Case Study: Happy Bay Peninsula These background notes describe the physical characteristics and accessibility profile for a fictitious community located on a place called the Happy Bay Peninsula. Happy Bay is a small bay located between the mainland and a moderate sized peninsula known as the Happy Bay Peninsula (shown in Figure 1). The bay is part of a larger harbour surrounded by Stormhaven a harbour city. On the northern most point of the Peninsula is the Happy Bay Campus of Stormhaven University, which hosts the Arts and Engineering Faculties, serving some 3,800 students and 630 academic teaching and research staff. On the western side of the Peninsula is a residential suburb known as Villaville, which is home to around 1,800 residents living in detached dwellings. Adjoining Villaville is a disused industrial site known as The Salt Mines, which used to be a salt processing plant. To the east is a small industrial park occupied by Infinity, a software company that has a 2,262 strong workforce. The greater metropolitan area of Stormhaven has sprawled progressively inland. The state government, keen to halt this continued sprawl has released a new metropolitan strategy aimed at increasing development within existing urbanised areas through a program of urban renewal. The Salt Mines has been earmarked as an urban renewal site and already there is a significant development in the early stages of construction. The Happy Bay Peninsula suffers from chronic road traffic congestion. There is only one arterial road University Drive - providing access into and out of the area. Happy Circuit provides access to Villaville and The Salt Mines to the west and Silicon Close provides access to the industrial park from University Drive. Congestion has become worse since Infinity moved to the Peninsula, leading to frustration and opposition to further development amongst some Villaville residents. There are concerns about what the introduction of 5,000 new residents at The Salt Mines will do to congestion levels on the Peninsula. The council is keen to consider alternative and potentially lower-cost options before committing to the road widening. Stormhaven University Villaville Residential Development The Salt Mines Proposed Urban Renewal Site Infinity Industrial Park Stormhaven University Bushland Carpark Villaville Happy Cat University 0000|||| Bus Stop Shuttle Stop/Bus Stop Entry to Shared Path Signalised Intersections Roadway Bus Route 301 Shuttle Route Shared Path Train Line Happy Bay The Salt Mines Scicone University Dr Infinity -O- Happy Bay Railway Station Tim Figure 1: Geographic features and location of activities on the Happy Bay Peninsula Key Stakeholders There are several stakeholders who take an interest and play active roles in the issues around transport and access on the Happy Bay Peninsula. Happy Bay Council The Local Government Area (LGA) of Happy Bay extends to the south of the Peninsula and is home to some 40,000 residents. The Happy Bay LGA is approximately 10kms from the Stormhaven City CBD, which can be accessed by train from Happy Bay Rail Station. University of Stormhaven The University's Happy Bay campus was founded 35 years ago. At the time, the state government promised a direct rail link to the campus sites but the rail-line never eventuated. The University runs a shuttle bus service during semester to compensate for the poor bus service. Infinity Infinity is a global technology company whose primary Australian office is based in the industrial park on the Happy Bay Peninsula. The 2,262 strong workforce is primarily made up of people under the age of 35. Infinity moved to Happy Bay two years ago after outgrowing its CBD offices. Unfortunately, many of the staff that previously caught public transport or cycled to work now have to drive and are very dissatisfied with the transport options at the new offices. Infinity is still growing and would like to build a new office block to house another 900 staff but they can only do this by building over car parking or by purchasing expensive new land. Australian Dream Australian Dream is the major developer for The Salt Mines site. This project is one of their first high-density urban renewal projects. Villaville Resident Action Group The Villaville Resident Action Group is a non-government organisation with a long history of trying to preserve bushland on the Peninsula and protect the quality of the surrounding waterways. The group has also been active in trying to have better transport services and access developed for the Peninsula. When the scale of redevelopment at The Salt Mines was announced, their membership more than tripled. There is division over whether the road should be widened or whether public transport should be improved Making Tracks and Wheels in Motion (MTWM - public transport service providers) Making Tracks and Wheels in Motion (MTWM) are the providers of the rail and bus services within the Stormhaven metropolitan region. Transport for People (TfP) Transport for People (TFP) is the transport planning authority for the state government. Recent changes to the transport administration has meant that planning and coordination functions from the public transport providers