Housing a good investment?

After one false start and 6 months on the market we have finally sold our house in Melbourne. Our 3 bedroom BV house in the middle suburbs of Melbourne (still Met Zone 1) sold for 10% less than we wanted, but we still sold it for 10% more than it was financed for 3½ years ago. In other words, over the last 3 years we have made a capital gain of about 3% per annum on our investment. Considering that we were paying interest of more than 6% per annum on the loan, that hardly made it a great investment.

At least we weren't caught out like the people who bought apartments "off the plan" during the boom times of '99 and now can't even get what they paid for it.

I guess there are lessons to be learned. You can lose money on property, and if you want to invest make sure you are in it for the real long haul, not just a year or three.

And to all those Perth people who think that "Perth is different" and the boom will go on forever: beware. It was said that "things are different now" in the dot.com era too and we though that Melbourne property prices would go up always then too.

Service Frequency Theory

Following on from the research that I have been doing for the past two years, I have come up with theory regarding public transport patronage and the impact of service frequencies thereon.

At present, it is still very much in the developmental stage: one day it may form the basis of a PhD. In the meantime, I post these notes here in the hope that someone may make some sensible comment.

The Theory

Essentially the theory is the non-linear nature of service level impact and falls into two parts.

Part 1 says that the function linking service frequency to patronage is not linear across a range of frequencies, but rather it varies according to the service frequency. If I were to take an educated guess, I would say that this distribution would look something like this:

You can see that at low levels of service frequency there is very low patronage and even quite large improvements in frequency generate little additional patronage. However, at some point the additional frequency generates quite a good deal additional patronage, until the frequency becomes very high, at which stage additional frequency makes little additional impact on patronage.

What is more, I think I am in the position to be able to put some actual numbers to this graph.

• Below 2 buses an hour there is little impact
• Between 2 and 3 buses an hour there is slightly greater impact
• Between 3 and 6 buses an hour there is a strong impact
• Between 6-10 buses an hour there is a slow down again
• Above 12 buses an hour there is little additional impact

These figures have been culled from a number of sources, which include

• Various consumer preference research which shows that people regularly state 'no public transport available' as a reason for not using public transport, even though there area is served - at a frequency of 1-2 per hour (fairly standard suburban bus services)
• My own research which shows that 4 services per hour (15 minute headway) has a statistically signifcant (negative) correlation with private car use
• Research (of some age) that shows that arrivals at stops become random at around 6 services per hour (implying some sort of behavioural change at around this level)
• Intuition

When I had a look at this curve, I found that it fitted rather well the curve generated by the function

y=exp(4x)/(1+exp(4x))

This is of course a standard logistic function, and thus suggests possibilities for futher investigation.

The second part of the theory is somewhat more unusual. It states generally speaking that the mode share of public transport at any given time of day is determined not only by the service frequency at that time, but also the service frequency provided at other times. For example, it suggests that the choice of mode for journey to work is affected not only by the peak hour service frequency, but also by the availability of public transport in the evening.

The hint that led to this theory is provided in the following chart:

It shows that the areas served by Sydney Buses by and large have lower use of cars than those served by private buses. One of the key differences between the two is that the public buses offer services at night and more frequently on Sundays, while private buses rarely operate at night, and infrequently (if at all) on Sundays.

There is little in the literature either way on this proposal, but there is some anecdotal support. For example at least one manager of a major bus company has said that in order to support daytime patronage they must provide night and weekend services, even if the latter are not particularly well used.

My own research also shows that the previously mentioned 4-per-hour frequency of service shows significant negative correlation with vehicle use only when supported with 2-per-hour service frequency at night and on Sundays.

Obviously, there is a good deal of research to be done here.

Implications

The implications of this theory are clearly quite strong.

Currently, where systematic transport planning is undertaken there is probably some model used to predict various mode shares under various scenarios. While some of these models are statistically quite sophisticated, under the hood they are all essentially attempts to project into the future using current data as a starting point. Most will have some sort of discrete choice model which have at their heart a utility function that looks like

Ux = f(A) + f(B) + ... + e

Where Ux is the utility of chosing mode x, f(A), f(B) etc are the deterministic functions representing the various attributes of the trip, passenger and mode, and e the error term (about which we may make many assumptions, particularly regarding distribution).

If B were service frequency we would probably find that within the model it would simply expand to the linear form

f(B) = aB+k

If the relationship is non-linear (as part 1 of the theory suggests) then this function will generate erroneous results. Similarly, using a simple frequency, rather than an compostite frequency (as part 2 of the theory suggests) then results will be inaccurate.

