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This article was originally published in the former State Transport Authority (SA) in-house magazine, Among Ourselves. It is reproduced here with the kind permission of the author and TransAdelaide. The article is from issue no. 247; January - March 1989.
Adelaide has generally not had much success with cross-suburban bus services in the inner suburbs (i.e. those routes linking suburban areas without passing through the city).
Adelaide's population density and the relatively small proportion of travellers using public transport has, over the last thirty years, resulted in relatively poor patronage on most of these services.
A number of private operators attempted to run such services in the 1940's or early 1950's when a greater proportion of the population used public transport. Many of these services eventually disappeared or were reduced to a very low frequency. Some of the reasons for this being:
This is the story of Adelaide's Circle Line bus service and those services which preceded it, substantially operating along parts of its route. The story of other 'inner-suburban' cross-suburban bus services will be covered at another time.
Before examining its history, it is important to understand today's Circle Line, Route 100.
This circular bus service operates around the inner suburbs of Adelaide, with a radius of 3-7 kilometres and a circumference (length) of 38 kilometres.
It is designed to link up with many radial bus, tram and train services, serving shopping centres, schools and industrial areas on its route, which generally follows circumferential arterial roads.
Circle Line buses operate every 7 to 18 minutes in peak periods and every 26 minutes at midday. The running time in the peak period is so long (up to 120 minutes) that 19 buses are required to maintain the service.
Approximately 7000 passengers a day use the Circle Line, making it one of Adelaide's best patronised routes in terms of total passenger boardings. Unfortunately, from a revenue point of view, the majority of peak period passengers are concession fare-paying school students, who very heavily patronise portions of the route.
The earliest reported service along part of the present day Circle Line relates to a service which presumably used Portrush Road. This was a bus service operated from 1922 between Norwood and Marryatville by Fred Shorne and Norm Lewis. Mr Lewis was the founder of the Lewis Bros Coach Services, a well known Adelaide public transport operator.
On 24 February 1936, Lewis commenced a bus service along the length of Portrush Road, running from the Glen Osmond tram terminus to the Walkerville North Tram terminus at Hampstead Road. This route is believed to have had an hourly service in its early years, although by 1948 its basic weekday off-peak service was every 70 minutes, with a 30 to 40 minutes service in peak periods and on Saturday and Sunday afiernoons. In some years the route even had a night service!
An attempt to establish a service across the northern suburbs came in April 1941 when a private operator commenced a peak period service running from the Walkerville North Tram Terminus to Lower North (now Churchill) Road, Prospect. This service lasted only two months, when it was withdrawn, but then replaced almost immediately by an extended service operating from Walkerville North to Prospect, then via Lower North (Churchill) Road to the Holdens Plant at Woodville.
The early 1950's saw the rapid increase in private car ownership and consequent difficulties for public transport.
Lewis compensated for this by eliminating the Sunday and public holiday Portrush Road service in 1954, finally abandoning the whole service in about 1955.
The route was then taken over by a private operator called Metro (formed by a group of several other private operators) who joined the Glen Osmond - Walkerville North and Walkerville North - Holdens services to form one through route. This route made up a substantial part of today's Circle Line. At about this time the link to Northfield was discontinued, and after a short period of Metro operation, Rex Slattery (father of the Authority's Paul Slattery) purchased Metro and took over the Glen Osmond - Walkerville North - Holdens service.
By 1958, the basic service operated only between Glen Osmond and Walkerville North with peak period services continuing to Holdens.
By 1966 the route to Holdens had been changed and the whole service discontinued during the Christmas holiday period.
Patronage on the service continued to deteriorate to such an extent that, apart from school trips between Walkerville North and Glen Osmond (which still operate as part of the Circle Line service), the Holdens - Glen Osmond service was discontinued from December 1969. The continued success of the school trips can be attributed to the number of schools along Portrush Road. Between 1966 and 1970 Slattery also operated a once-weekly chartered service between Beefacres and Norwood, being extended to Dernancourt in 1968.
