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Journey to Work - Analysis

8297 Views 56 Replies 18 Participants Last post by  BleakCity, 
BleakCity
Whilst often ignored from the irrational side of the transport argument, it is however one of the most important facets of understanding the transport task.

Where do people actually work?

From a Melburnians perspective (community profile id sites that I know to exist):

Ballarat - Ballarat, Sebastopol, Wendouree

Banyule - Greensborough, Heidelberg, Ivanhoe

Bayside - Beaumaris, Brighton, Sandringham

Bendigo - Bendigo, Eaglehawk, Kangaroo Flat

Boroondara - Ashburton, Kew, Balwyn

Brimbank - St Albans, Sunshine, Sydenham

Cardinia - Garfield, Nar Nar Goon, Pakenham

Casey - Cranbourne, Narre Warren, Berwick

Dandenong - Dandenong, Noble Park, Springvale

Frankston - Carrum Downs, Frankstoned, Seaford

Geelong - Bellarine Peninsula, Geelong, Lara

Glen Eira - Bentleigh, Caulfield, Ormond

Hobsons Bay - Altona, Spotswood, Williamstown

Kingston - Chelsea, Heatherton, Mordialloc

Knox - Boronia, Rowville, Wantirna

LaTrobe - Moe, Morwell, Traralgon

Manningham - Doncaster, Templestowe, Warrandyte

Maribyrnong - Footscray, Maribyrnong, Tottenham

Melton - Caroline Springs, Diggers Rest, Melton

Monash - Glen Waverley, Oakleigh, Mulgrave

Moonee Valley - Ascot Vale, Essendon, Keilor East

Moreland - Brunswick, Coburg, Glenroy

Mornington Peninsula - Mount Eliza, Portsea, Rosebud

Port Phillip - Elwood, Port Melbourne, St Kilda

Shepparton - Murchison, Shepparton, Tatura

Stonnington - Malvern, South Yarra, Toorak

Whitehorse - Blackburn, Box Hill, Nunawading

Wyndham - Hoppers Crossing, Tarneit, Werribee

Yarra - Clifton Hill, Fitzroy, Richmond

Yarra Ranges - Belgrave, Lilydale, Warburton

(Will add more if I've missed some - please inform)

Also note: Travel mode to work is given under 'What do we do?'

Note the obvious correlations:

The majority of journeys to work are actually to places within the person's own municipality, not to the central business district (except for the most inner of council areas). This is why I often seem cold on this site towards high cost rail extensions in suburbia. I am not disputing the importance of a high capacity spine between major activity centres, which thankfully in the older cities like Melbourne, were built alongside railway lines (only later were new centres like Chadstone built way from them). But obviously there needs to be a great deal of money spent upgrading the transport within actual centres, and between them, not just from some suburban station to the city, as this is where most journeys are occurring.

The amount of people working in the CBD is also proportional to the distance of the municipality from the CBD. High percentages of Glen Eira residents work in the CBD, whereas a much smaller percentage of residents in places like Frankston do so. But which gets more attention? Moves are always made to pander to outer suburbanites (express services etc.) yet in reality, they account for only a small amount of CBD traffic.
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L
interestingly, ballarat is nowhere near as much of a dormitory town for melbourne as some people make out.
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L2
Thanks for posting that ZH - I might do a comparable list for Sydney some time later tonight if I can be stuffed.

The "everybody goes to the CBD" thing has to be one of the biggest transport planning myths floating around - and unfortunately it is believed by most dribblers on Whalepage and other sites. Look at the proposals for express buses from Narre and Endeavour Hills - what point would they serve?

Also seems to be forgotten by most gunzelzorz that most CBD trips are already done on public transport - it's about the only place where PT has been successful. Some of the proposed rail extensionz in Melb ie Doncaster seem a tad too CBD-centric.