and road authority have been relocated and amalgamated into the one division within Transport for People in an effort to create greater opportunities for collaboration and coordination between transport modes. There is also a contracts division within Transport for People that set the service standards that Making Tracks and Wheels in Motion have to work to. Transport and access to Happy Bay peninsula The transport services that serve the Happy Bay Peninsula are highlighted in Figure 2. The road network is relatively simple and provides access for both private passenger and delivery vehicles as well as public transport services to the Peninsula buses. The train service runs at 10-minute frequencies during peak periods, but to reach any of the sites on the Peninsula by public transport it is necessary to transfer to the 301 bus service. Unfortunately the 301 bus stop is located some 200 metres from the rail station and takes a very circuitous trip along the Peninsula leading to a high level of dissatisfaction amongst passengers. Service levels and travel times for public transport to and from Happy Bay Peninsula are shown in Table 1. Table 1: Relative travel times for active and public transport and private car travel on the Happy Bay Peninsula Travel Mode Round Trip (min) 70 Frequency Train to Uni (min) 35 Train to V'ville (min) 45 V'ville to Infinity (min) 50 Train to Infinity (min) 25 Viville to Uni (min) 60 Bus 301 University Shuttle 30 mins 15 mins in morning & evening peaks, 30 mins in off-peaks 40 20 Car 30 35 32 18 Shared Path 15 30 min walk 15 min ride Train 10 mins to city CBD The collector road that links the activities on Happy Bay Peninsula to the rest of Stormhaven, University Drive, operates at a poor Level of Service (LOS) during the morning peak period. Between 7:30am-8:30am (morning peak), the southern sections of University Drive are operating at LOS D or LOS E on most weekdays. The maximum hourly capacity of University Drive is approximately 3,000 vehicles/hour in each direction or 1,500 vehicle/hour/lane. Of the 5,123 car trips for the journey-to-work around half, 2,561, are travelling between 7:30am-8:30am, keeping in mind that most of the Villaville residents are travelling out of the Happy Bay Peninsula. Some drivers, approximately, half, arrive at work on the shoulders of the peak period either because their work or lecture starting times are earlier or later or as a way of avoiding congestion. This is consistent with peak spreading patterns on most roads throughout Stormhaven. Bus Stop Shuttle Stop/Bus Stop Entry to Shared Path Signalised Intersections Roadway Bus Route 301 Shuttle Route Shared Path OO Stormhaven University, Villaville --- Train Line Happy Bay The Salt Mines Infinity -0- Happy Bay Railway Station 1km Figure 2: Transport services to Happy Bay Peninsula The mode-splits at the three key sites for residents, employees and students are shown in Table 2 and as can be seen the mode-split for the journey-to-work is dominated by private car travel. The data shown in Table 2 was collated by a Happy Bay Council Officer using census data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) in 2010 and accordingly may be different in 2020. The Wheels in Motion bus fleet has carrying capacities of 60 (45 seated and 15 standing) for standard buses and 77 (52 seated and 25 standing) for articulated buses. Table 2: Population, parking and journey-to-work mode---splits for the Happy Bay Peninsula Stakeholder Population Car Parking Car Infinity Employees 2,262 1,850 9% (204) 1% (23) 4% (89) 86% (1,945) 91% (573) 630 570 6% (38) 1% (6) 2% (13) Stormhaven University Staff Students (average semester day) 3,800 3,000 84% (2,520) 11% (330) 1% (30) 4% (120) Villaville Residents 1,800 (720*) 2-3 per dwelling 67% (482) 28% (202) 2% (14) 3% (22) The Salt Mines 8,000 4,000 (proposed) (5,000**) *Number of working people in the residential population. **Future population that will be commuting for work or education in The Salt Mines Problem 5: Optimising bus services within the Happy Bay Peninsula (25 marks) At the request of Transport for People (TfP), the Wheels in Motion (WIM) bus company has decided to review its current bus operations in order to help support a mode-shift from private car use to higher levels of public transport use. To do this, they hired you as a consultant to help them reconfigure their bus routes and rolling stock allocation. On inspecting their operations, you find the following: WIM 301 bus route services all three key destination zones on the Happy Bay Peninsula - Infinity, Stormhaven University and The Salt Mines & Villaville. The round trip takes 70 minutes and with the exception of the university stop, all dwell-times at bus stops fall within a 20 second dwell-window The service currently operates at 30-minute headways from the bus stop located 200m from the Happy Bay Train Station WIM indicates that it can deploy up to 8 vehicles and drivers to service any improvements to the 301 bus route, but prefer to keep the resource allocation as low as possible for deployment on other routes within their contract area. After undertaking a customer feedback survey, customers cite the primary reason for why