https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-03-27/sunshine-coast-rail-bus-network-privatisation-fears/105101438
Title says it all…
Is it really that hard to add a bus service from Birtinya to Maroochydore, if it doesn’t already exist?
How much will this cost; does it come out of DSCL funding?
The best part is it indeed does already exist!
From 7am to 10pm Route 611 runs half hourly from Meridan Plains to Maroochydore via Birtinya, it even stops right outside the Maroochydore CBD only a few hundred metres from the original proposed DSCL terminus. Total trip time is about 30 minutes.
I really cannot see a situation where the government is able to successfully privatise the wave considering it runs parallel to the Sunshine Coast’s main North/South arterial road which is served by no less than SIX existing bus routes.
Which private investor would be willing to pump over $1B into funding a transport project that will be directly competing with 50c (or at least in 2032, still very cheap) state owned public transport? The only reason Airtrain sort of works is because they have a monopoly on public transport to Brisbane Airport and even that’s been a disaster for them…
New Sunshine Coast rail and metro bus network could be privatised
Well, all operators in QLD other than Brisbane City Council’s buses and Queensland Rail are already private.
Every other Translink bus operator is private.
Every ferry operator is private. This includes the Brisbane CityCats.
The Gold Coast Light Rail is private.
Even the Cross River Rail tunnel is private (yes really). It is an availability partnership, see the notes below.
Essentially, a PPP is like a loan that the Government pays back over time. The fares will still be Translink fares.
It is likely that if the Sunshine Coast is delivered as a PPP, it would be a scheme similar to Cross River Rail where QR runs the trains but the actual infrastructure is privately held and essentially rental payments get charged to the Queensland Government.
Is it a good idea or a bad idea? No idea on that one.
Notes
Simple, talk to the existing contracted Sunshine Coast Bus Operator Kinetic (Sunshine Coast) about operating the “WaveMetroBus” route. I’m sure they’re be willing to listen to the proposal.
If Kinetic doesn’t want to operate the bi-articulated buses, then tender them out. CDC, KBL (an existing contracted TransLink operator in the Moreton Bay region) and other companies with Sunshine Coast depots could then research and decide for themselves whether to tender for the “WaveMetroBus” contract.
It would likely go through a competitive tender process.
That’s not what happened in Brisbane.
Since none of the bus contracts are tendered I see no reason why they should be making special arrangements for this one.
^^Different Government different approaches
That’s because BM was effectively an operator-led project. This is a bit different, being a Government-led project.
Does that really have any benefits vs biarticulated buses running in their own corridor?
Strong no on that. Originally the Adelaide O-Bahn was able to achieve 100km/h speeds but I don’t believe that has ever been the case with low entry buses. Absent that there’s no big advantage over a normal road base - the SEB allows 90km/h and doesn’t require any specific equipment fit.
Really it should be proper on-road bus priority and limited stops via what is basically Route 611. It should be light rail in the same corridor but the SC Council is hostile to it now.
Future-proofed growth to keep us moving forward#dscl #rail #publictransport https://t.co/f9M4YX6MQc
— 🄹🄴🄵🄵 🄰🄳🄳🄸🅂🄾🄽 (@Jeffrey_Addison) March 31, 2025
Article at the Glasshouse & Maleny Country News Future-proofed growth to keep us moving forward - Glasshouse Country & Maleny News
Thanks for sharing Robert, hope you’re well.
While $5.4bn has been secured for the Beerwah to Caloundra 19km Stage 1 there is no confirmed funding for the extension north to Birtinya.
A business case study completed last year estimated this 7km second stage would cost around $3bn.
This doesn’t fill me with confidence. It’s all well and good to announce the heavy rail extension to Birtinya, but if it’s completely unfunded, there’s really nothing stopping them from a last minute decision to scrap it and just ‘metro’ (sorry, ‘wave’) the whole Caloundra to Maroochydore stretch. This section is one of the most complex to build rail through, involving almost 1km of twin tunnels and a hell of a lot of work.
The cost of the metro busway to the Airport is unknown with the Government declining to answer questions.
With Brisbane Metro already sitting at $1.5B I can’t help but wonder what the cost of implementing a BRT system in an area like the coast will cost. They are going to need to build dedicated busways, stations, depots, charging infrastructure and then actually procure a fleet large enough to run a ~2 minute headway along the entire Birtinya → Airport route. I suspect that while it might be faster to build, the final cost may well end up being higher than rail would have been.
I also don’t trust for a second that these ‘local leaders’ actually care about public transport. Andrew Wallace (MP in the area where the DSCL alignment runs through) famously spearheaded a huge campaign to stop the proposed Sunshine Coast Light Rail because it would ruin the ‘lifestyle’ of the coast and ‘make traffic worse’. He was supported in these efforts by Jarrod Bleijie and Fiona Simpson. They have all shown little to no regard for building public transport infrastructure when they were in power previously and Bleijie himself was one of the people who fronted his electorate and promised heavy rail to Maroochydore before immediately backflipping on this as soon as he was made deputy premier.
If they wanted to they could boost patronage on the existing Sunshine Coast Line TOMORROW by extending some Caboolture terminators to Landsborough and increasing the 615 and 605 feeder buses to 15 minute frequency, all they’d need is some break room facilities to accommodate drivers and guards. A government that actually, genuinely cared about improving public transport to the Sunshine Coast would have done this by now, but the fact that they haven’t is telling. Don’t even get me started on the 90 minute gap between each service on weekends.
