The next installment after TransManjimup...

[perthbus]

Absolute madness...

Surely 405NH's or new 'cheaper' purpose built buses would be better suited to work in this very casual employment.

2106/07 leaving for regional soon replaced by 2146/47.

2106-1.JPG (303.53 KiB) Viewed 2412 times

2106-3.JPG (296.78 KiB) Viewed 2412 times

[Bedford-29]

Why run a full size bus on town services in a town of 4,200 a Optare Solo or a Wright Streetlite if they had them here would more suited.

[PoweredByCNG]

Why run a full size bus on town services in a town of 4,200 a Optare Solo or a Wright Streetlite if they had them here would more suited.

Not to mention the fact that the metropolitan area could do with as many buses as possible considering that there are still buses in excess of 25 years old still in revenue service!

The OC 500 LE diesels are well-oiled tools that have all the characteristics desired by both passengers and drivers and have the most amazing powertrain of all the buses in the PTA fleet. It's a shame that many of these "drivers' buses" are being transferred to places where they're unlikely to see more than a couple of hours of work a day.

[perthbus]

a Optare Solo or a Wright Streetlite if they had them here would more suited.

They will be available in Australia very soon Solo and Tempo models in varying lengths, got their brochure on my desk.

[Bedford-29]

It be interesting to see the timetables for the bus services for Narrogin and Manjimup.

[Mr OC Benz]

a Optare Solo or a Wright Streetlite if they had them here would more suited.

They will be available in Australia very soon Solo and Tempo models in varying lengths, got their brochure on my desk.

Having been on both the brand new StreetLite and the Optare Solo, Versa and Tempo while staying in London, all I can say is they are heaps of sh!t! One sounds like and vibrates like a large fridge while the other since it is specced with Voith and the same Cummins that the Enviro 200s have buzzes just as bad, if not worse than a B7. Performance is quite good however I admit.

In saying that however, I must say that the StreetLite interior design is one of the best that I have been on and seen and certainly that is where most of the merit goes.

[mrobsessed]

There are no timetables. Just glorified school buses. Government want to be ashamed of themselves.

[E.L.Wood]

There are no timetables. Just glorified school buses. Government want to be ashamed of themselves.

Well put Mr.O, a similar situation occurs in Broome where "TransBroome" is the town school bus service while Pearl Town Bus Service operate the Broome Town Service Bus with ex Melbourne Mercedes 0405s on a fare box revenue base with no subsidy, and didn't want or require low floors for their school bus services. If you search for TransBroome Timetables you won't find any on the web. So you have the odd situation where School Bus Services are subsidised while the Town Bus Service isn't.

[Mr OC Benz]

The reasoning for the town bus service not being subsidised is that it is primarily a "tourist service" rather than a commuter service. While locals use it too, it is marketed for visitors. As such, their operating timetable also reflects this during the peak tourist period. They did say that if the PTA ever saw the need for a service to expand out into newer subdivisions, that the PTA would set up and contract the service out rather than PTBS operating it themselves as I don't think it would be a service that PTBS would want to operate, particularly if they wouldn't gain any revenue out of it which would most likely be the case. I had raised the question on one of my visits there.

The school bus contracts for the town area is under the hands of this same operator, but as they are government provided and contracted out, the buses are provided by the PTA. As the town bus service is entirely run by PTBS, this also means that they can't use the government provided buses dedicated to the three hours of work they each do on routes 001, 002 and 003.

And also, the availability of school bus timetables in regional towns vary by the towns and some operators and schools post them up while others don't. The school services in Broome have a timetable produced by PTBS which can be searched as I had done this myself when I was there to try and photograph 679/684/686 while they were up there. Other cities such as Bunbury also publicly post their TransBunbury school bus timetables too where as places like Narrogin, Albany and Busselton-Dunsborough aren't easy to find without requesting.

Speaking of which, Smartrider will be fully implemented in Albany later this month, a bit later than the scheduled date, but this is to enable some orange school buses to be fitted with SCVs for some weird reason... There we go, another conflict between School Bus Services (orange regional school buses) and Regional Town Bus Services (town school services provided by green and silver "town/city buses"). I suspect (I am not entirely sure) some of the current local runs in Albany (within the boundaries of TransAlbany) are still currently provided by orange school buses, so perhaps it is not as easy to change the rules bounding this unlike the other services already being provided by buses such as 1207 and 1209 which were already sent down before the full takeover of Albany town buses by the PTA and similar to what has happened in other regional towns in the past. Once the Regional Town Bus Services website is online, it should hopefully provide a clearer point on where the division between RTBS and SBS (orange school buses) occurs. I think the idea is for SBS to cover between towns and regional areas where as RTBS is branched off Transperth and entirely focused on town bus services for schools and where required, the local community just as Transperth keeps to it's lines in the Perth Metropolitan Area.

[mrobsessed]

A few years ago, Mandurah Bus Charters operated RPT (Regular Passenger Transport) contracts in orange Transperth signed RK Hinos with ETIMs and TVALs. A metro school bus operator has contracts where half the kids board in the Transperth area, so are required to pay fares and others don't. It's all blurry, but this is a pure waste.