they don't like using the 301 service as wait times and travel times that are too long by comparison with other options. a) Using a Marey Chart, draw the service pattern showing runtimes and dwell-times in the schedule for 301 bus services operating at 30-minute headways (7 marks) b) Calculate how many vehicles and drivers are needed to service this route (3 marks) c) What changes could be made to the route configuration and allocation of rolling stock resources that would improve the service quality by reducing average waiting times and travel times for customers? (5 marks) d) What changes to end-to-end run times would need to be made to your new service configuration to reduce the rolling stock allocation? (5 marks) e) What changes to the physical infrastructure on the Peninsula could be made to enable the delivery of better public transport services? Keep in mind that lower cost options are more likely to be implemented than high cost projects. (5 marks) Problem 6: Interchanging between heavy rail and bus services to access Happy Bay Peninsula (25 marks) Transport for People has also asked you to make recommendations to them on further improvements that could be made to the interchange with train services at the Happy Bay Train Station At present, train services run at 10-minute headways during the peak period and at 20- minute headways outside the shoulders of the peak and during the day, with significant reductions in service frequencies during late evening and early morning periods. a) What changes could be made to the interchange that would help to improve the ability of customers to transfer between bus and heavy rail services? You can use a diagram to help describe your option/s. (5 marks) b) The schedule for rail services stopping at Happy Bay Rail Station operates to a clock- face timetable at the headways described above. Draw up a 24-hour clock-face timetable for your feeder bus service/s schedule to show how it would work alongside the schedule for train services. You will need to provide an indicative clock-face timetable for rail services as well given the description above. Discuss the benefits of your recommendations given the design of your timetable (10 marks) c) Describe the LOS for your service with respect to capacity, frequency and hours-of- service and describe what types of customer trips the service would be able to accommodate given what you know about the land-use activities that take place on the Peninsula. Does your service adequately meet the needs of the broad groups of Happy Bay customers residents, students and office workers? (10 marks) Case Study: Happy Bay Peninsula These background notes describe the physical characteristics and accessibility profile for a fictitious community located on a place called the Happy Bay Peninsula. Happy Bay is a small bay located between the mainland and a moderate sized peninsula known as the Happy Bay Peninsula (shown in Figure 1). The bay is part of a larger harbour surrounded by Stormhaven a harbour city. On the northern most point of the Peninsula is the Happy Bay Campus of Stormhaven University, which hosts the Arts and Engineering Faculties, serving some 3,800 students and 630 academic teaching and research staff. On the western side of the Peninsula is a residential suburb known as Villaville, which is home to around 1,800 residents living in detached dwellings. Adjoining Villaville is a disused industrial site known as The Salt Mines, which used to be a salt processing plant. To the east is a small industrial park occupied by Infinity, a software company that has a 2,262 strong workforce. The greater metropolitan area of Stormhaven has sprawled progressively inland. The state government, keen to halt this continued sprawl has released a new metropolitan strategy aimed at increasing development within existing urbanised areas through a program of urban renewal. The Salt Mines has been earmarked as an urban renewal site and already there is a significant development in the early stages of construction. The Happy Bay Peninsula suffers from chronic road traffic congestion. There is only one arterial road University Drive - providing access into and out of the area. Happy Circuit provides access to Villaville and The Salt Mines to the west and Silicon Close provides access to the industrial park from University Drive. Congestion has become worse since Infinity moved to the Peninsula, leading to frustration and opposition to further development amongst some Villaville residents. There are concerns about what the introduction of 5,000 new residents at The Salt Mines will do to congestion levels on the Peninsula. The council is keen to consider alternative and potentially lower-cost options before committing to the road widening. Stormhaven University Villaville Residential Development The Salt Mines Proposed Urban Renewal Site Infinity Industrial Park Stormhaven University Bushland Carpark Villaville Happy Cat University 0000|||| Bus Stop Shuttle Stop/Bus Stop Entry to Shared Path Signalised Intersections Roadway Bus Route 301 Shuttle Route Shared Path Train Line Happy Bay The Salt Mines Scicone University Dr Infinity -O- Happy Bay Railway Station Tim Figure 1: Geographic