The present role of trainz in most Aussie cities is essentially to collect people all over the urban sprawl and take them to the CBD - what a waste. Australian systems put too much focus on catering to CBD commuters - like look how many services QR Citytrain runs from Darra peak (9tph) vs off-peak (2tph).
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BleakCity
LanceDriver said:
interestingly, ballarat is nowhere near as much of a dormitory town for melbourne as some people make out.
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On 2006 data - hopefully it stays that way.

It's actually possible to see Vline's rough modal share for the Ballarat to Melbourne journey from the data on that site.

Melbourne City Council is the workplace for 428 persons (1.1% Ballarat working residents), and 284 persons in the Ballarat municipality took the train to work.

Given there are no railway stations in Ballarat, bar its namesake, almost all boardees are heading towards the city (a miniscule amount, possibly none at all, may work in the other direction, in Ararat). The amount of people disembarking is small (as is the amount of people working in other Melbourne municipal areas like Melton), so most rail users are heading for the CBD. Melbourne City Council includes poorly served areas like the Port of Melbourne, so that would lower the number of journeys potentially captive to rail from 428. Now since most users are already on PT, you have to wonder, where was the justification for RFR? Did the millions spent actually translate to an equivalent benefit to the State, in getting maybe a dozen commuters off the freeway?

(This is the source of much of the ammunition for the Vline Gripe thread).
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Alphaville
I work/study in the CBD. Currently I commute from Wyndham.

I'm soon going to bite the bullet and leave the nest (again) for the inner north (Yarra).
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BleakCity
Thanks Alphaville :)

However, I thought I better say it before it happens - this thread is not designed for posters to list their place of work.

Rather, discuss the transport task in relation to the movement of people from their home to their workplace.
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Alphaville
BleakCity said:
Thanks Alphaville :)

However, I thought I better say it before it happens - this thread is not designed for posters to list their place of work.

Rather, discuss the transport task in relation to the movement of people from their home to their workplace.
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Rather hung over- went over my head. :)

Those stats are so interesting. I'm really REALLY surprised that only 1.9 percent of those residing in Wyndham work in Greater Geelong. I would have assumed it was much higher.
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Svartmetall
Very interesting list there BleakCity and thanks for backing up my longstanding assertation that CBD-centric transport planning is simply not worth considering. This is exactly why I advocate ring railways and polycentric metro systems in cities that can afford them.

For smaller municipalities I know that the most successful transit systems in these cities are the ones that not only provide dedicated transit into the city centre, but also provide adaquate cross-suburb links. Sure, there is nothing wrong with having a predominantly peak service to cater for commuters and a less frequent service for the rest of the times (as cross-suburb journeys tend to be low patronage routes) but it is still essential to have them there.

Auckland is a purely "GET EVERYONE TO THE CBD" city with cross-suburb links in my area running only three times a day. :eek:hno:
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L2
Svartmetall said:
Sure, there is nothing wrong with having a predominantly peak service to cater for commuters and a less frequent service for the rest of the times
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There's plenty wrong with that.

If you don't provide a turn-up-and-go service, you won't get any non-captive users.

Svartmetall said:
(as cross-suburb journeys tend to be low patronage routes)
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Mainly because services are hopeless so people don't use them - PT demand is supply driven :)
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Svartmetall
L2 said:
There's plenty wrong with that.

If you don't provide a turn-up-and-go service, you won't get any non-captive users.

Mainly because services are hopeless so people don't use them - PT demand is supply driven :)
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True to a point, however, I'm talking about small municipal areas and frequencies of 30 minutes off-peak as you can see in cities with populations of 150K in Europe rather than larger cities such as the Aussie capitals. Unfortunately economies of scale come into play when considering smaller cities and there simply isn't the scope for patronage in a small city for cross-suburb trips. Sorry, I should have actually defined what I class as a "smaller" municipality.

