More CDi's ??

Not quite DD related, but if they run a low cost service as an alternative to Melb-Geelong rail route, it might be worth investigating. Especially for peak hour and if they are allowed to use emergency lanes.

Not quite DD related, but if they run a low cost service as an alternative to Melb-Geelong rail route, it might be worth investigating.

I wouldn't have thought it would be particularly viable in its own right. The train is frequent, fast and cheap. A competing bus service would struggle to compete with fast, and I doubt it could be both frequent and cheap.

On the other hand, what might be worthwhile is through routing the Melbourne to Avalon and Avalon to Geelong services, and offering through tickets. It would be slower than the train (90 minutes vs. 60) and would depend on what additional costs would occur from doing this compared to running two seperate services. However, if there are minimal additional costs, it would be extra seats filled that might otherwise be empty if fares were cheap enough. Even so, I would expect that people likely to be attracted to such an offer would be at the PTV concession fare end of the market where the train is still pretty cheap - $4.62 between Southern Cross and Geelong. I doubt Skybus would bother offering seats cheaper than that even just to fill them.

The only other alternative is to offer an upmarket "luxury" service, but whilst Skybus vehicles are clean and modern, I wouldn't consider them "luxury" travel. If they were to go into the "luxury" market, they'd be better off offering it on the Southern Cross to Tullamarine run anyway for a premium fare where the numbers might justify it.

superbossgc wrote:4 more new DD, first one is now in Melbourne as 114 is for Avalon airport runs, look out for it.

Melbourne to Avalon or Geelong to Avalon? Either way I wouldn’t have thought the patronage would be high enough on the AVV runs to warrant a decker but I’m sure there’s method in the madness. Whenever I’ve been there recently they’ve had a 14.5m Volgren on standby so I guess they’re anticipating it. Alternatively, they’re future-planning for when Air Asia X starts flying twice daily from AVV.

Cheers,
Mitch

another delivered as 151 is BS04BB for Avalon service, now 2 more to come up (both are twin stairs), one will be down & in service by the end of this month.

look out for another CDi of 3rd is about to arrived, as number 114 Melbourne airport runs twin stairs, anther one is about to arrive in early June as 115, still same twin stair.

They start Mel to werribee via tarneit soon. Will they through route to Avalon?

cal_t wrote:They start Mel to werribee via tarneit soon. Will they through route to Avalon?

You could be on to something as they’re currently running coaches which don’t seem to be that full most of the time anyway.

Cheers,
Mitch

They start Mel to werribee via tarneit soon. Will they through route to Avalon?

The new services start July 1 from Werribee / Tarneit to the airport. Trips are free for the first 2 weeks - just in time for the school holidays! Could be a good opportunity to take the kids on a double decker bus for free...
https://www.skybus.com.au/western-express/
Buses run every half hour from around 6.30am to 6.30pm in both directions taking around 60-80 minutes from Werribee (ouch!) and 40-50 minutes from Tarneit to Tullamarine airport.

Given the two routes go to/from completely different destinations, I suspect the opportunities for through routing are negligible.

krustyklo wrote:

They start Mel to werribee via tarneit soon. Will they through route to Avalon?

Given the two routes go to/from completely different destinations, I suspect the opportunities for through routing are negligible.

You might’ve spoken too soon. They posted an Instagram post several days ago stating they were “gearing up for Air Asia”, which could potentially mean that they’d be removing the current Spencer Street to Avalon route via the M1 and throughrouting the Spencer’s Street to Werribee service.

With the twice daily MEL-KUL return operating out of Avalon from December 5th of this year, it might end up being quite a profitable route for them.

Cheers,
Mitch

You might’ve spoken too soon. They posted an Instagram post several days ago stating they were “gearing up for Air Asia”, which could potentially mean that they’d be removing the current Spencer Street to Avalon route via the M1 and throughrouting the Spencer’s Street to Werribee service.

I doubt it. For a start there is no mention on the 'Great Western Express' page (https://www.skybus.com.au/western-express/) that the service goes to Spencer St or is even planned to in the future. The point is that the service goes DIRECT to Melbourne Airport, not via the city (presumably via the Western Ring Road). I can see the point in extending it at the southern end to Avalon and maybe buses alternating between routes in the same way Melbourne route operators do now. But I'd be very surprised if the two routes merged to become some sort of Avalon / Werribee / Tarneit / Southern Cross / Tullamarine route. You'd lose the time advantage between Werribee and the airport from the current direct route for a start, meaning most people would drive or taxi.

The point of each route is that they are DIRECT, fast routes between Avalon and the CBD, and Weribee and Tullamarine respectively. Merging them to cut costs would mean Avalon services take longer to go to the city as they would go via Tarneit, and Werribee / Tarneit services would take much longer to go via the city to get to the airport. In both cases it would be a fail as neither could justify the current premium price tag required to be profitable, and neither could compete with taxi / hire car / Uber / friend drop off.