Opinion — Max Thum: Suburban Rail Loop. It’s needed to transition to a diverse polycentric transport network.
Recently, I was made aware of a good informative video about the Suburban Rail Loop made by RMTransit and I rightfully respect his point of view and rightfully enjoy his quality journalism and I encourage him to continue bringing thoughtful discussion about the Suburban Rail Loop. The point of this article isn’t to go against RMTransits views but rather discuss talk about this project and argue that this project is needed despite the projects political nature and it is far from a perfect project and to be fair, I doubt there has been a project that has ever been perfect and its certainly not the Murray Basin Rail Project.
The Political Nature of this Project.
Do I agree with Suburban Rail Loop’s announcement in 2018? Absolutely not! But the Government’s intention is there, this project has the opportunity to change and move Melbourne from a monocentric rail network into a polycentric rail network. The sole purpose of Suburban Rail Loop is to set future precedence and a roadmap for future generations to come.
Let me explain the SRL when it was first announced, this project seemed like a complete political ploy to convince voters at the time of the 2018 State Election and man. Lots of people bought into it, without any information on a business case, no information about how the project would be built or even funded. It seemed like a complete pipe dream, with a fancy government animation depicting such a perfect network harmoniously working, with everything so seamless and ideal with voiceovers like “The biggest public transport project in history is coming to Victoria” with overly dramatic music from Mark Petrie, known for making Holywood Blockbuster trailer music.
But learning more information, it started to get easier to understand but the water is still muddy about the core project details that would’ve been normally released before any government project getting a green light for construction.
In recent weeks as revealed to Melbourne’s The Age, the Suburban Rail Loop had been revealed to be a Closed Door project under the name of Project Halo which was done without the knowledge of the Department of Transport Victoria at the time. This was wrong by many accounts, the DOTV should’ve been consulted and made informed decisions about how this can be sustainably delivered and announced in a way that isn’t a political spin to win an election.
This deserves an F for the political nature of this. The public should’ve been consulted about this and able to make a vote through Census or some sort of way. This shouldn’t be a closed-door project for something so major.
The Core of a Monocentric Network and why do we need to transition to a Polycentric.
Melbourne being a monocentric transport network, the hierarchy is that the Trains are used as the core mode of public transportation where the trains all head into the Inner Core (Richmond, South Yarra, Flinders Street, City Loop and North Melbourne) where most of the interchanges are done.
Melbourne’s monocentric network is slowly showing its age and proving to have choke points where stations are overcrowded and these are highly critical to allowing the passenger to get from A to B with one or two interchanges at most.
Just Flinders Street Station alone on a weekday pre-COVID-19, about 105,000 people and 1,500 trains go through Flinders Street Station being a major hub to all parts of the entire network.
The whole concept of the SRL is to break this monocentric network and use these future growth hubs as a means of a new circle line that introduces a two-seat journey without entering the CBD. Effectively making it polycentric.
By creating the network polycentric, opens new opportunities for growth hubs that are turning into satellite cities that would be home to businesses and make it easier for resources to be better allocated.
I need to stress this out, the Suburban Rail Loop isn’t one full line around Melbourne but rather three different lines that would form it. It’s quite likely no one would do the entire round loop in one trip (realistically speaking (not trainspotters :P)).
This isn’t simply another singular rail project, this is a future blueprint and a series of rail infrastructure projects to unlocking Melbourne’s potential as a growing and business-oriented city that is diversifying out and away from the standard CBD grid that we know but evenly distributing out how we can work, live and sustainably grow, making it much more viable to live or work in more highly densely urbanized hubs whilst slowing down the urban sprawl in some areas and reducing the strain off the CBD.
This is literally Sydney Metro but for Melbourne. I think even more can be done and planned out for future Metro Lines that can supplement SRL as a whole.
- M1 (SRL North and East): Airport — Cheltenham Southland (Ideally up to 1h, 20m one way)
- M2: Airport — Sunshine (SRL Airport / MARL). (20m)
- M3: Sunshine — Werribee via Wyndham Vale? (SRL West) (30–40m)
Cost of SRL, but it's worth it in the long term.
