STA Observations - January to June 2018

[Fleet Lists]

See STU's post earlier

The next lot of timetable changes will involve the separation of routes between STA & TSA and then there may be some more changes in the 2nd 1/2 of this year.

So this does not yet cover the separation issues

[Fleet Lists]

*EDIT - I've looked at some of the other timetables, e.g. 466 and 545 and neither of them have updated terminii and maps in the PDF timetables. Something the boffins at TfNSW will need to sort out in the next week.

I wonder why the 545 truncation and other Region 7 changes haven't been announced yet on transportnsw.info?

What is the change to the 466 terminii?

And hopefully there will be a separate advice for region 7 services as this advice covers region 6 only.

Maps in PDF timetables seem to take a long time to change as many have not yet been updated for the November 2017 changes.

[Fleet Lists]

The 422 and 545 timetables have already been corrected - for a while there two copies of both routes - one with the old termini and the other with the new ones. The maps still need to be fixed as for routes 464 and 466 which still also include old routes 462 and 463 in the maps.

[Richard290]

Meanwhile, I found this quirky error on the header for the new route 259:

[jake_s_258]

Saw a sign on the bus stop on Elizabeth Street near Central station that the X03 is being withdrawn from May 6

[boronia]

Meanwhile, I found this quirky error on the header for the new route 259:

Now says Sydney Buses, but Opal still not accepted.

[Jurassic_Joke]

Meanwhile, I found this quirky error on the header for the new route 259:

https://transportnsw.info/documents/tim ... 180506.pdf

So, the last run from Macquarie Centre to Chatswood at the moment on 545, on a weeknight, is around 12:40am, in this new route 259, its now 11pm. They most definitely saw through Opal Data I think, that the last 545 weeknight run (I have taken it a fair few times) is indeed dead. Ghost bus. Makes sense to adjust it, especially as N91 exists now too.

Er-hem Sydney Buses? Interesting. Gladys under her Hop work sure went out of her way to axe the Sydney Buses brand into oblivion (in favour of simply "State Transit"), interesting to see they still use that there.

[Fleet Lists]

Er-hem Sydney Buses? Interesting. Gladys under her Hop work sure went out of her way to axe the Sydney Buses brand into oblivion (in favour of simply "State Transit"), interesting to see they still use that there.

In this case "Sydney Buses" refers to ALL bus routes in Sydney - if you look at any of the private operators timetables they all say Sydney Buses - that was the reason for the removal of Sydney Buses from State Transit specific things.

[Richard290]

Comparing the current 545 and new 259 it seems there has been a cut in frequencies compared for when the route was 545 to what it will be when it becomes 259.
Weekday off peak - cut from a service every 15 minutes to every 30 minutes
Saturday - cut from a service every 20 minutes to every 30 minutes
Sunday - cut from a service every 30 minutes to an hourly service.
I guess Delhi Road is quite desolate as a patronage generator on the eastern half of route 545.

[Swift]

Comparing the current 545 and new 259 it seems there has been a cut in frequencies compared for when the route was 545 to what it will be when it becomes 259.
Weekday off peak - cut from a service every 15 minutes to every 30 minutes
Saturday - cut from a service every 20 minutes to every 30 minutes
Sunday - cut from a service every 30 minutes to an hourly service.
I guess Delhi Road is quite desolate as a patronage generator on the eastern half of route 545.

CUT CUT CUT. The Liberal dictator way.

[marcnut1996]

M20 timetable from 6 May on Transport info still goes between Gore Hill and Botany. Maybe service changes?

[swtt]

462 being cut and replaced with 464 between Ashfield <-> Burwood (466 later evening services only operate from Burwood!) means a frequency cut from 40 min to 60 min.

[swtt]

Saw a sign on the bus stop on Elizabeth Street near Central station that the X03 is being withdrawn from May 6

The fact that it had to weave through Surry Hills would've immediately taken the shine off the express stopping pattern. Good riddance.

[swtt]

With 545 being "extended" into Lachlan's Line I wonder what the desto will say - add to yet another "Macquarie Pk" destination (Herring Road - 288/544, Marsfield Waterloo Park - M41) or actually call it something innovative?

[swtt]

TfNSW will begin implementing Frequency based turn up and go services.
STA will be first.
Routes: E65, E70, 333, 343, 370, 379, 389, 431, 440, 470 & 545.

Both press releases (Feb 13, 2018) from TfNSW and Transit Systems respectively mention turn up and go services.

There has also been talk that route 463 will be axed and route 466 will be re-routed via Bayview Park, currently the 466 diverts via Bayview Park only 4 x times each weekday. Route 423 will apparently be the route used to fill the void between Sydney Uni and the City.

For those express services, turn up and go between certain hours? And if you missed the last bus during the AM peak?

[Jurassic_Joke]

Comparing the current 545 and new 259 it seems there has been a cut in frequencies compared for when the route was 545 to what it will be when it becomes 259.
Weekday off peak - cut from a service every 15 minutes to every 30 minutes
Saturday - cut from a service every 20 minutes to every 30 minutes
Sunday - cut from a service every 30 minutes to an hourly service.
I guess Delhi Road is quite desolate as a patronage generator on the eastern half of route 545.

