Study on Melbourne Airport rail link

[reductionist]

I'm with those who mentioned they'd prefer rail.

1. I'm not super tall but I find there's not enough legroom on skybus, I have to sit slightly sideways.
2. The skybus terminal is not that close to the trains at Southern Cross. The connection time to a metro rail service isn't trivial if you're time poor.
3. The tourist info/ads they broadcast in the bus are horrible.
4. I just prefer rail over bus.

 

[dk4]

In my opinion, MEL would be better off making the existing entrance for private vehicles and private hire cars, and build a drop off for cabs and buses off site toward Sunbry with a train system such as SIN or FRA that runs on a monorail, driver less and every 3-5 minutes.

While I like your monorail idea (and would extend it throughout the airport precinct to include long term parking), I would reverse the idea about who gets terminal door drive-up & drop-off, and who doesn't.

As a business, I imagine the last person that an airport wants to cater to is a private car drop-off, as it is unlikely to ever be able to charge a fee for these types of landside arrivals.

Whereas, an airport may get away with charging public transport providers (taxis &/or buses) a usage fee for landside arrivals. Therefore, giving them exclusive terminal-door drop-off, would also give them a competitive advantage over other landside arrival options, which may increase take-up of these landside transport offers, and by way of fees the airport's profits.

It is, however, in an airport’s interest to funnel private car drop offs into the car park (or valet service etc), where it can then make money from them! Thus, offering private car drop-offs an unattractive offsite location, would seem the better business argument.*

As for the airport line train discussion: I have only ever seen Skybus packed to (standing-only) capacity on a very few peak services, and as a train would have much more capacity than a bus, IMO significant volumes of airport users would have to be "prompted and prodded" to change their landside transport behaviours, to make a train service profitable. And the airport would probably only be interested in churning those landside arrivals where it currently doesn’t receive a usage fee, (as it would presumably charge a fee to train operators), rather than wishing to canabalise existing fee paying landside arrivals.

 

[samh004]

I'm with those who mentioned they'd prefer rail.

• The tourist info/ads they broadcast in the bus are horrible.

I’m sure you’d get the same on a dedicated rail.

 

[medhead]

While I like your monorail idea (and would extend it throughout the airport precinct to include long term parking), I would reverse the idea about who gets terminal door drive-up & drop-off, and who doesn't.

As a business, I imagine the last person that an airport wants to cater to is a private car drop-off, as it is unlikely to ever be able to charge a fee for these types of landside arrivals.

Whereas, an airport may get away with charging public transport providers (taxis &/or buses) a usage fee for landside arrivals. Therefore, giving them exclusive terminal-door drop-off, would also give them a competitive advantage over other landside arrival options, which may increase take-up of these landside transport offers, and by way of fees the airport's profits.

Very interesting discussion.

However, isn't the current system a fee charged to departing taxis. I'm not sure about MEL but that is the case at other airports. There is no fee for arrival. Moving the taxis to a separate facility will make it easier to charge a fee as they enter the control environment. It also will lead to a massive reduction in travel at kerbside. Private cars are likely to be much more resistant to a paid facility just based on the number of people who try to avoid parking fees now.

 

[dk4]

Moving the taxis to a separate facility will make it easier to charge a fee as they enter the control environment.

I would turn this suggestion around as well: By moving the controlled environment to a kerbside facility where the taxis are already, to collect the fee!

Private cars are likely to be much more resistant to a paid facility just based on the number of people who try to avoid parking fees now.

In the future I imagine that anyone dropping-off who does not want to take advantage of a “convenience fee”, for front of terminal access, is more likely to be given the inconvenience of an off-site location.

In fact, the higher the fee the airport is able to extract from the landside arrival mode (e.g. taxi, hire cars, bus, chauffer, valet, pre-paid permit…), the closer it is likely to be to the terminal door.

As a basic equation this would mean, the distance from the drop-off point to the terminal door would be inversely proportional to the size of the fee that the airport can extract from the landside arrival mode.

Using the above logic, "fee free" landside arrivals should be processed at a significant distance from the terminal.


Kerbside controlled environments (replete with boom gates &/or fee control) already exist at many Australian airports, but IME currently only for landside departures. It would therefore seem logical, that similar tactics will eventually be applied to landside arrivals.

 

[Oneworldplus2]

I've only ever had to use the bus once in Melbourne and didn't have a problem with it. However, l do prefer trains if l had a choice.

Maglev would be nice, but l can't see it happening.

 

[markis10]

Still dont know why they did not just continue to extend the airport west tram line when they moved it to the Westfield, the corridor was there as far as space goes and while not the quickest option, there is something nice about a tram ride to the airport, it would have also helped with those living on the line wishing to go to the airport.

 

[medhead]

I would turn this suggestion around as well: By moving the controlled environment to a kerbside facility where the taxis are already, to collect the fee!

I think you did suggest exactly that, it is an interesting idea. I didn't explain my previous very well as it was from iphone. The problem is I can't see that working with the current drop off arrangements. It isn't as simple as putting in a boom gate, although I agree they could just do that. The thing is that airport drop off is barely organised chaos, imposing a boom gate on that before dropping off the passenger would lead to massive delays for passengers getting to the airport. Obviously that wouldn't be good.

The rest of my comments will apply equally to your other points but I'm going to be lazy and not try to be targetted in my reply.