SRL, no doubt it has questionable price tags for sure but this definitely seems like an oversight and seems way out of line. $50 billion is only an estimate and most likely the cost will be much lower than expected. But to assume this is the final price isn’t a good indicator or overall idea to give to the general public.
The project cost was recently revealed in the Business Case and currently, it stands up to a total cost of $45.8 billion alone for SRL North and East respectively. I’m gonna round it up to $50 billion since project overruns and over cost.
This cost is factoring in many variables, which I’m gonna explain in a maths equation which if we do use all $50 billion that is estimated for this project.
(A) Total Cost of Project, (B) Total Cost per Phase, (V)- Property Acquisition, (W) — Construction Cost, (X) — Track and Signaling, (Y) Stations and Interchanges, (Z) — Trains
(V)+(W)+(X)+(Y) = (A) billion for Construction Package / divided by 4 (A)/4=(B) into four different projects, roughly $(B) billion for each project phase (as described in the map above, Stage 1, 2, 3,4), (and factoring projects in Victoria have a history of overrunning or over cost but any surplus would be invested back into the transport network.)
(Z) is for the Trains, fully automated under Grade of Automation 4 using Communication Based Train Control. (Roughly what's leftover in (A) billion). Depending on who wins the tender would determine how much surplus would be left over for future trainsets. My bets are on Alstom, CRRC or Siemens, heck maybe even Stadler or Hitachi to win the contract here :P.
$10 billion is already confirmed for Melbourne Airport Rail Link (MARL) and some of the cost is already factored into Sunbury Line Upgrade like that overly strange MARL Junction at Sunshine. (Stage 3) when SRL does come, this would likely need to see the conversion from Heavy Rail to MRT furthering adding cost as the MARL isn’t being fitted with CBTC at the start of operation at the time of writing this opinion piece.
(For reference, Metro Tunnel costs $11 billion to construct for twin tunnels, five new stations fully underground.)
Now people seem to assume this would be all funded over in the first phase but actually. This project is expected to be finished in 2050 and with a projected cost of $44billion for SRL North and East. So $1.78bil (for a total of $50 billion) would need to be invested annually to keep this project on track and fully completed by 2050.
SRL North and East have the opportunity to make this the first Melbourne Line to feature Direct Current Third Rail to possibly lower tunnelling cost due to a smaller diameter overall but yet being a good service to allow 100kph operation to connect people to where they need to be. Please look at Singapore’s successful MRT and London Underground to prove that Overheads aren’t required! Don’t be like the Singapore North-East Line having 25kv AC overheads for an underground line :P.
- SRL North and East (Phase 1/2) would likely require the most funds to construct the underground tunnels with the use of Tunnel Boring Machines that would dig under Melbourne’s hilly landscape and the establishment of the depot that would house 13 and future trainsets at Heatherton.
- SRL Airport — West (Phase 3) being Melbourne Airport Rail Link is currently under construction and will be complete in 2029. This is planned to operate through the Metro Tunnel once complete. (This is the first of the SRL to be completed).
- SRL West (Phase 4) is likely the Western Rail Plan, which includes plans to electrify the line to Melton and Wyndham Vale. This is needed for relieving pressure on already rapidly growing Western Suburbs (but this needs to be done ASAP).
It seems likely that Phases 3, 1, 4, 2 are going to be funded in this way. Phase 3 was jointly funded by the Federal Commonwealth Government and State Government and it seems only likely that Phase 4 will result in the same. Phase 1/2 are looking like Private-Public Partnerships. Either way, Victorians are planned to be paying off this project long in future generations.
The project projections predicting that SRL East and SRL North will help support SRL Precincts to grow from 192,000 jobs and 92,500 households currently to 545,000 jobs and 232,000 households by 2056. The evidence seems to prove that this project can revolutionise our way of looking at Melbourne as a city.
SRL and comparing it to other projects in the World.
Benefit-Cost Ratio (insert X value): per 1 dollar spent. If the value is <1, the project is making a loss, 1= equal value, >1 project is making a profit.