features and location of activities on the Happy Bay Peninsula Key Stakeholders There are several stakeholders who take an interest and play active roles in the issues around transport and access on the Happy Bay Peninsula. Happy Bay Council The Local Government Area (LGA) of Happy Bay extends to the south of the Peninsula and is home to some 40,000 residents. The Happy Bay LGA is approximately 10kms from the Stormhaven City CBD, which can be accessed by train from Happy Bay Rail Station. University of Stormhaven The University's Happy Bay campus was founded 35 years ago. At the time, the state government promised a direct rail link to the campus sites but the rail-line never eventuated. The University runs a shuttle bus service during semester to compensate for the poor bus service. Infinity Infinity is a global technology company whose primary Australian office is based in the industrial park on the Happy Bay Peninsula. The 2,262 strong workforce is primarily made up of people under the age of 35. Infinity moved to Happy Bay two years ago after outgrowing its CBD offices. Unfortunately, many of the staff that previously caught public transport or cycled to work now have to drive and are very dissatisfied with the transport options at the new offices. Infinity is still growing and would like to build a new office block to house another 900 staff but they can only do this by building over car parking or by purchasing expensive new land. Australian Dream Australian Dream is the major developer for The Salt Mines site. This project is one of their first high-density urban renewal projects. Villaville Resident Action Group The Villaville Resident Action Group is a non-government organisation with a long history of trying to preserve bushland on the Peninsula and protect the quality of the surrounding waterways. The group has also been active in trying to have better transport services and access developed for the Peninsula. When the scale of redevelopment at The Salt Mines was announced, their membership more than tripled. There is division over whether the road should be widened or whether public transport should be improved Making Tracks and Wheels in Motion (MTWM - public transport service providers) Making Tracks and Wheels in Motion (MTWM) are the providers of the rail and bus services within the Stormhaven metropolitan region. Transport for People (TfP) Transport for People (TFP) is the transport planning authority for the state government. Recent changes to the transport administration has meant that planning and coordination functions from the public transport providers and road authority have been relocated and amalgamated into the one division within Transport for People in an effort to create greater opportunities for collaboration and coordination between transport modes. There is also a contracts division within Transport for People that set the service standards that Making Tracks and Wheels in Motion have to work to. Transport and access to Happy Bay peninsula The transport services that serve the Happy Bay Peninsula are highlighted in Figure 2. The road network is relatively simple and provides access for both private passenger and delivery vehicles as well as public transport services to the Peninsula buses. The train service runs at 10-minute frequencies during peak periods, but to reach any of the sites on the Peninsula by public transport it is necessary to transfer to the 301 bus service. Unfortunately the 301 bus stop is located some 200 metres from the rail station and takes a very circuitous trip along the Peninsula leading to a high level of dissatisfaction amongst passengers. Service levels and travel times for public transport to and from Happy Bay Peninsula are shown in Table 1. Table 1: Relative travel times for active and public transport and private car travel on the Happy Bay Peninsula Travel Mode Round Trip (min) 70 Frequency Train to Uni (min) 35 Train to V'ville (min) 45 V'ville to Infinity (min) 50 Train to Infinity (min) 25 Viville to Uni (min) 60 Bus 301 University Shuttle 30 mins 15 mins in morning & evening peaks, 30 mins in off-peaks 40 20 Car 30 35 32 18 Shared Path 15 30 min walk 15 min ride Train 10 mins to city CBD The collector road that links the activities on Happy Bay Peninsula to the rest of Stormhaven, University Drive, operates at a poor Level of Service (LOS) during the morning peak period. Between 7:30am-8:30am (morning peak), the southern sections of University Drive are operating at LOS D or LOS E on most weekdays. The maximum hourly capacity of University Drive is approximately 3,000 vehicles/hour in each direction or 1,500 vehicle/hour/lane. Of the 5,123 car trips for the journey-to-work around half, 2,561, are travelling between 7:30am-8:30am, keeping in mind that most of the Villaville residents are travelling out of the Happy Bay Peninsula. Some drivers, approximately, half, arrive at work on the shoulders of the peak period either because their work or lecture starting times are earlier or later or as a way of avoiding congestion. This is consistent with peak spreading patterns on most roads throughout Stormhaven. Bus Stop Shuttle Stop/Bus Stop Entry to Shared Path Signalised