Why is rail patronage 50% higher in Sydney than Melbourne?

Castle Towers is now directly linked to the metro station.

What about the topology of the networks? Not only does Sydney have a number of large centres across the city located on the network, it also has multiple connections across the city which means you can access those centres without having to travel to the CBD and out again as you would in Melbourne.

As a current resident, I also anecdotally noticed that Sydney’s trains seemed to be more reliable as well, compared to when I previously lived in Melbourne until 2012, and especially compared to when I previously visited the city in 2003. I rarely noticed any delays from my first day in Sydney since 2012, whereas I notice at least one line in Melbourne that was delayed. I lived in Glenfield for the first several years, which is on the outer SW, but the trains came every 15 mins on weekdays during the day. It used to be half-hourly on weekends, but now even those days see trains every 15 mins.

Sydney also has stations put to good use with high-density development very close by. Major ones include Chatswood, Parramatta, and Bankstown with offices, apartments, and shopping centres within walking distance, and ones further afield like Hornsby, Penrith, Hurstville have a Westfield centre sometimes right next to the stations. Even some smaller stations like St Peters or Wollstonecraft have triple-story or taller apartments within walking distance.

There were (and still are) a lot of trackworks on the weekends, but they were visibly marked with big signs showing where the rail buses stop, and had several staff members who looked after us regardless of station size.

I cannot comment on the connections between the feeder buses and the trains, as I only have taken them rarely.

I think what Sydney needs to improve would be better bicycle lanes connecting to stations, which, although improving, still leaves a lot to be desired compared to Melbourne. Also, the buses in the inner suburbs (and along Parramatta Road especially) can be really bumpy – I don’t remember having this experience in Melbourne. Finally, while Melbourne seem to have too many orbital road routes

…sorry, unfinished comment.
Sydney seems to suffer with not enough, with road networks being very haphazard if one isn’t travelling into the CBD. Hopefully some of this will be alleviated with Westconnex (though that project has its problems), allowing for more opportunities in new pedestrian, bicycle, and light-rail friendly corridors in Sydney CBD and surrounding suburbs.

The consistent high level of service is of course a big factor – compare a standing room only train at 8am on a Sunday morning with hourly frequency, to 15 minute frequency from pretty much first to last service in Sydney.

Express patterns operate fairly consistently, for example trains to Penrith through Parramatta always run express to at least Strathfield even at the dead of night. This keeps travel time reasonably competitive, although it is no panacea. It also has the effect of providing high service at major hubs such as Strathfield, Burwood, Hurstville etc. This means that even if most lines run every 15 minutes, major stations often have closer to 5-10 min frequency. Duplicated sections such as the North Shore to Gordon also receive a very high level of service (~7-10 mins for nearly the entire day).

This is something I have noticed, but the double-decker trains are much more comfortable for off-peak and shoulder-peak use (of course they have serious problems when it gets very busy). The high amount of seating means seats are generally guaranteed for all except peak trips, and the seating layout is more comfortable than the facing seats on Melbourne trains. Shoulder peak and off-peak trains can have standees for fairly long distances in Melbourne, it is pretty off-putting having a 30-minute long standing journey at 11pm when trains are running half-hourly (example, to Clayton or Blackburn). The obvious fix for this is to run the more metro-orientated trains more often…

Hi Daniel. A couple of comments. You can’t really exclude Sydney Metro from the Sydney figures as it’s part of Sydney’s heavy rail commuter system and will be increasingly so over coming years as it is extended and the whole rail network transformed from a radial network to an integrated grid network. It’s more important to exclude the interurban lines and it seems you have done that as they are conveniently separated in the statistics. Including the metro would kick Sydney patronage above 400 million – allowing for the coronavirus slump.

I wouldn’t call the double deck trains higher capacity. I know there’s somebody in Melbourne who is a proponent of that notion (!), but their loading inefficiencies mean that they have the same effective capacity as an equivalent single deck train. The seating capacity is higher but the standing capacity is less.

Sydney employment is more decentralised than Melbourne and you’ve alluded to that. The existence of strong centres like Parramatta produces a lot of reverse commuting. There is even one entire cross-regional train line, the Cumberland line, in western Sydney.