Suburban Rail Loop as a project can be compared to other projects with the use of Benefit-Cost Ratio. The SRL provides a BCR of 1.0 to 1.7 per $1 spent on the project in either Program Case that the SRL does decide listed in the business case. The Suburban Rail Loop stacks up fairly well in the worldwide sector. But as reported in The Age, experts believe the BCR should be higher in returns for SRL.
- Crossrail now Elizabeth Line (London, UK), which provides BCR of 1.37 per $1 spent on the project
- Sydney Metro (including North West and City)(Sydney, AUS) which provides a BCR of 1.3–1.7 per $1 spent on the project
- Grand Paris Express (Paris, France), which provides a BCR of 1.3–2.1 per $1 spent on the project
When compared locally too, with the two major projects within the timeline of the Victorian Railway and the modern privatized era of public transportation.
- City Loop (1972), (Melbourne, Victoria), which provided a BCR of 0.6 per $1 spent on the project (this was interesting as the BCR of 0.6 illustrates that the State Government lost money out of the project and thus didn’t stack up as a profitable project).
- Metro Tunnel (Melbourne, Victoria), which provides a BCR of 1.5 per $1 spent on the project
This indicates the Suburban Rail Loop has the potential of being decently alright for a Benefit-Cost Ratio and seems decent enough to provide a benefit to improve Melbourne for future generations. We can expect up to a 0.70 cent profit per $1 spent.
Melbourne’s growth and how SRL fit into a massive jigsaw puzzle that’s Melbourne.
Now you have to understand, these are high-density routes with high patronage on the buses and these are illustrated with Routes 703, 901, 902, 903. These are places where people want to go and proven to be key places where major business and education hubs. The SRL Authority also stated that without SRL, an increased travel time for both inner and middle Melbourne is inevitable if SRL isn’t built.
The SRL considered three corridors, with corridor one being solely based in the Inner Melbourne ring, Middle and Outer. Melbourne had picked Middle, which made the most economical sense with the most potential it had to offer. By connecting up NEICs ( National Employment and Innovation Cluster), MAC (Metropolitan Activities Centres) and major universities free up resources (buses) and allow more passengers to get from A-B quicker and faster.
The demographic of the Suburban Rail Loop is mostly going to be suited to the 18–64 age demographic, mostly suited heading to University and major business hubs. By placing stations at Clayton and Box Hill alone is illustrating this project to be a way to encourage more businesses to move away from the CBD to these satellite mini-cities that offers more incentives to create more diverse opportunities. These days, science, technology, engineering and mathematics or STEM is the future of many future workplaces in the future years to come and these hubs have empathized. This also strongly support the future generation of students that would be using these services.
The economic benefits for the suburbs in the corridor of the SRL are huge and game-changing.
Melbourne has done some Transit-Oriented Development but not as extensive as other cities, Suburban Rail Loop proposed in their business case that the SRL stations could and most likely will be sites of major induced Transit Oriented Development that can accelerate suburbs growth, drawing more of the population to live or work in these mini-cities that can become its own self sustaining mini-cities, based on the three main goals the SRL wants to change, Productivity, Livability and Accessibility.
These stations they had selected will most definitely have induced TOD that would be increasing the density of the activities centres or definitely be utilized much more than it is used at this moment whether that would be built up skyrises, plazas or social hubs, there are huge opportunities here waiting to be unlocked. This project can do it as all of the stations selected are part of this ideology.
Fewer stops = faster journey to the destination is the saying of the Suburban Rail Loop but this project misses out on some areas that deserve public transport infrastructure. Its currently understood that the Suburban Rail Loop will be running at speeds of 100kph to allow quick journeys within stations, with the entire SRL East and North can be done in under an hour if these speeds are achieved.
Some places that missed out includes maybe deserved an infill station at Heatherton (next to the train depot that's planned to be established) and one between Monash to Glen Waverley and Glen Waverley to Burwood (at Tally Ho/Burwood East).
It is also worth mentioning the terrain of the route that the Suburban Rail Loop has selected. The SRL is facing one of the geographically challenging landscapes. With an expected (maybe 6 Tunnel Boring Machines) being required for this project. There is no way you can do cut and cover with this project with the route being situated in many of Melbourne’s hilly eastern side and can’t even imagine the northern side of the project. Tunnelling deep is quite possibly the only option with the use of TBM’s and cut and cover for the stations.
