Railway Improvements That Have Led to Major Cuts In Bus Services (outside UK)

[johncrossley]

This thread in the UK Railway Discussion area has discussed the effect on bus services when rail improvements are made

Railway Improvements That Have Led to Major Cuts In Bus Services

Just wondering which rail improvements in recent years have most likely led to major cuts in ‘competing’ bus services. Rail improvements could be: New or reopened lines New Stations Frequency Uplifts Journey time improvements New rolling stock Bus Cuts could be: Route withdrawal or...

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What happens to bus services in your country when rail improvements happen?

 

[DanielB]

In the Netherlands it really depends on the local situation what happens.

A specific case which came to mind when seeing this topic was Breukelen: as of December 14th, 2008 the Sprinter service between Breukelen and Utrecht had it's frequency increased to every 15 minutes. At the same date bus 130, which used to run via the highway from Vinkeveen to Utrecht, was terminated in Breukelen. And bus 120 serving the villages along the railway between Amsterdam and Breukelen had it's route changed: a loop from the village Breukelen across the Amsterdam-Rhine Canal to Breukelen station was added and the route was terminated short in Maarssen.
The last change however resulted in such a lot of complaints that already as of December 14th, 2008 a temporary route 20 bus from Maarssen to Utrecht was introduced and as of March 2009 bus 120 ran till Utrecht Central Station again. The loop via Breukelen station however still exists today.

And though the connections are certainly used (the 130 bus even has an awkward 10/20 interval to improve transfer times to the trains), there still are people using the bus all the way to Utrecht mainly for fare reasons.

Another example is the Alblasserwaard where until 2006 buses ran parallel to the railway between Sliedrecht and Gorinchem. As of 2007 both the trains and the buses were tendered as one franchise which was won by Arriva. Though service improvements would take a few years as additional tracks needed to be built, the buses and trains were immediately transformed into an integrated network with regards to fares and services.
The bus from Rotterdam to Gorinchem was shortened to Sliedrecht and parallel to the railway a separate bus service was introduced with smaller buses and more designed to connect the villages along the railway with the stations. Initially that bus ran from Sliedrecht to Gorinchem, but when Boven-Hardinxveld station was opened the bus route was changed to terminate there as the route from Boven-Hardinxveld to Gorinchem was just a long dike through nothing. And nowadays this area is served by a neighboorhood bus serving the villages of Boven-Hardinxveld, Hardinxveld, Giessendam and Giessenburg and connecting them to the three stations the municipality of Hardinxveld-Giessendam now has.

 

[dutchflyer]

As a very broad+general rule-and this also depends on how ´RAIL´ is defined: its much, much more likely in cases where a new metro/tram/light-rail line is built-and finally even opened. As a broad rule, buslines will be shortened and pax advised to change to that railline. A local line may still be kept on for those who just happen to live along and too far out from a new stop/station.
Daniel just beat me-incidentally while I was myself comparing new and older busmaps for certain areas in Nederland _ it struck me that f.e. in ´Achterhoek´=area eastside of Gelderland, N/E of Arnhem, on weekENDs nearly all former buslinks between minor villages which are also rail-linked are terminated. BUT in this area there once was a quite mighty and in competition with NS local buscompany- GTW=Geldersche Tram Wegen, who was in active competition with the not that very good local diesel lines by NS. These lines are now also ´privatised´ and in this period done by Arriva, under the general brand of RRReis for the whole province.
BUT other side also exist: fast express buslines are run from Utrecht southward to province of Noord-Brabant: Geertruidenberg-Oosterhout-BREDA- even every 15/20 mins in peak times, currently also by Arriva, and the direct ink is even a little quicker as the ev. 30 mins with a change raillink Utrecht-Breda. Right now I am on my way to those-as these weeks they offer a very cheap special dayticket for just 2,50.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Presumably the Graz-Klagenfurt ÖBB express bus has stopped running now the full Koralmbahn railway is open?

 

[DanielB]

There's also a nice example of how buses and trains can exist next to eachother in the Netherlands by the way. NS vetoed a direct bus from Amersfoort Centraal to the Utrecht Science Park for a long time, leading to an intensive lobby by Utrecht province as they wanted to relieve Utrecht Centraal Station and it's connections to the Science Park.

Eventually NS gave up and the 202 bus was rerouted via Amersfoort Centraal in January 2021 and had its frequency increased to every 10 minutes. Gradually it grew and frequencies were increased and now five years later there's a bus every 5 minutes on this route and the 12 meter long buses have been replaced by 15 and 18 meter buses which actually struggle to keep up with demand. And the trains aren't a lot quieter now.

 

[signed]

Introduction of trams and metros will always cause a major route recast in any city in France (usually more than just removing duplicates of the new build)

In Rennes for example, a major city-wide bus recast happened along with metro b opening.