CUT CUT CUT. The Liberal dictator way.

Gladys Backflipkjickian strikes yet again.

This time on her November timetable yet again which boasted "more services yolo" which included buses (how much did it cost to paint that on the ticket barriers?), not even half a year later and we are taking steps backwards, less services, not more. Cuts, cuts, cuts everywhere!

Now that I think of it, 422 being truncated at Railway Square is probably to make way for the diversion via RPA Hospital and Parra Road, in the sense that it won't 'cost' any extra buses to run. I highly doubt its a coincidence that for all the buses that have Martin Place as the terminus, 422 just so happened to be the same one that got picked to get the short end.

The entire 259 route is meanwhile a farcical attempt to hide a frequency cut in whats supposed to be safe Liberal territory. They couldn't even just have half of the 545 runnings terminate at Macquarie Park, nope, rewrite from scratch and hope they don't notice. At least with L90 they had the guts to outright warn "will run less often".

[Tonymercury]

Comparing the current 545 and new 259 it seems there has been a cut in frequencies compared for when the route was 545 to what it will be when it becomes 259.
Weekday off peak - cut from a service every 15 minutes to every 30 minutes
Saturday - cut from a service every 20 minutes to every 30 minutes
Sunday - cut from a service every 30 minutes to an hourly service.
I guess Delhi Road is quite desolate as a patronage generator on the eastern half of route 545.

That's been a long time coming, since ECRL opened.

[Tonymercury]

The entire 259 route is meanwhile a farcical attempt to hide a frequency cut in whats supposed to be safe Liberal territory. They couldn't even just have half of the 545 runnings terminate at Macquarie Park, nope, rewrite from scratch and hope they don't notice. At least with L90 they had the guts to outright warn "will run less often".

More of a way of separating the operating depots? 259 all M?

[Fleet Lists]

M20 timetable from 6 May on Transport info still goes between Gore Hill and Botany. Maybe service changes?

All STA timetables were reloaded, many with no changes. So there may not be any M20 changes.

[neilrex]

The Premier is supposedly from that small enclave of suburbia between the mangrove swamp and the crematorium, she's cutting bus services which run past there, at least nobody can accuse her of feathering her own nest.

[andy_centralcoast]

Comparing the current 545 and new 259 it seems there has been a cut in frequencies compared for when the route was 545 to what it will be when it becomes 259.
Weekday off peak - cut from a service every 15 minutes to every 30 minutes
Saturday - cut from a service every 20 minutes to every 30 minutes
Sunday - cut from a service every 30 minutes to an hourly service.
I guess Delhi Road is quite desolate as a patronage generator on the eastern half of route 545.

That's been a long time coming, since ECRL opened.

Will that route be covered by the ECRL replacement buses come September?

[boronia]

Presumably the ECRL replacement buses will only serve stations, as per other bustitutions?

[burrumbus]

I suspect there are several reasons to separate the 545.
The main one would be to create more space at Chatswood station for the ECRL replacement buses operated by the Hillsbus/Transdev joint venture come September.By having a shorter route the buses will not require the large layover times currently operated by STA and to a lesser extent Hillsbus.I have seen the chaotic situation at Chatswood,especially at peak ,caused by buses on excessive layovers sitting in bus stops.This causes buses in service much problems in picking up pax at stops.I suspect a number of other STA routes will have layovers at Chatswood reduced for the same reason.
The second reason is more simply to align the frequency more to the actual patronage carried.Since the rail line was opened this has robbed the 545 of a lot of the pax from MacUni/Centre to Chatswood.It is now a very peaked route with most of the pax coming from the Macquarie Park industrial area and from the small Delhi Road residential area.The proposed frequencies will easily handle the patronage offering on that corridor.The Delhi Road residential area also has the 256 service,which from observations is a very poorly patronised service.It is through routed with the 256 to West Chatswood which is simarily poorly patronised.I remember when North and Western had those services.The Chatswood-Delhi Road peak hour shuttle used to average around 10-13 pax per trip.It really has dropped markedly.In short that corridor was overserviced.There is little through patronage from west of Macquarie Uni to Chatswood so this is a logical change.
The third reason ,I suspect is so that STA can operate the 259 from one depot-as observed above.
The eastern end of the 545 has many trafific choke points.It really needs robust ,well thought out run times to get the service right.This change almost returns the corridor to its previous private life as route 54 operated by the Deaneand N & W family businesses,almost with the same weekday frequencies.I also suspect that STA has come to the long awaited realisation that some of these very long cross regional routes have not worked,as pointed out above.
And for Jurassic Joke I think Gladys lives in the Northbridge area.I have seen a TV piece showing her catching a 207 bus.
Thanks and enjoy your ANZAC day everyone.

[J_Busworth]

On the 545 at the moment, catching it the full length one last time before the truncation. Despite the fact that is Route is supposed to be Pre-Pay only from the 16th as part of the cashless Ryde Depot concept, the driver still has his cash box and has sold eight cash fares. Obviously the pre-pay concept isn’t being enforced on the drivers.

[burrumbus]

Please let us know the pax numbers for the trip ??