Melbourne having one singular CBD is coming to an end. Time to adopt new standards, new mini-cities that are self-sustaining.
There is a current generational shift with Housing Prices where the Inner and Middle rings of Melbourne is facing growing housing prices due to inflation and the surrounding area growth in urbanization and amenities, pushing more of the new homeowners into new greenfield developments situated in Wallan, Cranbourne, Pakenham and Wyndham. A plan to Green Wedge between Melbourne and Geelong is coming to action so urban sprawl is slowly slowing down with 20km only separating Melbourne and Geelong which would likely accelerate the need for Outer Melbourne Ring Road as the new outer border of Melbourne.
It’s also worth mentioning that these new greenfield developments are adopting a 20min (roughly a 1.5km radius) walk neighbourhood concept where everything you need is close by. Whether that's heath, retail or shopping, everything is close to you and able to be accessible.
Melbourne as a whole is sprawling into new areas and going off this, we are expected to have more cars and without change of a new transport mode, this is only going to becoming a more evident and prominent situation that would only get harder and harder to manage.
Our Heavy Rail (Commuter) Network.
Here in Melbourne, strangely we call our commuter heavy rail network, a ‘metro’ but this is far from a metro like operation (I’ve been to Singapore, and that’s world-class standards :P). I’m sorry but 10–15min frequency isn’t a metro like service but there has been ongoing work to bring some to a decent timetable that would enable metro like operation.
I could argue before the introduction of the Evolution (HCMT) project, we could’ve said our rail network infrastructure was dating back to the late 1990s, where Comengs and Hitachi were common sights with Xtrapolis and Siemens growing outdated fairly quickly. It baffles me how consecutive State Governments has neglected the commuter rail network, which is what it has become where the current operator is now playing catch up to modernise and bring our rail network to the future.
Projects for the commuter services like Communication-Based Train Control (CBTC) rollout along the Cranbourne and Pakenham / Sunbury Lines would allow up to 34tph and the introduction of Evolution trainsets allow these lines to be brought out of the 1990s to the 2020s. This is a huge leap to bring us forward (not backwards normally :P). Melbourne is slowly adopting CBTC as a whole and soon, by 2050 it is currently projected all lines will have CBTC as system standard with modern rolling stock.
Patronage has been growing and this isn’t expected to stop once our COVID19 recovery is once complete, an new mode of transport (Metro) is truly needed to relieve pressure. With the ever-growing demand for electrification expansion on the cards to new locations like Melton, Clyde and Wallan, more and more people will be using the Heavy Commuter Rail, furthering adding more strain to a network at wit end.
We take it for granted and are quite lucky to have a system that has stations close by to help a fair chunk of Melbournians to move from A-B, which is far better than some other counterparts… cough cough, USA.
Our Heavy Commuter Rail Network will always get heavy investment to further enhance the network and introduce new trainsets to allow the network to flourish whilst catering for Melbournians and Victorians for future generations to come.
Buses are the solution…?
“A man who, beyond the age of 26 find himself on a bus can count himself as a failure” — Margaret Thatcher
“Say that to Doncaster (Manningham Region), who uses BRT” — Some local from Manningham.
The growing issue of Melbourne’s bus network isn’t an unknown issue to many Melbournians but this is a common issue where many bus routes aren’t running frequently or just plain too slow to the point that this is unfeasible to the customer to use but this need explanation.
As shown in Figures 3.10 and 3.12, this infographic by the Suburban Rail Loop illustrates Melbourne’s travel patterns and how we as a city are moving around. Due to failures in our transport infrastructure funding by consecutive State Governments for many years, this has seen buses having next to no future planning until recently, which outlined a future where buses will be better integrated into our transport network.
The issue, is how many more buses can we add to an already constrained inner-city network? However, we should focus on improving the bus network outside of the inner city which has moderate to poor bus services in general with services every 45>more.
The BRT and Shuttle Routes like Smartbus are already constrained and at breaking point due to passenger demand growth and furthered with Traffic Congestion.