That also included:

- Spreading most lines of the interurban public coach network BreizhGo out of the central bus station to the stations of line b. Nowadays, only major lines serve the central bus station directly.
- Some lines still serving central now only serve the central bus station and one line b terminal (on a pick-up/set-down basis)

Brest is set to open tram line B and BRT line D, causing a major recast, mostly involving moving a lot of bus lines out of the city-center to stations on line B and D.

Presumably the Graz-Klagenfurt ÖBB express bus has stopped running now the full Koralmbahn railway is open?

Yes, it has

 

[Santa Claus]

Introduction of trams and metros will always cause a major route recast in any city in France (usually more than just removing duplicates of the new build)

In the 90s and 00s, it was common to terminate all bus routes at the first tram stop the encounter and run them more frequently, so that total bus mileage didn’t decrease, despite significant route shortenings and removal of express busses.

In general, it is helpful for the bus operator (or decider) to have some stake in the rail operator, so that it isn’t seen as competition (e. g. when Chemnitz – Stollberg was tram-trained, the regional bus operator (Autobus Sachsen) had 40% ownership of the tram-train company, the remaining 60% owned by the city-owned Chemnitz tramway company (Chemnitzer Verkehrs-Aktiengesellschaft). ). Best if bus and rail are operated by the same company.

 

[Austriantrain]

Presumably the Graz-Klagenfurt ÖBB express bus has stopped running now the full Koralmbahn railway is open?

Yes.

 

[RT4038]

Best if bus and rail are operated by the same company.

Co-ordination is only going to be achieved in this way. It is not so much who they are being actually operated by (i.e. who owns the rolling stock and employs the staff), but who is funding them (and thereby specifying the services). It also needs to be a common budget / cost centre between the two (not good enough to have one overall funder but split into a bus department and a rail department, for instance).

 

[andersj]

There's also a nice example of how buses and trains can exist next to eachother in the Netherlands by the way. NS vetoed a direct bus from Amersfoort Centraal to the Utrecht Science Park for a long time, leading to an intensive lobby by Utrecht province as they wanted to relieve Utrecht Centraal Station and it's connections to the Science Park.

Eventually NS gave up and the 202 bus was rerouted via Amersfoort Centraal in January 2021 and had its frequency increased to every 10 minutes. Gradually it grew and frequencies were increased and now five years later there's a bus every 5 minutes on this route and the 12 meter long buses have been replaced by 15 and 18 meter buses which actually struggle to keep up with demand. And the trains aren't a lot quieter now.

If a new connection provides benefits such as shorter travel time and/or no transfers, then it tends to create new customers instead of stealing them from existing connections. Many people probably didn't use public transport between Amersfoort and Utrecht Science Park because of the detour via Utrecht Centraal and maybe they didn't even consider living in Amersfoort while working or studying in the Science Park.

Here in Northern Denmark we also have a parallel service between the cities of Frederikshavn and Aalborg, where the bus 973X is just as fast as the train and you can use the same ticket or subscription for both the train and bus. The busses (Scania Interlink HD and MD + a few VDL Futura) are actually a bit more comfortable than the trains.

 

[NCT]

A slightly naughty thread bump, but in order not to clog the domestic thread -

It's not entirely true that buses (or trams) don't attempt to serve rail distance markets:

Belgium has quite a few express inter-urban buses. Brussels has the R27 running all the way to Haacht (albeit this journey by rail is awkward). Dortmund's U43 (which for all intents and purposes is a bus on steel wheels) parallels the S4. Gdynia's buses and trolleybuses parallel the SKM all the way to Sopot.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It's not entirely true that buses (or trams) don't attempt to serve rail distance markets:

Belgium has quite a few express inter-urban buses. Brussels has the R27 running all the way to Haacht (albeit this journey by rail is awkward). Dortmund's U43 (which for all intents and purposes is a bus on steel wheels) parallels the S4. Gdynia's buses and trolleybuses parallel the SKM all the way to Sopot.

The Vevey-Villeneuve trolleybus parallels the railway for its full length too - but it isn't intended to compete, rather to complement (in essence providing the very local service, where the "S-bahn" provides the local service and the IRs the faster one). This is probably true in the majority of cases in regulated systems. However it's unlikely many people will use that service for its full length as the same tickets are valid on both bus and rail so there is no financial advantage to doing so, unlike England where the bus would be £3 capped and the train probably about a tenner. I did it once out of interest, and, like doing the entirety of the Bedford-Oxford X5 in its current city bus form, once was quite sufficient.

 

[mountainpixel]

I want to make an actual market driven example and not just municipalities not paying for bus service anymore.

The modernization and electrification of the railway line between Lindau and Munich had a big impact on the amount of coach passengers. Train service has since improved significantly and made taking the bus less attractive. There are now less buses running than 10 years ago.

 

[Bemined]

When the Hofpleinlijn between The Hague and Rotterdam got converted to lightrail and they rerouted it from Hofplein to Centraal station through the new tunnel, they cut the bus services between Bergschenhoek and Rotterdam Centraal at the new interchange station at Rodenrijs.