will know, when there is a range of possible values like this, the mean is not more likely to be the true value than any other value in the range. So the external benefit per passenger km for ferries, according to IPART, could be one cent or 21 cents, or anywhere in between.

These figures suggest that the external benefits of ferries could be twice as high as buses and trains or they could be as little as one twentieth. IPART is not sure.

To further complicate matters, the range of possible external benefits used by IPART in its models, continue to be very limited. Suggestions by stakeholders for including other things, such as improved mobility and social inclusion, are dismissed in the report, partly because they are too difficult to measure.

This points to ontological flaws in IPART's analysis, a weakness not uncommon in other economic studies. Something that cannot be measured is no less real than something else that can. 

Read together, the Auditor General's Report and the latest IPART report point to the following conclusions about ferry fares:

• the operating cost per passenger km of buses and ferries are similar. Ferry costs would be less than bus costs if journey distances were measured direct, point to point.
• the measurement of external benefits of public transport travel is highly subjective and the estimated ranges provided by IPART are so wide that it is not possible to determine whether ferries offer a higher or lower benefit than buses or trains.

The solution lies in learning from European countries where public transport fares do not distinguish between modes. These countries build highly legible, integrated public transport systems with heavily discounted periodical multi modal tickets. This leads to high rates of public transport use, highly mobile and liveable city environments and high cost recovery, in most cases more than double the rate achieved in NSW.  

A fresh approach to fare structures in Sydney is long overdue.  

Balmain East - are too many berthings barely enough, or are they just too many?

Plans for the new ferry terminal at Barangaroo include a big rise in ferry frequencies on the Darling Harbour (F4)Line. Week-day AM peak departures from Barangaroo will increase from two per hour to six per hour in 2016. Week-end peak departures will increase from three per hour to eight per hour.
 
The Barangaroo terminal can probably manage 7.5 minute headways for the Darling Harbour Line. But what are the implications for other Darling Harbour line stops, especially if all initiatives in the Sydney's Ferry Future plan are taken into account? Currently all services on the Darling Harbour Line also stop in both directions at Milsons Point, McMahons Point and Balmain East.  

The Ferry Future plan was released by the NSW Government in May 2013. A close reading shows a significant change to the role of Balmain East wharf, currently a quiet little place with two berthings per hour on week-days in the direction of Darling Harbour and two per hour in the direction of Circular Quay. The Ferry Future vision is that it becomes an interchange for three lines - Parramatta, Woolwich and Darling Harbour.

The consequences of this, in combination with the threefold increase planned in Darling Harbour services, are enormous. As shown in the table below, Balmain East departures in the AM peak periods will increase sevenfold - from four per hour to 28 per hour. That's one ferry departure every two minutes!



Darling Harbour Line departures in 2016 based on the assumption that the Darling Line will continue to be an all stops service.  

Increased frequencies are normally welcomed by customers, but there are operational considerations peculiar to ferries which mean that 28 berthings an hour will be plain annoying.  It usually takes a minimum of two minutes for each vessel to berth, including tying and untying lines, planking the gangway and time for passenger loading.

Even with the dual berthing planned in the upgraded BaImain East Wharf, berthing conflicts in the timetable are inevitable, forcing vessels to be held off the wharf waiting for the previous ferry to depart.

There is also the impact of additional wash on the sea wall at Balmain East from the increase in vessel movements.

It is time for some re-thinking to be done on the Sydney Ferry Future plan. An increase in service frequency is a good thing, but there is a point where the network reaches overload.  Departures every two minutes is neither justified by demand nor operationally sustainable.

The New Barangaroo Ferry Terminal - First Impressions

Source: Barangaroo Delivery Authority 

Few infrastructure projects will be more critical to the Sydney Ferry network in the next 30 years than the new terminal at Barangaroo. The importance of getting it right cannot be overstated.

The terminal will replace the current King Street wharf located 200 metres south. The NSW Government's commitment to build the terminal allows some rethinking about the best way to organise the Sydney Ferry network, especially for servicing locations west of Sydney. Barangaroo, in combination with the Wynyard Walk development, provides an ideal entry point for commuters from this side of the city.

Its desirability will be further enhanced if the planned Sydney Rapid Transit line includes a stop at Barangaroo. This could provide a convenient connection between the ferry and SRT networks.  

Design details for the new terminal were released last week, accompanied by a 323 page Environmental Impact Statement and an invitation for feedback from the public. http://majorprojects.planning.nsw.gov.au/index.pl?action=view_job&job_id=6727

Initially two double faced pontoons will be constructed (four wharf faces) with the option of building a third at a later date.

