This post is supposed to be used as a demo for what transport would look like when the Airport district opens to other transport modes
As I have plenty of time to think at my day job, a thought had occurred to me about what might happen when the Brisbane Airport District (BAD) hands back to the Queensland Government (QGov). My potential What-If is that Translink (TL) enters a nominal agreement with QGov and labels the BAD as a new Zone.
As per the SEQ Bus numbering conventions
1- South
2- East
3- North
4- West
5- Outer Brisbane
6- Sunshine Coast
7- Gold Coast
8-
9- Toowoomba
M- Metro
N- Nightlink
P- Prepaid
R- Replacement
8 is absent from most TransLink services and is at present only really placed on school runs albeit with 4 digits instead of the usual 2 or 3. So I used the 8XX code as a new zone for the Brisbane Airport district and created the newest route called 801.
A video has been made detailing the route and why it might exist.
In Southern Brisbane, Council has many school runs (890, 891, 892, 893) with the usual 3 digits. In my opinion, it would be very confusing for drivers mostly, and maybe tourists, if the school runs appear.
The same scenario as the 7xx and 9xx series school runs, by Council. If you look on some 3rd Party real time tracking apps, the 7xx series runs are apparently by “Kinetic (Gold Coast)” which makes it hard enough to work out, let alone what happens when a driver has a typo.
Like @Archie_Stubbings Said, a mix of 3xx and 5xx, or even the middle 6xx route numbers, seem the most likely, and organised.
Should be a unique number for each route in the State, including any school buses.
SEQ can be 0-999. This should include Minjerribah, Kilcoy, Maleny, Gympie and Toowoomba, and those operations should all fall under the SEQ ticketing system (so there would be continuation travel if making connections). There are a number of ways to organise it and I’m not fussed as long as it makes some sense and there are no repeats. Any railbus numbers should be reserved and not used for normal services.
Regional towns can have alphanumeric prefixes, which would be pretty straightforward - just break up into 6 broader regions and pick a letter for each that isn’t “F” (ferry), “G” (potentially for tram), “N” (Nightlink) or “R” (for train/tram/BM replacement), or anything else you want to keep free.
Far North Queensland = Cairns + Innisfail
North Queensland = Townsville + Magnetic Island
Mackay = Bowen + Whitsundays + Mackay
Central Queensland = Rockhampton + Yeppoon / Gracemere / Mt Morgan + Gladstone
Wide Bay Burnett = Bundaberg + Fraser Coast + Maryborough
South West Queensland = Warwick
School bus routes should all be 4 digits and consistent statewide, and designed so that if the first digit is omitted it does not clash with anything operating nearby.
Reminds me of TL wanting to have all school services to have a 4 digit route number, but of course BCC wanting to do their own thing and resisting that to keep their 3 digit route number setup for their own school routes, which once upon a time were known as ‘district’ routes - hence you see ‘district’ bus route signs around the place.
Again, why does BCC have to be this special case and still have their own network planning powers and get to ignore TL’s wishes?