Finally, although I haven’t lived in Melbourne for many years, I’m suspecting that Melbourne’s road network and parking situation is still much better than Sydney’s. Driving in peaks in Sydney (even on Saturdays!) is an awful experience, often succumbing to gridlock and, even when you make it to your destination, it’s difficult to find parking. Combine this with attractive public transport coverage and frequencies and you can understand the attraction to public transport. Thanks yet again for a beaut report.

Just on the Shopping Centres section, thought it would be worth mentioning Waringah Mall May not have Heavy Rail, but it does have a stop on our Bus Rapid Transit system B-Line, so it is connected relatively into the greater transport network

Hey Bob, as Daniel has noted on Twitter, Sydney still has more patronage when you combine all modes. So the difference is not just because Sydney lacks trams, the comparison is pretty fair. https://twitter.com/danielbowen/status/1279000930986278912

Living down the Frankston line, having a station at Southland has made my life much simpler. It’s really easy to stop off at the station and do a quick shop. A station at Chadstone would be a massive hit, just look at the amount of people that flock there on Boxing Day.

Another big thing to consider is Melbourne’s poor bus network. On weekends especially it’s much simpler to just drive then wait for a train and bus. I think if the bus network was improved you’d seem an increase in train trips. Unfortunately no one in Melbourne seems to really care about buses.

It’ll be interesting to see how the Suburban Rail Loop (if it gets built) and Airport Rail effects these numbers.

Daniel I understand that we are writing about train patronage, on a side note I think tram routes 30 and 78 need to be joined this alone would improve connectivity to la trobe St and some stations along route 78 new route 37 perhaps

Terrific piece of work. Thanks for very good attempt to make fair comparisons.
I wonder if parking in Sydney is a lot more expensive than Melbourne – e.g. shopping centres could charge for parking whereas in Melbourne they generally don’t. That may be another factor

It’s not just Shopping centres – Sydney just has more of every kind of trip generator closer to stations and even integrated, than Melbourne.

The other big example for Sydney? Hospitals! Royal North Shore Hospital has a pedestrian bridge linking it with St Leonards Station. Westmead station is right next door to Westmead hospital – the biggest hospital in Australia. Liverpool hospital is a very short walk from Liverpool station, same with St George Hospital. The closest hospitals to stations in Melbourne are Monash in Clayton (probably a 15 minute walk), Sunshine Hospital (also a lengthy walk from Ginifer), or St John in Berwick (also not a short walk). However, Melbourne also isn’t fixing this either – the new Western Hospital will be built next to Victoria Park in Footscray – further from the station. The hospital in Cobblebank will be built closer to the freeway, and nowhere near the train station. The Victorian Heart Hospital is being built on the Monash campus – also far from a train station, AND far from the Monash Bus Loop also, so even getting a bus is not going to be easy!

And even better – many stations have proper integration into the areas around. Castle Hill Station into Castle Towers is one of the newest ones, and has resulted in significantly higher visitations to Castle Towers Shopping Centre. Rouse Hill Station is also built next to the major town centre with massive expansion plans including a hospital within walking distance to the train station. Norwest’s location was chosen because of it’s proximity to Hillsong (regardless of your religious views, a venue with a capacity of 3,500 having five or more services per day is a significant trip generator). Parramatta is another well known linked station, and other stations such as Chatswood, Hurstville, Bondi Junction, North Sydney, Hornsby and Macarthur integrate a significant form of retail into its station – something we could only hope for with Southland.

As for other comments I’ve seen here:
Buses in Sydney aren’t just better because they used to be tram routes, they are better because serious investment has been put into them. The B Line (route B1) to the northern beaches has no timetable with frequencies advertised as every 2-7 minutes in peak hour, a minimum of 10 minute frequencies until 10pm, and at worst every 15 minutes only happening early morning or late night. This outperforms every single tram route in Melbourne! The popular 333 from Circular Quay to Bondi Beach runs every 10 minutes up to midnight and at worst every 30 minutes overnight. The Western suburbs also had massive investment in the T-Way system from Rouse Hill to Blacktown and Rousehill to Parramatta, as well as Parramatta to Liverpool, providing dedicated roadways and high frequencies along the T-Way. There’s also a significant volume of buses across the Harbour Bridge, with over 200,000 people crossing the Harbour Bridge by bus – the highest of any mode share!