A ferry terminal should allow vessels to load and unload passengers quickly and safely, enabling passengers to move effortlessly from one line to another or transfer to another mode of transport. To accomplish these objectives, there are many details to be sorted out before the design is finalised:

• which lines will connect at the terminal?
• how frequently will vessels stop (what will the timetable be, now and in the long term)
• what will be the peak number of disembarkations for each arrival? What will be the peak numbers embarking?
• how much time will transferring passengers have to move between vessels and how will this happen? 

These are just some of the details to be resolved.

If you are looking for answers to these questions, the EIS is not very illuminating. Where demand forecasts are provided, the reader is left wondering if they are credible.

Role of Barangaroo in the Ferry Network

The EIS remains true to the Sydney Ferry Futures strategy of May 2013. This means initial plans are only for two lines (Parramatta River and Darling Harbour) to stop at Barangaroo. But Sydney's development plans are moving quickly, so why not consider a line which connects Barangaroo with the Bays Precinct renewal? And why not terminate the Cockatoo Island line at Barangaroo instead of Circular Quay? This would make Barangaroo a real hub to take pressure off the congested Circular Quay.

With at least four wharf faces available at the new terminal, such an expansion could easily be accommodated. 

Demand Assumptions

Sydney has a history of transport projects with ambitious demand forecasts. This one is no exception.  Some of the forecasts include:

• Week-day AM peak arrivals at Barangaroo to increase from the current 650 (King Street) to 3,000 in 2016. The 650 includes 150 on Darling Harbour services and 500 from the Parramatta River. Even if all the 550 River passengers who currently go to Circular Quay in the peaks suddenly elect to go to Barangaroo instead (note there is no plan to cease Circular Quay arrivals from the River), where will the other 2,000 come from? The ferry mode share of growth locations like Wentworth Point and Meadowbank has always been low and they will not contribute more than a trickle of extra passengers, even if a new wharf is built at Rhodes.
• Ferry journeys are "estimated to grow at up to 8% per year through to 2026". Compounded over 12 years, that means ferry patronage is forecast to increase to 42 million in 2025-26, a rise of 160%, yet overall growth in all journeys to the CBD is only forecast to rise 23% in 20 years!

There are also some surprising projections for capacity growth. Week-end services are projected to increase from three to eight per hour on the Darling Harbour line and from two to six on the Parramatta River. The flow on congestion elsewhere in the network caused by such a change is hard to imagine.  Balmain East, which the Ferry Futures report nominates as an interchange for the River, Darling Harbour and Cockatoo Island lines, will resemble something like Central Station, with a conga line of boats waiting to berth.

Passenger Ingress and Egress

A blind spot in recent Sydney wharf infrastructure projects is crowd management and passenger ingress and egress. On a busy Sunday, let alone a big event, a First Fleet ferry can unload close to 400 passengers at Darling Harbour, while another 400 wait to board. 

The pontoons proposed for Barangaroo are wider than those at Circular Quay - 23 metres compared to about 18 metres at the Quay. This is welcome, but the design problems of Number 2, 4 and 5 wharves at Circular Quay are repeated in the Barangaroo plans. Despite the pontoons being wider, the waiting areas are not large enough.

The combined waiting area for the two wharf faces is about 200 square metres. This includes seating, which effectively reduces the available space. On busy days, it is quite conceivable that over 600 passengers will be waiting to board a First Fleet ferry on the north face of the pontoon and a RiverCat on the south face. It is simply unsafe, expecially with multiple strollers and some passengers in wheelchairs, to cram three people per square metre into the waiting area. The US Transportation Research Board manual on Transit Capacity and Quality of Service advises that where densities are greater than 1.5 persons per square metre in a queuing area, "long term waiting is discomforting"(1).

Many Sydney residents have experienced discomfort and fear of injury while waiting on an overcrowded pontoon at Circular Quay. This should not be allowed to happen at Barangaroo. 

Building the new terminal is also an opportunity to modernise gangway technology to speed up passenger loading and unloading. Whether this will be done at Barangaroo is not clear.  The concept design drawings show mobile ramps which look worryingly similar to the current set up. It should not be impossible to design a better vessel/ pontoon interface which allows 400 passengers to quickly disembark and 400 others to quickly board.

Summary

The Barangaroo terminal can set the agenda for the future of Sydney's urban transit ferry network. Currently released documents disappoint on a number of fronts:

• lack of clarity about its relationship to the overall ferry network, with no acknowledgement of a possible role in serving the Bays Precinct or the existing Cockatoo Island line.
• overly optimistic demand forecasts for the Parramatta River
• insufficient attention to crowd management, which raises concerns about passenger safety
• no strategy for improving the efficiency of passenger loading/ unloading.

But all is not lost, as the community consultation period has just started. Let's hope that constructive feedback will be acted on.  

Footnote
(1) Transportation Research Board: Transit Capacity and Quality of Service Manual - 2nd Edition. Part 7 Stop, Station and Terminal Capacity  http://www.trb.org/Main/Blurbs/153590.aspx