One of the major transport issues to be considered in the lead up to the Brisbane 2032 Olympic Games is improving Brisbane Airtrain service frequency, span of hours and ticket prices.
Here is a comparison of Brisbane Airtrain against Perth’s Airport Train (June 2024). As the chart clearly shows, Perth’s Airport train offers a superior level of service.
Perth operates 1,019 services to and from the airport each week, while Brisbane runs just 632. This means Brisbane’s Airtrain provides only 62% of the service that Perth residents and visitors enjoy.
The data we have on mode share from the BNE Masterplan 2020 shows that Airtrain gets around 7% mode share. A value of around PT=10% would thus be reasonable IMO for estimation purposes.
(Remember, the Brisbane CBD which has PT in all directions only gets about PT=25%, so if a value like PT=50% is set then it will need a strong level of evidence/justification such as presenting examples of lines where this is achieved or demonstrating a large door-to-door journey time gap between PT and car travel times).
Even if we use a rule of thumb like doubling frequency doubles patronage, that would maybe get us to 14-15%. It is still quite far from 50%. The statistic that stands out in the chart below is that more trips are taken by rental car from Brisbane Airport than catch Airtrain . The figures for rideshare have probably increased though.
Chart from BNE masterplan showing 7% Airtrain mode share
^ This is a great video that touches on the main issues with Airtrain:
Frequency - services are less frequent than Perth and need to at least match Perth’s frequency
Span of Hours - services need to be extended later into the night
Ticket costs - these could come down, again similar to Perth (though perhaps 50c fares are a bit too generous).
Some comments:
Asset valuation. The value of an asset (e.g. Airtrain) is the sum of its future net income adjusted down for the value of time (discounted) to the present time (Net Present Value/Discounted Cashflow).
Impact of Olympics on Valuation. This means that any valuation of Airtrain today will already incorporate the small patronage bump that might the the result of increased patronage from the Olympics.
Airtrain value falls over time to zero. Because Airtrain is an asset concession that expires and is handed to the Queensland Government in 2036, its valuation is similar to that of a financial bond. The value of Airtrain thus overall is expected to fall each and every year, until the day the concession expires in 2036, where the value of Airtrain will be zero.
Ownership vs Fare levels. In terms of private ownership or operation, there is no connection between private ownership and set fare levels. You do not have to own or operate something to subsidise it. Indeed, this is already demonstrated in the video when the narrator mentions that the Airtrain fares at the time of filming were temporarily discounted due to a Steven Miles Government temporary subsidy. So, it is entirely possible to maintain or increase that subsidy so that fares match Translink standard fares, regardless of who actually owns or operates it.
Finally, in terms of patronage, Airtrain is lightly used. Duplication is likely to be very expensive and is probably not required for a long time. The immediate focus should be on subsidising Airtrain so that fare levels come down, patronage goes up, and that additional train services are added to the timetable.
Yes, that is a good observation. The video also mentioned dual pillars at that location. Are they there perhaps to allow a stationt to be built at that location?
Although not an urgent priority, construction of Skygate station could be achievable before the 2032 Olympics and open up the area for shopping.
That’s what they are doing now with the track closure in place.
Isn’t the new route going to be from Indooroopilly and Ipswich when CRR is commissioned.
Most importantly, we should be also addressing span of hours when CRR comes online. Hopefully we can get some earlier and later trains, effectively increasing the span of hours to 0500 - midnight inline with the Ipswich line operations.
There’s a big difference between running shuttles during a closure, and when tracks are fully open to through traffic. It’s bad enough already, with flat junctions for both the Doomben and Airport lines.
Having shuttles during regular running just isn’t feasible. You’d need a fifth platform at Eagle Junction, and I don’t see where you could put one.
If the Airport is a shuttle from EJ then some lines (i.e. Ferny Grove and whatever it pairs with) have to make two changes rather than one.
I guess this not horribly bad, since FG line has pretty easy orbital road access to the Airport and the Cleveland line has the Gateway as a massive shortcut relative to the train.
I do think it’s suboptimal if the CBD isn’t a one-seat ride (obviously post CRR not all CBD stations will be on the Airport line).
Also in AM peak many trains terminate in the CBD, i.e. some trains from the south and west don’t pass through EJ either.
But most of all it’s not particularly necessary to run Airtrain as a shuttle. Shorncliffe, Airport and Doomben aren’t especially high growth lines and comfortably fit on their track pair. We’d only need to look at changing this if/when outer-northern-line growth pushes the Virginia-Lawnton segment out of CRR.
It’s a pity that the track section between Mayne and Albion couldn’t be straightened a little, and Albion Station relocated to Hudson Rd. Would be (very slightly) faster, reduce wear on wheels/tracks, but most importantly, have a decent location for a bus interchange.
As for Eagle Junction, I don’t think it can be improved much in the current location. I guess you could move the line closer to Wooloowin, between Dickson and Adamson Streets, as that’s the only decent part of straight track anyway nearby, but you then lose the bus interchange on Junction Rd. Maybe a tunnel from Albion to Toombul could help, but you’d still need to retain the surface track for freight, anyway.
I think we’ve hit the core problem with Brisbane’s rail network - capacity.
Airtrain should be more affordable and more frequent, arguably most our network needs to be more frequent. But we are just lacking lines and platforms for capacity and unfortunately additional future proofing and planning looks bleak (or entirely nonexistent).
I think 15 minute frequency is actually adequate for Airtrain (not great: adequate).
Kinda by definition, there’s no major off-peak track capacity limitation, it’s pretty much just down to rollingstock and crew.
So when I think about how much peak capacity the Shorncliffe, Airport and Doomben lines need, I’m thinking about what they run today and what they should run:
Shorncliffe: today 4tph from Shorncliffe, 4tph from Northgate. Ideally would be 8tph from Shorncliffe just for the improved frequency.
Note that Albion-Northgate gets over twice the patronage Bindha-Shorncliffe does in AM peak, but also the latter only gets 35% of the patronage that Windsor to Ferny Grove gets (and FG also has 8tph)
Airport: 4tph is adequate and all that’s possible on current infra.
Doomben: 2tph, should be 4tph as the baseline; needs at least duplication to make work.
All up that’s only 16 tph. Now it is two flat junctions and that does make timetabling tricky, but we don’t have to work around the 8tph from Ferny Grove any more so… there’s room. The northeast is not the capacity problem.
I’m not saying specifically any of those lines need more capacity, it’s the network as a whole. I was on a railbus today and even though it’s a rail bus the high frequency was really nice. Albeit since I live between some of these stations I wouldn’t mind more capacity on these lines