Melbourne’s road network carried around 10.2 million private vehicle trips each weekday in 2018, representing 72 per cent of all trips across the transport network.124 This demand has led to high levels of congestion and increased travel times for road users. Traffic congestion not only affects the efficiency of private vehicle trips, but also the efficiency of trams and buses. -SRL
Category 1: Rapid (Grade B+)
Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) and Shuttle Routes
Smartbus can be considered as BRT and these bus routes running in high traffic areas and most of these routes have dedicated bus lanes and priority lanes but will always be subjected to traffic. This is evident with Route 902 where the service is constantly moving but traffic is always a variable that could make or break the buses ability to run on time. It’s also worth mentioning some of these road alignments weren’t designed for dedicated bus lanes and if dedicated bus lanes were added to these roads, these would constrain the road networks connector routes which hundreds and thousands use daily.
The Government has made a significant investment in improving Smartbus in the Doncaster Area Rapid Transit (DART) as part of the future North-East Link construction package with the inclusion of two new Park and Ride hubs and dedicated lanes into the City’s Eastern Freeway portal. But the major constraint will be Hoddle Street which has dedicated Bus Lanes but this is often never the case, where car drivers will park in the lanes. Traffic on Hoddle Street is also at breaking point and due to this, this often increasing weaving between lanes to allow cars to get from Lane D to Lane A.
Alongside BRT, Shuttle Buses to Universities and other major points of interest has proven to be successful as this has shown relatively good patronage, with high demand. As shown with the Monash Uni shuttle, the services are dictated by demand with traffic being factored into consideration.
These problems with High-Frequency Bus Routes are mostly traffic-related. Not service pattern or frequency. This doesn’t help without giving some incentive to use buses as a mode of transportation over private transportation (eg. Cars, UBER).
TLDR: We have enough buses to offer a relatively good service. This is already around 5 (peak) or 10–15mins on average. This offers great value to the customer and results in high patronage on these routes and makes it easy for the customer to make an informed decision to use this mode of transportation however, the routes are using high frequency and high traffic corridors that literally constrains how many buses can be allocated to said route through further improvements to encourage people to use these services are needed, whether that is through the use of incentives.
Category 2: Connector (Grade C-)
Melbourne’s connector routes are fairly decent, where serving neighbourhoods that have decent public transport but low patronage in most cases. Doncaster and Manningham is a good example of how connector routes can work as the majority of them would go to major train stations or hubs whilst serving the Neighborhoods. These buses use major corridors and major roads.
Connector routes can utilize key corridor routes but ideally would also serve
TLDR: Connector Routes are suited to cater well, but services every 10–15m with decent patronage. More customers are willing to use these services wherever possible as the last mile from their local transportation hub due to its frequency but also did raise concerns about the lack of train to bus transfers. Current enhancements are looking into how more services can be added to these routes and create a better product to sell to the general public and more needs to be done to make it easier for the passenger to connect to these services.
Category 3: Neighborhood (Grade E to F in some areas)
Melbourne’s neighbourhood bus network is the core issue why we have a stigma and why people fear buses. These routes get less attention and runs in-frequently and commonly packed during peak. During off-peak, next to no one uses them.
There is a current stigma against using buses as a whole which is why there is a current trend of low patronage on Neighborhood bus routes. The problem currently is the next to none lack of train to bus connections and lack of frequency is putting off more prospective passengers from using the service.
I’m going to use Tarneit as an example, where I could argue that Transport Planners never predicted a sudden growth once the Regional Rail Link station had opened. This lack of bus frequency has resulted in, overcrowded station car parks (and this applies to a fair amount of stations around the network in the outer ring of Melbourne). Tarneit and Wyndham Vale keeps on growing as the urban density keeps on growing without a bus network that can cater for them, just increases the list of reasons why owning a car is actually viable and use it for short to medium journeys.
Another major issue across the board is the reduction of buses on Saturday and some routes have next to no buses on services in the majority of neighbourhood bus routes, this is why we have more people willing to do short to medium car trips since the services are literally non-existent.
