Newcastle & surrounding area bus drivers

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Newcastle & surrounding area bus drivers

Post by Newcastle Flyer »

Could bus drivers in the Newcastle & surrounding areas please
1 When their is room at bus stops, to stop having the back of the bus hanging out, preventing other traffic from passing, or at least making it hard for traffic to past. We saw one driver at a certain stop with the back of the bus hanging out, & he/she had to use the wheelchair ramp for a person in a wheelchair. He/she had enough room to pull the whole bus into the kerb.

When their is room, why do many bus drivers have the back of their bus hanging out? (I don't mean just a bit, but almost at a 40 - 45­° angle.

2 We have also seen some bus drivers have the school lights on out of the hours. Yes we know that the school lights have a slightly longer time than the school hours, BUT this was on a Sunday, and another bus driver had them on at about 13:00. (I believe the bus school lights are meant to start at about 14:00 to around 17:00 or 17:30)
For the one with the school lights on Sunday, if a motorist was doing more than 40 kmh & was seen by the police, then he/she could've got unfairly booked.

3 Can bus drivers please not hold traffic up by "crawling" like snails at about 30 kmh WHEN IN AN 80 kmh zone.
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Re: Newcastle & surrounding area bus drivers

Post by Off The Rails »

There*

Q1: Are there cars either side of the bus stop? If so, it may be necessary for the driver to put the bus on such an angle in case wheelchair passengers jump on/off. If not, then it's either lazy driving or the passenger hailed the bus too late for the driver to pull in properly.

Q2: The drivers may of accidentally put them on, or they may of been on school charters.

Q3: The driver may of been wasting time so they didn't had to stop at a timing point. Heavy traffic would've made it hard for the driver to get back out into traffic. Or, in the rare chance, the bus may of had mechanical issues, and the driver was waiting for a clear spot to pull over.

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Re: Newcastle & surrounding area bus drivers

Post by Newcastle Flyer »

Off The Rails wrote:Q1: Are there cars either side of the bus stop? If so, it may be necessary for the driver to put the bus on such an angle in case wheelchair passengers jump on/off. If not, then it's either lazy driving or the passenger hailed the bus too late for the driver to pull in properly.
If you looked, I said if their is enough room. Their was in the case a few days ago.
Off The Rails wrote:Q2: The drivers may of accidentally put them on, or they may of been on school charters.
I doubt school lights are meant to be on, on a Sunday, even if it is a school charter.
Off The Rails wrote:Q3: The driver may of been wasting time so they didn't had to stop at a timing point. Heavy traffic would've made it hard for the driver to get back out into traffic. Or, in the rare chance, the bus may of had mechanical issues, and the driver was waiting for a clear spot to pull over
They're meant to stay (or pull up at a safe bus stop) bus stop, until the due departure time, aren't they?
No, he/she was not waiting for another bus due to mechanical issues.
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Re: Newcastle & surrounding area bus drivers

Post by boronia »

school lights are only meant to be used on route services when picking up or setting down school children. An earlier definition included only school special services.

They were not meant to be used for charter services at any time.

NF, you should note details of particular buses that you feel are causing problems and submit feedback to TfNSW. Reporting issues here would solve them. Get the Feedback2Go app for your phone, put in an on the spot complaint.
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Re: Newcastle & surrounding area bus drivers

Post by tonyp »

I wouldn't worry so much about the traffic. The main issue is that the centre door should be alongside the kerb for passengers using that door.

In any case, taxi drivers are the world's leading practitioners of pulling over with the backside stuck out in traffic. Bus drivers are pussycats by comparison.
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Re: Newcastle & surrounding area bus drivers

Post by Newcastle Flyer »

At Boronia, I know that wouldn't (I think you meant to say) solve issues, but I thought the drivers might be able to see them here.