Like I said, polycentric rapid transit networks for larger cities are a must. This is one reason that I still maintain that Berlin has one of my favourite transit systems as it has a polycentric metro combined with a very frequent ring railway system to ensure that cross-suburb trips are easy to handle despite only having a population of 3.6 million.
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L2
Svartmetall said:
Unfortunately economies of scale come into play when considering smaller cities and there simply isn't the scope for patronage in a small city for cross-suburb trips
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I agree that regional centres are more likely to get shit given that local PT is a low priority to the government compared to the needs of the capital city and larger centres, none of which in Australia have decent PT.

I don't see how that an inflexible 30 minute frequency is any more useful in a regional centre (let's use Geelong as an example) than it would be in suburbs of a capital city which are be just as built up.

There would be few examples where you'd need true cross-suburban routes in Aussie regional cities due to their size and geography. Using Geelong as the example, you'd have routes radiating out of the CBD along the main roads, passing the suburban centres and terminating at somewhere useful.

Transferring for local trips should not be an issue if services run frequently, say every 10 mins.

Svartmetall said:
it has a polycentric metro combined with a very frequent ring railway system to ensure that cross-suburb trips are easy to handle despite only having a population of 3.6 million.
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Orbital lines through sprawl are a bit of a waste as the centres rarely line up - and they aren't where most traffic is going. No idea what the situation is like in Berlin though - speaking for Aussie cities here.

I'm not saying that I'm in support of a 100% rail network (like Melbourne) - am in support for incorporating useful cross-suburban links into the rail system.

And of course in Australia, you have radial lines which pass suburban centres on their way to the CBD, but most people only bother using the train if they are going all the way to the CBD due to the poor service provided :bash:
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Svartmetall
L2 said:
I agree that regional centres are more likely to get shit given that local PT is a low priority to the government compared to the needs of the capital city and larger centres, none of which in Australia have decent PT.

I don't see how that an inflexible 30 minute frequency is any more useful in a regional centre (let's use Geelong as an example) than it would be in suburbs of a capital city which are be just as built up.

There would be few examples where you'd need true cross-suburban routes in Aussie regional cities due to their size and geography. Using Geelong as the example, you'd have routes radiating out of the CBD along the main roads, passing the suburban centres and terminating at somewhere useful.

Transferring for local trips should not be an issue if services run frequently, say every 10 mins.
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But then one could argue that most PT routes in most new world cities are therefore unviable if you wish to discount all 30 minute services. Sure, it's not a turn up and go, but people still utilise it. This is very evident considering I am currently served by a 30 minute service to the CBD which I use daily to get to Uni and trust me, it's packed to the brim most of the time, especially around peak (when the frequency increases to every 20 minutes, oh my)!

So are you saying that you'd rather advocate a radial system for smaller cities but a polycentric network for larger cities?

L2 said:
Orbital lines through sprawl are a bit of a waste as the centres rarely line up - and they aren't where most traffic is going. No idea what the situation is like in Berlin though - speaking for Aussie cities here.

I'm not saying that I'm in support of a 100% rail network (like Melbourne) - am in support for incorporating useful cross-suburban links into the rail system.

And of course in Australia, you have radial lines which pass suburban centres on their way to the CBD, but most people only bother using the train if they are going all the way to the CBD due to the poor service provided :bash:
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Just for your interest, the Ringbahn in Berlin serves as a ring railway around the innermost parts of the city. The ring railway there actually serves 146million passengers per year, is 37.5km long and consists of 28 stations (and links to 12 different U-bahn stations for instant metro transfer). This is why I cite it as an example of a good ring railway system as it not only links to the S-bahn but also to the U-bahn. Trains usually run every few minutes on most of the ring throughout the day.

Aussie cities are a problem due to the immediate low density of the suburbs only 1km from the CBD. Even so, I don't discount the value of orbital routes running at a decent frequency off-hand simply because the suburbs they run through are lower density. I'm not as familiar with the needs of various suburbs in Australian cities so I'm probably not the best person to be answering this but surely frequent bus services (if not a ring railway) to link suburbs, train lines and tram lines together would be beneficial and serve to increase modal share?
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tayser
^ there are no low-density suburbs 1km from Melbourne's CBD, nor Sydney's, Adelaide's, Brisbane's...
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mx5star
L2 said:
Thanks for posting that ZH - I might do a comparable list for Sydney some time later tonight if I can be stuffed.

