Comments by Robin Sandell on Draft Future Transport Strategy 2056 1. Executive Summary The rapid population growth forecast for Sydney over the next 40 years creates enormous challenges for mobility and the quality of life of its residents. The current high level of dependency on cars is not sustainable in a city with a total population that could exceed 8 million by 2056. Reducing car dependency requires a concerted effort to: Improve the design of public transport networks, cycling infrastructure and pedestrian friendly streets. The objective should be to make sustainable transport a realistic alternative to the car for all travel needs, not just the journey to work. Adopt a fare structure that promotes more use of public transport, including periodical ticket products which offer significant savings over single fares. The current “pay as you go” model is not effective as it encourages users to ration their travel on public transport. Adopt demand management strategies that make car travel less attractive. A number of specific improvements are proposed to make the Sydney ferries more useful and efficient: A reconfiguration of the ferry network to create pulse interchanges at Circular Quay and Barangaroo, with timed transfers scheduled between lines at these two hubs. This would lead to an almost four-fold increase in network connectivity, a safer, less congested Sydney Cove and a reduction in State Government subsidies. Better integration of non-regulated ferries with the regulated Sydney Ferry system, which would facilitate expansion of ferry services to the Bays Precinct, including the Sydney Fish Markets and Glebe Point. Equalisation of fares across all modes of public transport, including ferries. Differences in cost per passenger journey or cost per passenger km between modes are small and do not justify the complexity of having different fares for different modes. 1 2. General Observations The draft transport strategy appears to be built around two main guiding principles: Need to plan transport infrastructure to support a metropolis of three cities - the Harbour CBD, Greater Parramatta and Badgerys Creek/Aerotropolis A desire to increase the proportion of residents “who live within 30 minutes of their jobs, education and health facilities, services and great places”. While I have no objection to these objectives, the document would be strengthened if it had a greater focus on strategies to reduce the dependency of Sydney on private more vehicles and set explicit, achievable mode shift targets. There are currently no targets in the plan for reducing car mode share or increasing sustainable mode shares, including public transport, cycling and pedestrian journeys. The report reads as though the transport plans are built around what is necessary to achieve the three city/ 30 minute city outcome, rather what is needed to reduce car dependence or increase sustainable transport. The companion plan prepared by the Greater Sydney Commission forecasts that, even with the three city strategy, most growth will be around the Eastern Harbour CBD. The population of the area described as the Eastern Harbour CBD is expected to grow to nearly 3.5 million, with significant growth in density. This points to the need for a high frequency grid public transport network within the Eastern Harbour CBD area, which offers a similar level of connectivity as the London Underground, or Singapore or Paris Metros. This would provide multi-destination mobility and lead to a substantial mode shift from cars to public transport. 3. Financial Sustainability The report is correct to highlight the decline in farebox recovery in NSW. It is true that London public transport fares are higher than Sydney’s but the report is misleading in relation to Munich fares (page 94) and needs to be corrected. Munich fares are only more expensive in relation to single trip fare products. Munich, like most continental European cities, has high farebox recovery and high public transport mode share. Also like most European cities, residents predominantly use periodical fare products - weekly, fortnightly or monthly travel passes - which provide very substantial discounts for regular users. This is demonstrated in the table below, which shows current Munich fares in $A based on the current exchange rate (source: http://www.mvv-muenchen.de/en/tickets- fares/fares/index.html#c7013 ) Examples of Munich Public Transport Fares: Single Trip Single tickets Tariff Zone 1 $4.34 Tariff Zone 2 $8.68 Weekly Monthly Periodical tickets Up to 2 rings $23.25 $84.48 Up to 3 rings $28.21 $101.99 Up to 4 rings $33.48 $121.21 2 Sydney no longer has a periodical fare option, but prior to the implementation of the Opalcard, MyMulti weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual passes were available. When a single bus ticket fare was $2.10, the corresponding MyMulti 1 weekly fare was $43. This means the ratio of single to weekly fares in Sydney was 1:20, compared to 1:5 in Munich. The approach taken in Munich and many other European cities is therefore to make periodical ticket products far more attractive than single tickets, so use of periodical tickets is standard practice. Passengers with periodical tickets are less inclined to ration public transport use to only those journeys where it is essential, like travel to work. Unfortunately the fare structure in Sydney has never provided strong incentives to use periodical tickets and they are now not available under the Opalcard system. This contributes to low utilisation of capacity in off peak periods and less efficiency in public transport operations1. 