What is more given that the the data in the model is based on current service frequencies (1-2 per hour) then they may be significantly under-estimating public transport mode share potential.

In the short term, I am continuing to recommend the "15/30 standard" (4 per hour daytime, 2 per hour night and Sunday) as a standard basic service frequency for public transport given that this has been shown to be efficacious, and in the longer time, more research is clearly needed.

Some Railway History: Darling Ranges

I'm not usually a railway heritage fiend, but a walk in the John Forrest National Park over Easter has prompted this post.

People familar with the struggle railways have with exiting Australian cities, say the grind up the Blue Mountains from Sydney or the sinuosities of the Adelaide hills may be surprised (and possibly jealous) to hear that there have been no fewer than three train lines out of Perth through the Darling Ranges to the East.


The original line, opened in the 1884 ran from Fremantle through to Guildford at the edge of the Perth plains and then struck east, past Greenmount and through Glen Forrest, Mahogany Creek and Sawyers Valley before turning north to Chidlows Well and then on to Northam and York. Stations were later added at locations such as Darlington and Mundaring.

Unfortunately, parts of the geological formation were unexpectedly waterlogged and during construction a deviation was necessary in the vicinity of Darlington. This section was both steep and windy, causing extensive problems in operation.

Booming traffic from the wheatbelt and goldfields meant that something had to be done and the result was the construction of the so-called 'Mahogany Creek Deviation' little more than a decade later in 1896. This left the eastern line at Bellevue and headed northeast to Swan View and then through a ridge in the Darling Ranges to reach Jane Brook, which it then followed more-or-less due east to meet the eastern line again at Wrights Mill (between Sawyers Valley and Chidlows Well). Once again somewhat unfortunately the engineering equipment available at the time meant that this line too was rather heavily graded, and featured one fatal flaw in the nature of a very narrow steep tunnel near Swan View. This line was later upgraded and duplicated.


Incidentally, during the 1880s and 1890s a private company was floated to build a line to service link Perth with Geraldton. This company was the Midland Railway of WA and branched off the eastern line at a location called Helena Vale, east of Guildford. A station was built at this location and named "Midland Junction".

Both lines remained in use until 1966 when an entirely new line was built between Midland and Toodyay through the Avon River valley and avoiding the worst of the Darling Ranges altogether. At this time the old lines were closed altogether, including removal of commuter railcar services to the hills communities. New motor buses were ordered instead to replace the trains, and a brand new bus-rail interchange built at the newly renamed "Midland", which became the end of the Perth suburban system.


In recent years, the trackbeds of the two older lines have been converted to walking, cycling and horse trails, and all that is left of the railway infrastructure is the odd platform base and some rather impressive viaducts on the Mahogany Creek branch.


In retrospect, it is perhaps a little unfortunate that the old Eastern line did not remain intact, at least as far as Chidlows Well, when the new line was opened. Today, locations such as Greenmount are suburban and hills townships such as Mundaring and Mount Helena are booming. Residents of the Shire of Mundaring are some of the greatest users of the private car of any "metropolitan" municipality in Australia, a feature partly due to total reliance on road transport only.

Probably the best that can be hoped for realistically in future is that there will be some extension of the suburban electrification along the current main line. This will not assist the hills townships proper, but will improve public transport in the suburbs of Belleview, Swan View, and Stratton.


Source: L. Watson. The Railway History of Midland Junction. Swan View, WA: L&S Drafting, 1995

Swiss Travel Campaign

Think "Switzerland" and "Travel" and the transport geeks among us think of SBB, The Rhaetian Railway and taktfahrplan.

Well not this one, not today anyway.

Reuters reports that the Swiss travel authorities are running a campaign to attract 'the ladies' to Switzerland while the menfolk are off watching the football in neighbouring Germany:

"Why not escape this summer's World Cup to a country where men spend less time on football, and more time on you?," the advertisement, says over images of a strapping farmhand, a sexy train conductor, a fit mountain climber, a dapper ferryman and a brawny lumberjack."

Campaign details, including the TV ad in all its glory can be seen at MySwitzerland.com.

Thanks to TheDailySlap (work safe, but possibly not appropriate) for the story.

Happy Easter everyone!

Blow out or Beat Up

The West Australian is at it again."Rail bill to jump another 50 million" screams the front page headline. (West Australian, April 12, 2006).

http://www.thewest.com.au/20060412/news/general/tw-news-general-home-sto133905.html
The article then opens boldly:

The State Government is poised to unveil a third blow-out in the budget and timetable for its biggest project, the Perth to Mandurah rail line.