Intersections Roadway Bus Route 301 Shuttle Route Shared Path OO Stormhaven University, Villaville --- Train Line Happy Bay The Salt Mines Infinity -0- Happy Bay Railway Station 1km Figure 2: Transport services to Happy Bay Peninsula The mode-splits at the three key sites for residents, employees and students are shown in Table 2 and as can be seen the mode-split for the journey-to-work is dominated by private car travel. The data shown in Table 2 was collated by a Happy Bay Council Officer using census data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) in 2010 and accordingly may be different in 2020. The Wheels in Motion bus fleet has carrying capacities of 60 (45 seated and 15 standing) for standard buses and 77 (52 seated and 25 standing) for articulated buses. Table 2: Population, parking and journey-to-work mode---splits for the Happy Bay Peninsula Stakeholder Population Car Parking Car Infinity Employees 2,262 1,850 9% (204) 1% (23) 4% (89) 86% (1,945) 91% (573) 630 570 6% (38) 1% (6) 2% (13) Stormhaven University Staff Students (average semester day) 3,800 3,000 84% (2,520) 11% (330) 1% (30) 4% (120) Villaville Residents 1,800 (720*) 2-3 per dwelling 67% (482) 28% (202) 2% (14) 3% (22) The Salt Mines 8,000 4,000 (proposed) (5,000**) *Number of working people in the residential population. **Future population that will be commuting for work or education in The Salt Mines Problem 5: Optimising bus services within the Happy Bay Peninsula (25 marks) At the request of Transport for People (TfP), the Wheels in Motion (WIM) bus company has decided to review its current bus operations in order to help support a mode-shift from private car use to higher levels of public transport use. To do this, they hired you as a consultant to help them reconfigure their bus routes and rolling stock allocation. On inspecting their operations, you find the following: WIM 301 bus route services all three key destination zones on the Happy Bay Peninsula - Infinity, Stormhaven University and The Salt Mines & Villaville. The round trip takes 70 minutes and with the exception of the university stop, all dwell-times at bus stops fall within a 20 second dwell-window The service currently operates at 30-minute headways from the bus stop located 200m from the Happy Bay Train Station WIM indicates that it can deploy up to 8 vehicles and drivers to service any improvements to the 301 bus route, but prefer to keep the resource allocation as low as possible for deployment on other routes within their contract area. After undertaking a customer feedback survey, customers cite the primary reason for why they don't like using the 301 service as wait times and travel times that are too long by comparison with other options. a) Using a Marey Chart, draw the service pattern showing runtimes and dwell-times in the schedule for 301 bus services operating at 30-minute headways (7 marks) b) Calculate how many vehicles and drivers are needed to service this route (3 marks) c) What changes could be made to the route configuration and allocation of rolling stock resources that would improve the service quality by reducing average waiting times and travel times for customers? (5 marks) d) What changes to end-to-end run times would need to be made to your new service configuration to reduce the rolling stock allocation? (5 marks) e) What changes to the physical infrastructure on the Peninsula could be made to enable the delivery of better public transport services? Keep in mind that lower cost options are more likely to be implemented than high cost projects. (5 marks) Problem 6: Interchanging between heavy rail and bus services to access Happy Bay Peninsula (25 marks) Transport for People has also asked you to make recommendations to them on further improvements that could be made to the interchange with train services at the Happy Bay Train Station At present, train services run at 10-minute headways during the peak period and at 20- minute headways outside the shoulders of the peak and during the day, with significant reductions in service frequencies during late evening and early morning periods. a) What changes could be made to the interchange that would help to improve the ability of customers to transfer between bus and heavy rail services? You can use a diagram to help describe your option/s. (5 marks) b) The schedule for rail services stopping at Happy Bay Rail Station operates to a clock- face timetable at the headways described above. Draw up a 24-hour clock-face timetable for your feeder bus service/s schedule to show how it would work alongside the schedule for train services. You will need to provide an indicative clock-face timetable for rail services as well given the description above. Discuss the benefits of your recommendations given the design of your timetable (10 marks) c) Describe the LOS for your service with respect to capacity, frequency and hours-of- service and describe what types of customer trips the service would be able to accommodate given what you know about the land-use activities that take place on the Peninsula. Does your service adequately meet the needs of the broad groups of Happy Bay customers residents, students and office workers? (10 marks)