The "everybody goes to the CBD" thing has to be one of the biggest transport planning myths floating around - and unfortunately it is believed by most dribblers on Whalepage and other sites. Look at the proposals for express buses from Narre and Endeavour Hills - what point would they serve?

Also seems to be forgotten by most gunzelzorz that most CBD trips are already done on public transport - it's about the only place where PT has been successful. Some of the proposed rail extensionz in Melb ie Doncaster seem a tad too CBD-centric.

The present role of trainz in most Aussie cities is essentially to collect people all over the urban sprawl and take them to the CBD - what a waste. Australian systems put too much focus on catering to CBD commuters - like look how many services QR Citytrain runs from Darra peak (9tph) vs off-peak (2tph).
Click to expand...
At lease someone else has the balls to admit that most urban car commutes are NOT to the CBD via car for the majority of MEL / SYD residents. For one it's two expensive, secondly PT in peak time is acceptable for most people.

mx
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Svartmetall
tayser said:
^ there are no low-density suburbs 1km from Melbourne's CBD, nor Sydney's, Adelaide's, Brisbane's...
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Yes, that was called a slight exaggeration, but my point still stands regarding the sudden drop in density of the inner suburbs (bar Sydney and Melbourne in certain areas) in comparison to the CBD. Brisbane in particular suffers from Auckland syndrome in the inner suburbs it seems. We stayed in the West End and that was mostly single unit dwellings on fairly large plots of land and most of the other surrounding suburbs were single unit dwellings (density = 3242/km squared).
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crazyknightsfan
Brisbane has plenty of low-density single-dwelling blocks within a few kilometres of the CBD - e.g. West End and Buranda, Woolloongabba
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Orfeo
Svartmetall said:
Yes, that was called a slight exaggeration, but my point still stands regarding the sudden drop in density of the inner suburbs (bar Sydney and Melbourne in certain areas) in comparison to the CBD. Brisbane in particular suffers from Auckland syndrome in the inner suburbs it seems. We stayed in the West End and that was mostly single unit dwellings on fairly large plots of land and most of the other surrounding suburbs were single unit dwellings (density = 3242/km squared).
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Historic housing in Brisbane is protected, even so a bit over half the residents in West End live in apartments. In addition, West End still has a decent amount of industrial warehousing towards the riverside.
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Svartmetall
Orfeo said:
Historic housing in Brisbane is protected, even so a bit over half the residents in West End live in apartments. In addition, West End still has a decent amount of industrial warehousing towards the riverside.
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This is the same for many cities worldwide too, it's not unique for Brisbane to see warehouses and industrial areas included in a statistical division/suburb density calculation. We also see similar densities to the West End in Woolloongabba, South Brisbane, Toowong, Spring Hill et al so I'd not say it is a statistic confined to the West End.

Note, this isn't a slight on Brisbane nor is it an indication of urban vibrancy or any other livability measure beyond transport provision and the required density to sustain a service. :)
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B
There's actually a thread on this at the fordforums as well.

Most folks who posted on there work about 30 minutes from their home, with one chap catching a train from Ringwood East to Frankston every week day.

Apart from work, a lot of people are retired, work part time (so go shopping all the time) or just live off Centrelink. They're the ones who would be catching trains, trams and buses into suburbia.
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JayT
crazyknightsfan said:
Brisbane has plenty of low-density single-dwelling blocks within a few kilometres of the CBD - e.g. West End and Buranda, Woolloongabba
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Brisbane has very few parks and doesn't have a lot if industrial land close into the city centre so within a 5km ring you end up with about the same amount of people as in Melbourne.

j
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