The article then goes on to explain that the Minister is expected to announce an additional $50 million dollars onto the budget of this $1.6 billion dollar project. Detail then follows about the various claims being made on the government (some of which are challenged, others are being negotiated). There is even the paragraph

While Ms MacTiernan's revised estimates are based on fresh legal opinions on the $250 million in extra claims lodged by the contractors, it could take years to determine the ultimate cost to taxpayers.

Don't these words make it sound like a project running out of control? Well that's exactly what The West wants you to think. They have been running a campaign against this project from the start and are never happier than when reporting a "problem".

Why this is the case, no one is quite sure. There is a rumour that it is part of a private vendetta against the minister, Alannah McTiernan, due to something she said/did against the paper some years back. This might be part of the story, but I understand The West was also vehemently against the northern line construction in the early nineties. Perhaps the paper is just reflecting and concentrating the very conservative nature of Perth society.

Either way, compared to the billion-dollar subsidy increases we have seen in Melbourne, or even the 3-fold blowout in projects reported in the UK, 3% seems an acceptable price increase to me.

Cost of PT Privatisation: $1.2 billion and growing

Urban Creatures get the gong for first post on this topic, but there has been a lot happening and I thought it worth a post too.

For those who might not have seen it, the buzz is all about a report produced by a team of four Melbourne academics who have calculated that Melbourne's public transport is costing around $1.2 billion dollars more as a privatized system than it would have, had it stayed in public hands.

The report in question is titled "Putting the public interest back into public transport" and can be found here (pdf).

This report has generated a good deal of press coverage, including

Melbourne: Sunday Age (April 9): "$1.2bn sting in the rail", "Privatised trains, trams on the wrong track"and even an editorial

"Public transport should be returned to public hands"

The Sunday Age maintains that public transport should be free in order to
increase patronage, take the pressure off Melbourne's increasingly gridlocked streets, cut the number of road accidents and reduce pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. It would be much easier to achieve this under a publicly owned system.

The time has come for Mr Bracks and Mr Batchelor to acknowledge that the predictions they made while in opposition were correct and to act in the interests of all Victorians.

The Herald Sun has reported too (April 11): "Privatisation blamed for $1.2 billion loss"

as have interstate papers

Sydney: Daily Telegraph (April 10): "Transport privatisation a 'failure'"

Not unexpectedly, the key transport advocacy body has supported the report

PTUA Press Release: "Where’s the Doubling in Service?"

Finally, I can do nothing better than quote Urban Creatures again

"Who could possibly argue that the 1.2bn was well spent, given the state of PT in Melbourne?"

Safety on the system

After a couple of posts with pretty pictures, I hope you don’t mind if I hit you with a wordy post. The topic that I want to discuss to day is public transport security.

As a regular user of public transport I have become very aware of the issue of safety and security on public transport and in particular on the rail network. Many people are afraid to use trains, especially at night, and this fear is not helped by high profile incidents such as this one, where a middle aged man was attacked by a group of youths in on a suburban railway station in full view of a security camera.



One notable trend in many rail systems over the past decade has been one of de-staffing. For reasons of economy, station staff and train guards have been increasingly replaced by technology and driver-only operation.

For example, up to the late 1980s, every railway station in Melbourne was staffed (at least nominally). These staff performed mostly operational tasks, such as issuing tickets (both local and country), checking tickets of alighting passengers, giving out timetables and information, giving the right-away flag to trains and even handling luggage.

In the early 1990s they were nearly all removed, save for those at a handful of “Premium” stations. Ticket machines and validators replaced their ticket issuing activities, an electronic system was introduced which announced arriving trains and an emergency help communication system installed. The staff at the premium stations were isolated behind glass windows, rarely venturing out.

In the same period, Adelaide saw changes of a similar nature. Unlike Melbourne and Sydney, most Adelaide railway stations have been unstaffed for many years, but each train featured a conductor or guard. The job of the conductor was again operational: they would issue (and check) tickets, give the right-away at stations and assist with loading and unloading of passengers. Unlike guards in many other systems, Adelaide trains were designed with the ‘right away’ button located at saloon doors. This meant that the conductor/guard spent most of his time interacting with passengers

In the early 1990s all conductors and guards were removed from Adelaide trains. Drivers took responsibility for operations (with mirrors installed on platforms) and on board ticket machines introduced for ticket sales. Regular ticket checks were replaced with random ticket checks by special teams of inspectors.

This pattern of de-staffing and automation has been repeated many times around the world, and while it has saved some money, in many cases it has had the undesired side-effect on increasing security concerns on the rail systems.

