Secret buses (Part 1)

Sometimes you think that transport operators don't want you to use their services. This is the first in a series of articles describing rather daft practices I have come across that suppose this supposition.

1. Perth Central Area Transit - Secret Timetables

The very popular Perth CAT buses have one serious flaw: public timetable information is available only as real-time electronic information, either from LCD displays on stops or from a Java applet available on the Transperth website. The idea is that services are so frequent that you don't need a regular timetable. There are no printed (or downloadable) timetables available from Transperth and if you ring up you are told that it is a "frequency" service and they are not allowed to tell you the timetable.



The problem is that on weekends the buses are not so frequent that a timetable is unnecessary. Until recently the Yellow and Red CATs ran every 35 minutes on weekends. This is far too infrequent for a turn-up-and-go service, and so irregular that it was all but impossible to guess the timetables (which do actually exist, but for internal/driver use only).



It is too much to ask that a timetable be published so that we mere users have some chance of planning our trips without needing to allow ridiculous amounts of time to wait for the 'secret' bus?

Tomorrow: The bus with a totally random route.

(Postscript: Luckily, the Yellow CAT now runs every half hour, and I have been able to deduce the timetable: it leaves Claisbrook Station on the hour and the half. Still, this doesn't excuse the 'no timetables' policy.)