@Roger – Parking at most shopping centres is free for 3 hours and paid thereafter, with Bondi Junction being the main exception only allowing 2 hours. In Melbourne, this is only seen at Eastland, Southland, Doncaster and Oakleigh, but in analysis, something like 90-95% of people never actually pay anything for shopping centre parking. However, all-day parking in Parramatta, Olympic Park and North Sydney is $25 for early-bird, with the CBD being even higher than that! Paid parking also applies all weekend even at night in Sydney CBD and other popular areas such as Newtown.

Trams make up a decent percentage in the patronage difference, however they mostly serve the inner suburbs within 5 kilometres of the Melbourne CBD; very few trams travel more than 10 kilometres out. For example, all trams from Glenhuntly and Malvern depots mainly serve Melbourne Uni and don’t venture much further outbound (east/south east) past their depots. For example, route 72 only goes as far as Camberwell, taking a scenic tour of inner south-eastern Melbourne beforehand. Unfortunately, Melbourne really doesn’t have proper light rail (excluding the 96/109 “train track” sections), although the 75 and 86 would come close – their only failings are the fact that turning cars (for example, those U-turning out of the East Burwood shopping centre to head back to Blackburn Rd) can still stop trams if the cars were there first, unlike with a (railway) level crossing where the cars always have to give way. Likewise with other sections that look like train tracks – Kings Way, Dandenong Rd, Mount Alexander Rd etc., cars can still get in the way where that would never be allowed if it was a train line rather than a tram.

The rest of suburban Melbourne is stuck with buses that mostly run every 40-60 minutes which stop running at any time between 5PM and 9PM depending on the bus route, with a large number not running on Sundays, or even Saturdays in some cases. Buses generally start running at 6AM (compared to 4-5 for trains and trams) but on the weekend the first bus can be as late as 10AM when it reaches the terminus, if not 11AM. I would be shocked if Sydney’s bus services did the exact same thing.

Additionally, “regional” V/Line trains serve a few suburbs which are relatively close to the city (compared with Frankston for example), notably Melton and Tarneit (and arguably Bacchus Marsh), reducing passenger numbers on the Metro (MTM) system. Meanwhile, Sydney runs electric interurban trains to the outlying suburbs, rather than regional diesel-powered trains. The only electric “interurban” train Melbourne had was back in the 90s when Comeng sets occasionally ran to Warragul, but the government tore down the overhead wires and put an end to that (up until the 80s, we also had electric L class locos which ran both passenger and freight services to Warragul and beyond).

One annoyance we also have is the lack of off-peak (morning/evening/weekend) express services. Having to stop at 40+ stations for a trip to the city is a royal pain, especially on the lines where the stations are bunched closely together like glorified tram stops (a relic from the 1880s suburban steam era when we literally had a Thomas the Tank Engine hauling 4-wheeled carriages not dissimilar to Annie and Clarabel). For example, during the week, most Lilydale and Belgrave trains run as limited express services (skipping most stations between Box Hill, Camberwell and Richmond) between 6AM and 8PM, but on the weekend and at night there is only one option – all stations except East Richmond, taking an hour to get there (even from Box Hill it takes half an hour). Speed limits also play a part, despite the tracks being upgraded and most of the level crossings gone on the Lilydale/Belgrave lines, the track speed is still restricted to a hopeless 65 km/h for the most part, and in the areas where a whopping 80 km/h is allowed, it’s mostly plagued by sharp/medium speed corners. The same speed issues (and sharp corners) also affect the Mernda and Hurstbridge lines.

What about the fact that, our lines have been closed so often due to grade separation projects?

In fairness, you would absolutely have to add Geelong Line patronage and possibly Ballarat Line too. I’ve lived in both cities and trips within the Sydney Metro area can certainly take up to a hour and a half coming into the CBD from Campbelltown, Leppington or Penrith. I’d expect the numbers to come in closer if this was done.