Buses can be freed up once SRL opens in phases, opening up new possible opportunities to introduce more services to serve underutilized neighbourhoods. With Smartbus being progressively replaced with SRL, this relieves demand off the already stretched Smartbus network whilst improving the entire network for everyone.
The State Government’s bus plan seems optimistic that these issues will be resolved for the future years to come after the failure of investment into the bus network and we all know what happened to the Melbourne Metropolitan Bus Contract (Transdev Melbourne) meltdown in 2019. Maybe we can actually see buses being a more viable solution to our public transport woes, balancing out the routes to become more frequent on weekends and encourage more passengers to use the services will allow the Transport Planners to see where future demand and tweaks are required for the future of those bus routes.
Some Thoughts about what can be done Short to Medium Term before SRL completion.
But no denying, improvements need to be done now to better accommodate everyone in the Outer Ring of Melbourne. This is a growing issue that without any government action, is only going to come worse and worse off. If nothing is done, Melbourne could be gridlocked even further during peak hours, making peak hours possibly from 7–9 am and 5–8 pm to 6–10 am and 4–10 pm respectively. Without Road Infrastructure Projects, Melbourne is facing a major gridlock.
- Melbourne needs more bus infrastructure and increased frequency to support and ease off our road network usage for private transport short to medium trips but allow outer trips into the city as a last resort. Outer Melbourne deserves more but the middle Melbourne ring also needs a shake-up too to better allow more choice to the customer (especially on a weekend).
- Melbourne needs to introduce more low floor trams and low floor accessible stops to comply with DDA compliance as high floor Z/A/B class trams are being retained for the long term until 2030. Alongside that, there has been a growing voice for more priority for trams on high traffic routes to allow them a smoother path into the city and back.
- Melbourne may consider a congestion tax for CBD areas to push for more public transport use and discourage these short to medium car trips if we have a sufficient public transport network that the public can depend on, in return for Reduced Fare Transport Zone, within the Inner City area. By making this incentive, this could potentially increase patronage and show incentive to use public transport more for the Inner City. Myki as a whole pretty much disadvantages people who make short journeys, for passengers that don’t own a car, who do their daily groceries or need to visit a major shopping centre etc. We need a system that fares go by the km until you reach the Z1 or Z2 fare 2-hour cost, then daily fare to make it more available for passengers to have a choice of using PT to get to their destination. This seems like a fairer system to charge people.
The lack of forwarding integrated transport planning until now is to blame here and this is how Victoria has ended up, as Victoria is and always had played catch up until now which has some plan nearly set in stone and with Suburban rail Loop planned to start construction in 2023, it's still a jumbled mess. Even with a Network Development Plan written up back in 2012 for the Metropolitan Rail Network, we are still in Phase 2 but slowly transitioning to Phase 3 and lacking in future capabilities.
More investment is needed within the transport sector and in the short term to assist SRL in the meantime whilst this project gets prepared and worked on before the completion in 2040 and 2050.
To Conclude:
This is one of my longest articles to date nearly up to 5,000 words to describe this mess of a project that is starting to clear up with clear and concise information coming out to show this projects true potential and to be honest, I’m hooked for this project despite the cost of the entire project.
The benefits of the Suburban Rail Loop includes induced Transit-Oriented Development and building a polycentric network that would allow Melbourne to make a more reliable but yet building onto dependable transport network that takes out dependence on the CBD being the only place to transfer. The SRL has the upper hand in revitalizing several future activities centres and allows these activity centres to slowly transition to mini self-sustaining cities.
But there need to be short term transport projects that allow Melbourne to unlock its full potential with public transportation. This can be done with simple improvements like the bus network by redrawing up routes, timetables to better suit everyone (instead of a weekday but rather the entire week), allowing the passenger to have a choice instead of resorting to private modes of transportation. That being said, DDA compliance is needing to be addressed with high floor trams being life extended to make them last up to 2030 and non-compliant stops still being used and no timeline to address all those issues.
If this project actually goes ahead, this might be the future blueprint that allows Melbourne to be a city that could have the world-class infrastructure for once. Remember, that Melbourne’s Rail Electrification back in 1919 was an Australian First and everyone looked at Melbourne, as the futuristic city and it was ahead of its time.
