The bus system is a victim of its own success

Dunedin bus planners are allowing downtown bus stops to be used unwisely for short-term bus parking, while proposing a complicated high-tech solution to solve a simple problem, writes Peter Dowden.

There is little enough light at the best of times in Dunedin's inner city south of the Octagon.

When a bus parks outside a shop or cafe for seven and a-half minutes to make up its time, it is like closing the curtains.

Even if the bus is one of Dunedin's several new "Euro IV" low-emission buses, it will still be accused of belching diesel fumes while it waits.

"Layover", or marking time by the roadside, is an essential component of good timetabling, as it keeps buses from early running.

Passengers will tolerate the occasional late bus, but departing early is the most heinous crime a bus driver can commit.

The problem of increasing bus layover times in the inner city is caused by local government policy, but the councils need to recognise it as a success of their policies, not a failure.

Bus deregulation led to an incentive to import smoke-belching second-hand Japanese buses, and by the early 1990s these were the defining feature of Dunedin transport.

The regional council has recently made a huge improvement to Dunedin's bus fleet, requiring its suppliers to provide new, quiet, low-floor, low-emission buses.

These new buses are much more powerful, storming up Dunedin's hills, and with their modern braking systems, swooping down hills safely instead of grinding down slowly in low gear.

The low floors and "kneeling" suspension allow much quicker boarding and alighting for elderly and infirm passengers.

Meanwhile, the Dunedin City Council's ban on several turning manoeuvres in George St and, of course, the parking changes, have eased travel through town for buses.

Higher speed and brief bus-stop dwell times allow buses to sprint through the timetables, which have not been adjusted accordingly: some timetables date to the trolley-bus era.

The bus service always had a downtown timing point, formerly the Exchange, but in recent decades just south of the Octagon.

Dunedin City Councillor Michael Guest describes this layover area as "a hell of a problem" (ODT, 6.11.09), despite these bus stops being not particularly busy in passenger numbers.

The major bus stop for boardings is outside Farmers in George St.

Here, buses pull up and quickly discharge and load passengers.

There is no timing point, so drivers move off without delay.

Eliminating the downtown timing point from the timetable will resolve almost all problems at the Princes St layover.

Buses simply need to arrive in town just in time to leave.

This approach would return bus stops to their original purpose, as places for boarding and alighting buses, not short-term bus parking.

The challenge then remains to place the layover time elsewhere.

The suburban terminus would be a good place, although idling engines can cause annoyance there too.

As for an electric bus linking each end of town, well, we had these 25 years ago and our city council got rid of them.

If the aim of an electric shuttle is to provide the same level of service as at present, a pretty large fleet will be needed.

Dunedin's bus routes converging on George St provide a bus every two or three minutes.

The suggestion that diesel buses terminate at either end of town and offload passengers to an electric shuttle demonstrates perhaps the biggest problem facing Dunedin's bus service: those responsible for it do not use it.

Any bus user will tell you that catching one bus to town is already a challenge; having to transfer to travel the last couple of blocks will ruin the experience.

Those least able to use a car as an alternative, the aged and disabled, would remain on the service, struggling at a windswept transfer station from their diesel bus to the shiny new electric shuttle.

The city council would have thus done to bus users what its parking changes have already done to motorists: isolate the city centre from its citizens.

Battery-powered vehicles are in their infancy, but hybrid and low-emission diesel vehicles are available now.

Technology should be applied city-wide to the entire fleet, not used to benefit inner-city retailers to the great inconvenience of bus users.

• Peter Dowden, of Warrington, drove buses in Dunedin for 14 years and now works in publishing.