Edit: Added evidence to support my argument regarding Andrew Wallace.
You’d just need to convert the triangle siding at Landsborough into an electrified siding for turning back the electric passenger trains (As an electrified siding will be getting the hypothetical Landsborough terminators off the mainline and the platforms).
In addition, some “temporary” facilities for the crew, e.g air conditioned lunch room demountable(s) and toilets can be located nearby the siding as well.
Good point, though I wonder if they have sufficient capacity to get by without a siding as a short term measure? Have the terminating train come into platform 2 at Landsborough and basically have a 10 minute turnaround to head back into the city, while passing trains could still travel through Platform 1 if needed, similar to how Cannon Hill services on the Cleveland line work. The benefit of that too would be that commuters are already on the correct side to access the bus interchange and carpark. Would require some careful timetabling to potentially utilise the passing loops at Mooloolah and Beerwah a bit more, but surely it’s possible?
Alternatively if that’s not possible, using some of Translink’s new rail replacement buses to run more Caboolture to Nambour services would be a great start. Some of the new fleet is already being used on the 649 every 90 minutes, just bumping this up to 30 minutes or even 15 minutes in peak would be a fantastic improvement with a relatively low cost for Transport and Main Roads. I have thought about writing to the new transport minister to suggest this, however I fear that it will fall on deaf ears like previous ideas I have raised.
I suppose my concern is that they’re doing all this good work on Beerburrum to Beerwah duplication, yet 9000+ commuters on the SCL (myself being one of them) will continue to go without any service improvement until DSCL opens which is 7+ years away.
Journey Time Estimates
Given the possibility of a BRT service running from Birtinya to Maroochydore, it’s worth seeing what impact this might have on journey times.
Rail Option
30-min frequency case: 5 min access + 15 min average wait + 4.31 min ride + 5 min min access => 29.31 minutes journey (say 30 minutes)
15-min frequency case: 5 min access + 7.5 min average wait + 4.31 min ride + 5 min min access => 21.81 minutes journey (say 22 minutes)
Bus Option
5-min frequency case: 5 min access + 2.5 min average wait + 7.6 min ride + 5 min min access => 20.1 minutes journey (say 21 minutes)
If transferring to or from a train to Brisbane, add another 5 min for the transfer (say 25 min journey time). Add another 7.5 minutes if the train is 15-min frequent, or 15 minutes it if is 30 min frequent.
Summary
Although a train is faster than a bus (160 km/hr vs 90 km/hr), once timetabled frequency is taken into account, the journey times are similar between Birtinya and Maroochydore.
BRT service under the above scenario would take about 21 minutes between Birtinya and Maroochydore.
A train would take about 22 minutes (for a train every 30 min) or 21-25 minutes (for a train every 15 minutes) between Birtinya and Maroochydore.
For passengers to or from Brisbane, additional wait time for the train needs to be added. This gives a 28.5 minute journey + the time it would take for the train to reach Brisbane, or a 36 minute journey + the time it would take the train to reach Brisbane.
Overall, rail is the better long-term option for the corridor as detailed studies have already found. The BRT is a stop-gap measure.
While there is not much difference in journey times between bus and rail modes for journeys between Birtinya and Maroochydore, passengers to and from Brisbane would save between 19 - 23 minutes with a train. These time savings in favour of the rail mode come from trains being faster than buses (about 2.3 minutes), the elimination of a transfer walk (about 5 min), and waiting at the train platform when performing a transfer between modes (either 7.5 min or 15 min, depending on train frequency).
There is a case for BRT from Maroochydore to north of the Maroochy River. This is because a train extension from Maroochydore would require an expensive Bridge over the Maroochy River, wheras a BRT service could simply run in the existing Sunshine Motorway to cross it.
Let me know if there are any errors in the above and I will review.
Notes - Conversion factors
Rail at 160 km/hr: 11.5 km x (60 min / 160 km) = 4.31 minutes
Bus at 90 km/hr: 11.5 km x (60 min / 90 km) = 7.6 minutes
Excellent analysis, thanks Metro.
I did some back of the napkin calculations (nowhere near as in depth as you) and came to the same conclusion. Heavy rail makes the most sense to Maroochydore to provide a CBD to CBD connection from the heart of Brisbane to the heart of the Sunshine Coast with no mode change or waiting required - a perfect single seat intercity trip.
From Maroochydore it makes the most sense to have an interchange with BRT running North to the airport along the existing bridge, but I also think it would also make sense to continue south along the coastline via the seperate Sunshine Coast Mass Transit corridor (which is also BRT as preferred mode), through Alexandra Headlands, Mooloolaba, Warana and down Nicklin Way (which already has bus lanes) all the way to Caloundra where it could connect to DSCL again at Caloundra Station. People could then disembark the train at Caloundra and switch to BRT to access southern coastal suburbs, or Maroochydore to access northern suburbs and the airport.
This is what I was expecting ‘the wave’ announcement to be, I thought the new government would build DSCL to Caloundra by 2032 and then focus on setting up BRT to the airport via the mass transit corridor in time for the games, and then focus on the final 2 DSCL stages once the olympics are over, which I think is the solution that BTQ should advocate for. It would provide the best outcome for passengers and still protect the CAMCOS corridor to Maroochydore.