One of Adelaide's longest running and most well known cross-suburban bus services, the Glen Osmond - Glenelg service (known as route 650 since 1972) commenced operation in February 1932. Winders and Wadeson operated their service from Portrush Road/Glen Osmond Road via Cross Road to the present-day Glenelg bus terminus, just south of Jetty Road. Thus, a public transport service was established along the southern portion of today's Circle Line (ie along Cross Road). This service became very popular, by 1948 having a 20 to 30 minute headway on weekdays, Saturdays and Sundays (including nights and Sunday mornings!). The service provided a useful link to schools such as Urrbrae and Cabra, as well as for shoppers and beachgoers travelling to Glenelg.
In November 1955 operation of this service was transferred to the Westbourne Park bus service (later to become Thomas Tours), which had previously commenced a Lower Mitcham - Glenelg service (now route 652).
Falling patronage saw the discontinuation of weekend services on the Cross Road bus service in 1963 and the service was transferred from Thomas Tours to the Municipal Tramways Trust in February 1974.
From February 1977, when operation of the service was transferred to the STA's Morphettville Depot, it was extended at Glen Osmond to turn via Portrush, Gilles, Pridmore, Day and Portrush Roads, to over-come bus turning problems and to better serve Seymour College. From 1980 the turning loop at Glenelg was reversed to operate in an anti-clockwise direction for consistency with the associated Lower Mitcham service.
By the late 1970's the service was very poorly patronised outside of school peak times. Consequently, following the introduction of the Circle Line route 650 was reduced to a school peak hours service in February 1984, and a 'school days only' service from September 1987.
For a short time in 1950, R L Morphett operated a service on a circular route from Port Road/Kilkenny Road through Kilkenny, Woodville North, Woodville, Woodville South and Beverley. The service was apparently unsuccessful.
In the 1970's, prior to the introduction of the Circle Line, Footes Bus Services operated a chartered shoppers service from Arndale Kilkenny to the Findon area.
During the 1970's, when efforts were being made to increase public transport patronage, the people of Adelaide made it clear in various surveys that they considered Adelaide's cross-suburban public transport to be sadly lacking.
At that time, various overseas cities were experimenting with dial-a-bus, and consideration was given to the introduction of such. a service in Adelaide. A private operator, Barry Wood, eventually offered to operate his own service as an experimental inter-suburban dial-a-bus service in the older part of the metropolitan area.
The service was attempted under the name Dial-a-Bus Pty Ltd, in 1972, and lasted about two or three days. It was found that the travel demand was so great and so scattered, that the twelve buses involved simply could not cope. In addition the buses had significant radio problems. The service ceased and the buses went elsewhere.
The dial-a-bus service had, however, indicated a significant unsatisfied demand for cross-suburban travel.
As a result, in 1973 the Dept of Transport suggested the operation of a circular suburban bus service that would cater to many of these demands. It was argued that the new transfer ticket system would overcome the previous problem involving passengers having to pay several fares, while if the service operated frequently enough the disadvantages of transferring from other services would be minimised. In addition, the circular nature of the service would provide a link between sectors of the metropolitan area not previously connected by private bus services.
A shortage of buses at the time (resulting from the transfer of private bus services to the MTT early in 1974) prevented immediate introduction of the proposed bus service. However, the first Volvo B59 buses in 1977 allowed the release of sixteen specially painted orange AEC Regal VI buses - the 100 series - to operate the new service, and the Circle Line was introduced on Monday, 31 October 1977.
The name Circle Line was based on that of one of London's Underground rail services.
The original service operated every 15 to 30 minutes on weekdays during peak periods and business hours and on Thursday nights and Saturday mornings.
Although unofficially designated route '0' in 1977, the service officially become route '100' in 1980 when Volvo B59's were used to replace the AEC's.
As part of a programme of matching services to demand, the relatively poorly patronized Thursday night and Saturday morning services were discontinued in 1986 and 1987 respectively.
The success of the Circle Line has spread to other cities. Brisbane introduced the Great Circle Line a few years ago, modelled on Adelaide's Circle Line. Running time on that route is 180 minutes, compared with Adelaide's 99 to 120 minutes.
Acknowledgements: In preparing this article we acknowledge the assistance of JC Radcliffe, CJM Steele, DG Evans and P Slattery.
Photos and current information on Bus route 100, the Circle Line.
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