How else to get to Eureka Stadium?

In a previous post, I discussed the best place to put a train station serving Eureka Stadium. But building a train station is a big ask - even if it does make sense financially, it will take several years of lobbying and construction before the first train could call there. But matches are already being held, and the traffic and parking problems around the station are real - so what can be done in the meantime?

For the matches they've held so far, they've run coaches between Ballarat station and the ground, connecting with existing V/Line trains from Melbourne. While the change to coaches isn't as attractive to some as a single-seat journey on a train, this seems to have worked okay for the Melburnians, and those coming from places along the line like Bacchus Marsh or Ballan.

At some point it may be necessary to run extra trains from Melbourne, but the existing services seem to be able to cope in the short term. Weekend services are now hourly, and in late 2019 are likely to go to a 40 minute frequency, so that should probably be sufficient for the foreseeable future - it may just be a case of ensuring that the existing trains have six carriages instead of three.

But for an AFL match in Ballarat, spectators from Melbourne aren't the only ones you need to consider. One of the main reasons for playing AFL matches in Ballarat is to give greater access to people from Ballarat and western Victoria - so you have to assume that a large percentage of the punters are from Ballarat and western Victoria. The public transport options should reflect that, but there aren't really any extra services for those people.

Trains from Ararat and Maryborough are very infrequent of a weekend, but places along these lines will be prime sources of crowds for games in Ballarat. There should be extra trains on both lines before and after the games - with coaches to shuttle people from Ballarat Station to and from the ground. It would probably also be worthwhile running extra coaches to Ballarat, for those places not served by the trains - for example, a coach from Horsham connecting with the train at Ararat, or a coach from Geelong to Ballarat.

Ballarat bus network (via PTV)

But the main game is probably going to be within Ballarat - a lot of the crowd at these matches will be locals. Given that people will be coming from all over town, rather than a small number of collection points, it doesn't make sense to go for entirely new routes like they do for White Night. Those routes work fine for the very unusual situation that is White Night, but on an average day, they are long, slow, inconvenient, and also totally different to the normal routes everyone's used to, which makes them more confusing to casual users. (This is arguably one of the big problems with Melbourne's Night Network buses, too).

What needs to happen is sort of a "peak" service on existing routes - run all the existing ones at the existing times, plus slot extra ones in between them. How many more you'd need will depend on the route, as well as the day of the week. On Saturdays most routes run hourly, with a select few running half-hourly; on Sundays, most run hourly, a few run every 90 minutes, a few only run three times for the whole day, and Route 31 to Miners Rest doesn't run at all.

If it's on a Saturday, you might be able to get away with leaving the half-hourly routes as-is, as long as they go at convenient times relative to the start of the match. The hourly routes would probably only need one (or at most two) extra buses running. But on a Sunday you'd really need to be running extra buses on every route, just because the base level of service is so poor.

A key point, though - because the stadium is effectively out in the 'burbs rather than in the CBD where all the routes terminate, it wouldn't be as one-way as a typical "peak" service. You'd need to run extra inbound AND outbound services on routes 10, 11, 12 and 30, because people from Wendouree, Alfredton and Creswick will need them to get directly from home to the stadium; while someone coming from Mount Clear or Sebastopol or Ballarat East will need a quick and easy connection to these routes at the station.

Another key point is advertising. Depending where you live, you might well be able to get to the match by bus today, but people who don't use the system every day are unlikely to consider it. So if they did run extra services, they'd really need to advertise that fact, to ensure people knew about it and actually considers using it. This might seem obvious, but Victorian public transport agencies are notoriously bad at communicating service improvements to the general public. They put posters up at stations and mention it on social media, but that's preaching to the choir - it's no good for enticing a person who currently drives.

You might ask - how can we possibly increase the frequency of the bus network so dramatically at such short notice? Is this plan even possible? The answer is yes. The fleet of buses and the number of drivers is based on the peak demand of a school day, at which time all these routes run to their usual frequencies, plus a ton of school buses run. Many buses sit idle for most of the time when they're not being used for the school run, and PTV have been actively trying to figure out how to get better use of these assets. Using school buses from Ballarat and surrounding areas for events like this would be a great place to start.

So what does all this mean for a Eureka Station? If you did run extra footy trains from Ararat, they would undoubtedly use it. If Geelong-Ballarat passenger trains ever returned, and you ran footy trains along that line, presumably you'd make a special arrangement to terminate them at Eureka too. But clearly a holistic public transport plan for events at Eureka can't rely on trains, because such a large percentage of punters aren't going to be coming from anywhere near a train station.

Which just further underlines the issues with building a Eureka Station in the first place - if it's only going to be for events, it's probably not going to stack up financially. Its only chance is to be a station lots of people can use every day.