UN 238: Another look at our most productive bus routes

There is significant unmet demand for bus services. Boost service on a existing popular (but underserviced) bus route and usage will rise in proportion. Higher frequency and longer hours induce new demand, just like the 200% rise in Saturday use of Dandenong's Route 800 bus when weekend trips were added. Such underservicing is common even on our most important bus routes, with headways of 30, 40 and even 60 minutes widespread, especially on weekends. I looked at this back in 2023, when 2022 data was available. Our most productive bus routesLast week Mohan Wadia released similar analysis, based on data from 2023. This compared patronage with service hours per route to arrive at a productivity number. This averages 18.3 passengers per live bus hour across the network with wide variations. Though we need to be careful with patronage numbers. The Auditor-General found that, even after accounting for non touch ons, DTP bus usage data was inaccurate and actual bus ridership could be…