To explain myself further, lets take the taxi pick up side of things. Currently, taxis that what to pick up from the airport, have to do so in an orderly manner. They are banned from just drive to the kerb and grabbing a fare. They need to enter a holding area, wait, and are then distributed in an orderly manner to pick up arriving passenger. They pay a fee to enter the holding area when there are no impatient passengers wanting to get to their flight (or the lounge). In MEL, according to a taxi driving there are substanial lounge like facilities in the holding area. This is why they (or we the passenger) is paying the fee, to pay for this holding area. Basically, this is a user pays system with the passenger who wants the taxi being the user. I'm not going to even go into that idea as it is a whole other conversation.

Contrast that with a taxi dropping someone off. They drive up kick out the passenger and off they go, maybe to leave the airport and not pick up. It is a chaotic process and any attempt to impose order with a boom gate it going to create problems. In any case, What are they using? Not much, and it would be pretty hard to come up with an appropriate fee. In the case of MEL, however, I would guess a number of taxi do drive around, pay the fee and enter the holding area. So they mostly likely drive past the holding area entry, drop off and drive out, drive back in and then enter the holding area. It seems crazy (inefficient and costly) to have all these taxis circling around taking up road space.

This is why I thought a satellite facility is a good idea, you can make the drop off a bit more orderly, you funnel the arriving taxis straight into the holding area, still collect the fee on exit and you take probably 90% of the traffic off your airport roads. The passenger experience is probably the same or better because time lost getting the monorail is gained by not sitting in a taxi waiting to get to the kerbside drop off. The improved efficiency makes up for the extra 5 minutes on the monorail. Private passenger experience is improved because they get an easier run to the kerb.

However, thinking a bit more about this, I'm not sure it'll work. There are times when you don't want every taxi that arrives at the airport to going into the holding area. Because then the taxi waiting times increases and if this is consistent (in an extreme case) some drivers will refuse to go to the airport. Maybe a bypass lane would fix that potential problem. Anyway, this is an interesting problem. I do think that an arrivals fee wouldn't work due to the introduced delays (note this does work for taxis picking up due to the lack of a late passenger in the equation when paying the fee and the general order that is imposed by the holding area). But I'm also not sure about the satellite area.

In the future I imagine that anyone dropping-off who does not want to take advantage of a “convenience fee”, for front of terminal access, is more likely to be given the inconvenience of an off-site location.

In fact, the higher the fee the airport is able to extract from the landside arrival mode (e.g. taxi, hire cars, bus, chauffer, valet, pre-paid permit…), the closer it is likely to be to the terminal door.

As a basic equation this would mean, the distance from the drop-off point to the terminal door would be inversely proportional to the size of the fee that the airport can extract from the landside arrival mode.

Using the above logic, "fee free" landside arrivals should be processed at a significant distance from the terminal.

Kerbside controlled environments (replete with boom gates &/or fee control) already exist at many Australian airports, but IME currently only for landside departures. It would therefore seem logical, that similar tactics will eventually be applied to landside arrivals.

 

[munitalP]

There are far more taxis and buses causing congestion at MEL it seems logical to move them away from the problem.

 

[Misha]

I think a rail-link is an attractive idea. I live about 2km away from Southern Cross Station and have not once caught the skybus in 4 years. I must agree with the post however, about it being a private line, as I too would not feel safe on standard suburban trains (I may be ignorant on the issue, but merely how I feel).

When I moved to Madrid they were close to finishing the airport link on the Metro - everyone said it wouldn't work as it was in the CBD not the Commercial/Tourist District. Still, when it opened - I converted in a second. Melbourne would need to introduce the same concept. At Madrid (Nuevos Ministerios station if I remember correctly) you would arrive at the station. Just before the embarkation section, there were check in desks for the major airlines (Iberia, Spanair and Air Europa, though may have been others - this is a while ago). You would check in (well ahead of schedule) and drop of your luggage (that's right, no lugging bags about the metro or the airport) and arrive at the Barajas terminal 15 minutes later ready to board (or shop!). The "terminal" at the train station was better than the hovel of an airport.

At that time, I think Madrid - Barcelona was the world's busiest airline route (just ahead of Sydney-Melbourne methinks) so it was used by all the suits travelling back and forth. Had they not had offsite check-in, I doubt the line would have been used as often as it was. (and I hope; still is).

If Melbourne had a check in counter at Southern Cross (say), with a direct link (no stops) to the airport, so no suburban commuters in the way, I think it would steal all but die-hard skybus fans. Offer the airlines the facility and at least QF, DJ & JQ would take up the offer. Not so sure about Tiger - but they would probably send the luggage on the wrong line to Geelong or something so that's probably a good thing.

My two cents

 

[dajop]

I think you did suggest exactly that, it is an interesting idea. I didn't explain my previous very well as it was from iphone. The problem is I can't see that working with the current drop off arrangements. It isn't as simple as putting in a boom gate, although I agree they could just do that. The thing is that airport drop off is barely organised chaos, imposing a boom gate on that before dropping off the passenger would lead to massive delays for passengers getting to the airport. Obviously that wouldn't be good.

No need for boomgates, very simple solution would be strategic placement of etag style gantry on the departures ramp, and another just past the rental car return lane heading to departures. Generate funds there to pay for 1) on overpass straight to departures, ie. cut out the intersection 2) SFO/ORD style people mover that runs to the LTCP 3) build a dedicated off airport drop/pickup point at the end of the LTCP, near to the first off ramp, close to a station of the new people mover.