4. Ferry Network 4.1 Issues with current network Sydney Ferries perform an important role in Sydney’s public transport network, carrying over 40,000 passengers each day. They are also a major tourist attraction for the city. Ferries are rated in the top 2% of Sydney’s attractions by the travel website Trip Advisor. Given the low mode share of ferries, however, it is understandable that they do not feature prominently in the Future Transport Strategy. Perhaps separate strategies for each mode, including a ferry plan, would make useful supplementary documents. Even without a separate ferry specific plan, it would be helpful for the Future Transport Strategy to address some of the pressing issues in waterborne transport. While valuable improvements are being made to the ferry fleet, wharf infrastructure and network design, some aspects of the system need attention to make ferries more efficient and more useful for passengers: line connectivity: with 36 ferry wharves in the current network across eight routes, there is potential to connect 630 origin-destination (OD) pairs. But the current line structure, which follows a conventional radial pattern focussed on trips to and from Circular Quay, only makes limited provision for timed transfers. This reduces the range of destinations that can be reached conveniently by ferry. Line connectivity is now improved between Watsons Bay and Darling Harbour through implementation of the Cross Harbour Service. All day timed transfers are now possible between Cockatoo Island and Double Bay, but timed transfers are not scheduled between other lines. Only 115 O-D pairs in total have convenient all day connections passenger loading speed: current Sydney Ferries gangway technology does not support rapid passenger loading. This adds to travel time for passengers, is cost inefficient and affects service reliability during periods of heavy demand, especially on Sundays and during events like the Vivid Festival. 1 A contrary view is presented by the NSW Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART), which argues that greater efficiency is achieved if users ration their public transport use. The overwhelming international evidence suggests that IPART is not correct, hence the widespread use of heavily discounted periodical fares in European cities like Munich, Berlin and Zurich. Encouraging residents to ration public transport use actually reduces public transport mode share and leads to less efficient utilisation of capacity in off-peak periods. 3 sharing Sydney’s busy waterways: Sydney Ferries compete with other vessel traffic on our waterways, including cruise ships, non-regulated ferries and recreational boats. More structured management of vessel movements is necessary, especially in Sydney Cove, to avoid congestion. integration with non regulated ferries: the expansion of non regulated ferry operators is welcome, but to be effective these services need to better integrated with regulated Sydney Ferry services, both in scheduling and ticketing. 4.2 Recommended Solution A more sophisticated approach is needed to network design and timetabling. For networks where demand does not justify high frequency services (ie services which operate at intervals of 15, 30 or 60 minutes, or more), world best practice is to adopt integrated pulse timetables2. This approach is now widely followed in continental European countries including Switzerland, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and Belgium. Networks optimise connectivity between lines and between modes by ensuring transfers at network interchanges are timed appropriately, even where headways are set at 30 or 60 minutes. The key to the riddle is that the circle time of each route (time required for the vehicle/vessel to make its round trip, including layovers at either end) is a whole integer multiple of the headway. If applied to Sydney Ferries, passengers travelling on any service from Barangaroo to Circular Quay, for example, would be able to transfer at the Quay for an onward journey to Manly, Watsons Bay, Neutral Bay or any other destination east of Circular Quay, with just a short waiting time in both the outbound and inbound directions. To achieve this outcome, some reconfiguration is necessary to simplify the network and de-clutter Circular Quay. The best option would be for lines originating west of the Harbour Bridge to terminate at Barangaroo and lines from the east to terminate at Circular Quay. The Quay is linked to Barangaroo by the Barangaroo line.