In response, a number of initiatives have become standard. These include

1. improved lighting and design
2. emergency phones and help lines
3. closed circuit security cameras
4. security guards

The Adelaide case was perhaps the most extreme – community backlash against removal of train staff was accompanied by a number of on-train incidents, and so the government soon promised to introduce security guards on trains after dark, and wherever possible during the day. This more-or-less negated any savings from the removal of operational staff.

One big problem is that initiatives 2,3, and 4 may in themselves increase the feeling of insecurity. Nothing says “this place is dangerous” as clearly as boldly placed security cameras and blue-and-white checked emergency phones. Remember, “security” is a subjective emotion, and not based on genuine risk assessment.

Even worse, the guards themselves seem to be increasingly the target of attacks, as these two examples from Perth and the UK show. This quote I find particularly telling:

‘Passenger Gareth Beady told BBC Radio Wales: "Since they put the security guards on the trains a lot of the kids are seeing that more of an opportunity to get a rise out of them.’

(Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/wales/4444768.stm, Published: 2005/11/17 08:52:40 GMT)

It seems that there has been a definite shift here, in that railway staff have ceased to be “helpful people who provide service” - and security as a side effect, to people who travel in groups and whose only task is to “check tickets and annoy you”.

I’m not naïve, and I realize that bringing security to the public transport system is a complex task, and it is a challenge facing railways around the world.

Like many experts, I believe the passive surveillance provide by people to be one of the most important factors in bringing security to places. A busy station with plenty of people around is likely to be safer and felt to be more secure than a deserted halt, no matter what high tech equipment is installed. However, not all parts of the system will always be busy, and it is here that staff come into play. I believe that the trend of replacing operational staff with dedicated security staff is not the way forward. Uniformed security becomes part of the problem: service staff part of the solution.

Thornlie Station (Good News Story)

I have another serious post or two coming up, but in the meantime, here is a good news story with a couple of happy snaps.

They are 'before' and 'after' shots of Thornlie Station, the terminus of a new branch line off the Armadale Line (Perth).

It was built and opened in a short time with little fuss, and expands rail catchment to the booming south-east suburbs, as well as helping to relieve the busy Armadale line (opening day press release)

Before: 3 April 2004. Note land clearance has just started.



After: 27 August 2005. A couple of weeks after services commenced.


Both photos were taken from more-or-less the same location.

See, it's not that hard!

New railway nothing more than a nuisance?

Today's West Australian contains an article (5/4/06 p.42) describing a group of up to 50 residents of Leeming who are campaigning for compensation for the construction of the Mandurah rail line. It seems that changes to the South Street exit from the Kwinana Freeway (necessary for the construction of Murdoch train station and bus interchange) are causing dust and light pollution problems.

Somewhat bizarrely, the minister is offering compensation in the form of land rezoning - the theory being that rezoning the land for higher density living will give the locals a greater land resale value. The locals don't seem impressed!

The whole article simply presents the railway as nothing but a nuisance. No mention at all of the fact that residents of the area will shortly have access to a railway station (positive!) that will give them access to the city centre in 11 minutes (positive!) rather than the 30 minutes or more it can now take in peak hour by car.

Of course, The West Australian has a long running campaign against the railway, cheering at every slight setback and cost rise on this major project in this booming city with a "small town" attitude.

Still, it would be nice to have some good news from time to time!

Secret Buses (Part 2)

Yesterday I took you though the fun of trying to find out when your bus runs, if you rely on a Perth CAT service.

Today, something even more sinister: a bus that has no fixed route. Now not only do you not know when your bus is coming but you have no real idea where it might go.

What is this strange service? The Adelaide Metro "Roam Zone".


The idea is quite simple. Faced with wandering streets, low patronage and passenger security concerns, buses in two areas of Adelaide (Hallett Cove/Sheidow Park and Golden Grove), will take any route at night that can drop the passenger close to their destination.

This is what the official guide says :

"Prior to 7pm you will need to board a Roaming Service (681P, 682 or 683) at a designated bus stop. However, after 7pm these services could travel down any street in the Roam Zone, so if you see a Roaming Service in your street and wish to board after 7pm, please hail the bus to be picked up." (emphasis added)

In other words, if you pick up one of these buses at the station to take you home, you are fine, but if you happen to want to go out in the evening (perish the thought!) actually finding is bus is as easy as winning the lottery.

Any wonder a car is seen as an essential part of Australian suburban life?

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.)

Truly horrific

Quite possibly the ugliest website I have ever seen.

It must be a joke. It couldn't be for real.

Could it?