Retry the edit: Tony, the rear doors when this happens are way out from the kerb).
The only situation when that needs to happen is when vehicles are parked too close or in the bus stop/zone.
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Re: Newcastle & surrounding area bus drivers

Post by lunchbox »

Newcastle Flyer should stop his petty whinging. If the people in that bus had used their cars, he'd be even further back in the traffic!
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Re: Newcastle & surrounding area bus drivers

Post by Swift »

They sound like legitimate complaints to me. There seems to be a culture on this board that bus drivers are always free from blame and there is always a good reason for them doing the wrong thing and being inconsiderate.
Not the case at all.
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Re: Newcastle & surrounding area bus drivers

Post by DENAIR »

there may have also been kerbside infrastructure that may interfere with the arrival and departure of the bus , as drivers know street furniture quite often is in the wrong place
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Re: Newcastle & surrounding area bus drivers

Post by Newcastle Flyer »

Swift wrote:They sound like legitimate complaints to me.
It's not a complaint, just a few requests
DENAIR wrote:there may have also been kerbside infrastructure that may interfere with the arrival
No, there wasn't any thing to interfere with the bus stop/zone. And that's a regular occurrence, no stuff or cars too close to the bus stop/zone, but a fair number of bus drivers still do it.

PS: Not taking to much credibility with this, but I've been told that a bus is not allowed to reverse onto a bus stop, at a terminus, IF it needs to & IF their is stuff too close to the bus stop. But that didn't happen in the original.
Last edited by Newcastle Flyer on Sat Mar 31, 2018 11:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Bus drivers terminating at Charlestown: Frederick St

Post by Newcastle Flyer »

To the Newcastle Transport bus drivers that do outward Route 14's & continue as a School route, your terminating point is Frederick St, NOT Pearson St. Nor are you meant to tell passengers that Pearson St is the last stop. There were quite a few passengers including elderly & others that needed to get off at Frederick St.
---------
Set Down only at starting point.
Newcastle Transport bus drivers, you are not meant to show 'SET DOWN ONLY" - especially when it is the STARTING pointing of the route, as a bus driver did on Easter Saturday. And yes some passengers MAY have missed their route 11 due to this. He only started at Charlestown Frederick St.
The timetable shows Frederick St IS the starting point, not Pearson St.

And Charlestown Pearson St is not a "set down only" bus stop when terminating at Charlestown: Frederick St. Bus passengers are allowed to go between Pearson & Frederick Sts - especially those less mobile passengers.

One driver last week who terminated at Frederick St stopped about 1½ bus lengths away from the bus plinth.
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Re: Newcastle & surrounding area bus drivers

Post by Tonymercury »

What have you done about it?
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Re: Newcastle & surrounding area bus drivers

Post by Newcastle Flyer »

^^ Plenty.
NT said they were going to "fix it up", but a lot of the drivers still haven't got the message &/or pleasing themselves where they terminate.
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Bus drivers - park correctly when stopping at bus stops

Post by Newcastle Flyer »

Newcastle Flyer wrote:Could bus drivers in the Newcastle & surrounding areas please
1 When their is room at bus stops, to stop having the back of the bus hanging out, preventing other traffic from passing, or at least making it hard for traffic to past. We saw one driver at a certain stop with the back of the bus hanging out, & he/she had to use the wheelchair ramp for a person in a wheelchair. He/she had enough room to pull the whole bus into the kerb.
Yet again, last week, a bus driver on the Route 13 did the above again, but this time at a more extreme angle forcing traffic to stop behind the bus.

Because of the above, a senior passenger had trouble getting out. And yes he almost tripped, due to how the bus driver stopped at the bus stop.

And yes there was plenty of room, more than 30 metres between bus stop and the parked vehicle on the approach side of the bus stop sign.

IF their is plenty of room, please stop the bus correctly at bus stops - that is parallel to the kerb.

EDIT: This photo below of CAT bus in Pennsylvania (I think) shows exactly what I mean - with one main difference (besides what side of the road), the Keolis Downer bus was at a sharper angle: Image
Last edited by Newcastle Flyer on Sat Jan 19, 2019 12:19 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Newcastle & surrounding area bus drivers

Post by Swift »

It seems bus companies/organisations only care if a passenger has been personally offended at how a driver spoke to them/looked at them or didn't treat them like royalty/ a superstar.
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Re: Newcastle & surrounding area bus drivers

Post by tonyp »

I think it is mostly due to the "front door" mentality in Australian bus operations because that's where the focus has been for many years in terms of passenger exchange. So drivers have become lazy about the issue. It never used to be the case many years ago when there were conductors and the back door was behind the rear axle.

In much of Europe today, most passenger exchange occurs through the centre and back doors and pulling in buses close and parallel for their entire length is standard. I suspect that driver training comes into it too because in Europe obviously there is a strong emphasis on the skill of parking close and parallel and, while the skill is surely taught here too, it's not followed up by everyday continuous practice at each and every stop. Sometimes of course there is also the issue of stops being partly blocked and it is up to TfNSW and the Police/Council rangers to ensure a universally enforced minimum standard for stops backed up by enforcement. It's also up to operators to ensure that drivers park their buses properly.

In Newcastle I'd be reporting it to the operator/TfNSW rather than expecting drivers to take note through ATDB!
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Re: Newcastle & surrounding area bus drivers

Post by Mr OC Benz »

I think also the fact that bus stop infrastructure and provision is so poor in NSW that it is easy for drivers to form bad habits even for the better stops where they could pull in properly. Of course, notwithstanding the infrastructure issues, training is a major component of the issue and not being as extensive as it should be - particularly when you compare with training regimes with many European bus operators.

Also a point to note, in many parts of Europe (and even places like Perth now), there is a general consensus with transport/urban planners that the best practice approach to bus stop design specifically includes ensuring that the use of indented bus bays is limited - typically to major roads with high traffic speeds and for other safety reasons. Indented bus bays are not ideal for many reasons with some of the obvious being the difficulty that some drivers may experience in pulling in properly and aligning with the kerb (although as with the above, a well designed bus stop shouldn't present these difficulties for competent drivers!), the difficulty of pulling out and the associated safety factor with this (confusion and ignorance around cars giving way to buses etc.), and the added time that this can add to a journey if a driver has to endure this at multiple stops. Meanwhile I shake my head every time RMS suggests that indented bus bays provide overall traffic flow improvements. They improve for cars but in fact slow down buses significantly more than if the stop was aligned with an active lane which would avoid the driver needing to pull in and out of the bus stop.
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Re: Newcastle & surrounding area bus drivers

Post by Newcastle Flyer »

tonyp wrote:In Newcastle I'd be reporting it to the operator/TfNSW rather than expecting drivers to take note through ATDB!
How do you know the passenger didn't report the bus driver especially with the trouble that he was having getting out?
Mr OC Benz wrote:I think also the fact that bus stop infrastructure and provision is so poor in NSW that it is easy for drivers to form bad habits even for the better stops where they could pull in properly.
We've hardly, if ever see it anywhere else, just what were formerly Newcastle Buses & Ferries bus drivers. And it was just the normal kerb height, with no problems and a bus stop sign.

If their is enough room, and I was the passenger, and it was a steep angle, I'd ask can you please park properly, as you're making it hard to get out.
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Re: Newcastle & surrounding area bus drivers

Post by tonyp »

Nothing beats the combination of the door stairs in a Bustech with no kerb and gutter! Or come down to the beautiful Shoalhaven and alight from the bus into a drainage ditch....
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Re: Newcastle & surrounding area bus drivers

Post by Newcastle Flyer »

But Tonyp, do those bus drivers stick the bus backs way out into the other lane like a lot do in Newcastle if they have room?
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Re: Newcastle & surrounding area bus drivers

Post by tonyp »

Newcastle Flyer wrote:But Tonyp, do those bus drivers stick the bus backs way out into the other lane like a lot do in Newcastle if they have room?
No, they're more considerate. The back is in the lane and the front is on the edge of the drainage ditch. :lol:

Seriously, one day I rode a bus with a young driver, obviously new and probably from an urban background. When he came to where I wanted to get off in Tomerong he stopped with the door right above the drainage ditch. He didn't seem to know what to do so I got out with my toes propping on the edge of the ditch and hanging onto the door handrail for dear life. I then sort of absailed around the front of the bus pivoting off the handrail and windscreen wiper and he politely remained parked while I peeped around the offside to make sure I wouldn't be skittled by a car before crossing the road and giving him a cheery wave. I didn't put in a complaint as I felt he might have learned something from watching my gymnastics!
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Re: Newcastle & surrounding area bus drivers

Post by Swift »

I bet Adelaide's legendary three door jumbos never had drivers poking the rear out onto the adjacent lane and I bet their bus stops had more thought put into them too!
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Re: Newcastle & surrounding area bus drivers

Post by Newcastle Flyer »

To bus drivers of the outbound Route 44s, you are meant to start at Kotara Homemaker Centre stop, not at Westfield Kotara - especially when you're already passing the Homemaker Centre starting point.

And SOME drivers still think that Charlestown Pearson St is the terminating point for outbound buses.
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