History of government bus services in the Inner West.

[J_Busworth]

Now that we know that Transit Systems will take over the Inner West STA bus services, I'm interested to know just how big a history government buses have in the inner west? Depots, Routes, Fun Facts, I would love to find out.

[tonyp]

How that we know that Transit Systems will take over the Inner West STA bus services, I'm interested to know just how big a history government buses have in the inner west? Depots, Routes, Fun Facts, I would love to find out.

Greg Travers "From City to Suburb" would be one of your best source of information, particularly the route details in the appendices.

Basically, the provision of tram services and train lines in the inner west was so dense that there was little need for bus services to infill between them until the trams were finished in 1957-58. The earliest inner west government bus services were mainly concentrated further west to fill in and extend from tram and train services around Ashfield-Strathfield-Canterbury, with some through-routes to the city via Parramatta Rd.

[J_Busworth]

How that we know that Transit Systems will take over the Inner West STA bus services, I'm interested to know just how big a history government buses have in the inner west? Depots, Routes, Fun Facts, I would love to find out.

Greg Travers "From City to Suburb" would be one of your best source of information, particularly the route details in the appendices.

Basically, the provision of tram services and train lines in the inner west was so dense that there was little need for bus services to infill between them until the trams were finished in 1957-58. The earliest inner west government bus services were mainly concentrated further west to fill in and extend from tram and train services around Ashfield-Strathfield-Canterbury, with some through-routes to the city via Parramatta Rd.

Thanks for the suggestion of Greg Travers "From City to Suburb."

Whilst it was hard to track down a copy in good condition, I found one online from New Zealand and it must be one of the best books I've ever seen. There is such detail in the writing and the route histories.

[robert]

It is hoped to have some sort of history of the area published in Australian Bus magazine later on.

Individual route histories (similar to those for private routes) will also be uploaded to sydneybusroutes.com in due course. Such histories are already there for Inner North routes.

[boronia]

There were a lot of private operators in the inner south and west up to the 1990s. Most have given up their routes to the STA or have been taken over by the current operators.

[tonyp]

It is hoped to have some sort of history of the area published in Australian Bus magazine later on.

Robert's history is now available in Australian Bus magazine current issue, Sept/Oct 2018.

[tonyp]

In another article in the current issue of Australian Bus, almost as if to complement Robert's article, an observation is made about the scale of the return to private bus operation and the collapse of the old government operations around Australia. It is noted that Transit Systems is now the largest operator of route buses in Australia, followed in order by Transdev, CDC, State Transit, Brisbane City Council and Keolis Downer. State Transit used to be the largest operator.

The fleet ownership situation is not addressed in this comment and it would be interesting to know how many buses are actually owned by each of these operators, given the situation that large quantities of the fleets are owned by state agencies in WA, SA(?), Victoria(?) and NSW. Does anybody have a rough picture of ownership of fleet units among these large operators. Of course we already know that State Transit now owns nil, as the fleet belongs to TfNSW.

[Frosty]

Very interesting now Transit Systems is the biggest. Transdev is currently the largest operator in Melbourne also the ex Veolia operations. CDC buying out other operators. For some reason I thought Brisbane City Council was bigger than State Transit. Wouldn't route fleets after 2007 in NSW be owned by TfNSW. BCC is interesting does BCC own them or Translink/Queensland Government they have weird funding model where BCC & Queensland government share.

[robert]

It might be a bit detailed some, but see:

http://www.sydneybusroutes.com/images/P ... 0west1.pdf

http://www.sydneybusroutes.com/images/P ... 0west2.pdf

http://www.sydneybusroutes.com/images/P ... 0west3.pdf

[burrumbus]

In another article in the current issue of Australian Bus, almost as if to complement Robert's article, an observation is made about the scale of the return to private bus operation and the collapse of the old government operations around Australia. It is noted that Transit Systems is now the largest operator of route buses in Australia, followed in order by Transdev, CDC, State Transit, Brisbane City Council and Keolis Downer. State Transit used to be the largest operator.

The fleet ownership situation is not addressed in this comment and it would be interesting to know how many buses are actually owned by each of these operators, given the situation that large quantities of the fleets are owned by state agencies in WA, SA(?), Victoria(?) and NSW. Does anybody have a rough picture of ownership of fleet units among these large operators. Of course we already know that State Transit now owns nil, as the fleet belongs to TfNSW.

To answer Tony's question.
Transit Systems have a very small number of owned buses in their Adelaide-Torrens Transit business and in their Perth-Swan Transit operation.Plus the pre 2007 fleet in their region 3 operation in Sydney.The rest are owned by the respective state governments.
Transdev own the buses in their Brisbane operation,plus the pre 2007 components of their 2 Sydney companies.
Brisbane City Council fleet is owned by the council.
State Transit Authority is owned by the NSW government.
CDC own the pre 2007 component of their Hillsbus and Forest Coach Lines companys .The rest of CDC's fleet is owned by the various subsidiary companys.Their current path of rapid acquisition of companies with by and large contestable/tenderable contracts is an interesting and very risky path funded by a mountain of debt.CDC are paying top dollar for the businesses with considerable goodwill component for the government contracts and the charter as well.Will be interesting to see if this path stands up,paticurily with the very low profit margins earned by most of the businesses. 3 percent to 12 percent is the average range. .
Keolis Downer.The PATH operation has a very small number of owned buses-with just about all owned by the WA government.The rest of the fleets,except South Western Suburban Transit are owned by the various subsidiary companys.South Western fleet are leased from the Brisbane City Council.
If anyone has additional info to the above please let us know.
I hope that helps Tony.

[1whoknows]

One correction to the above - TSAs Adelaide operation has some 40 or so "owned" buses. One wonders what would happen if they actually lost their contracts!

[burrumbus]

One wonders what would happen if any of these large operators depandant on these "management contracts" would do.It is all very interesting.

[tonyp]

Thanks guys. So I gather that in Victoria the privates own their own buses and PTV isn't buying buses for operators? In ACT the buses are owned by TC or ACT govt and in Tasmania and NT the buses are also owned by govt??

[burrumbus]

Correct Tony.The remaining Melbourne privates(except Transdev)own their own fleets.PTV set vehicle specs but have nothing to do with procuring or owning them.
The ACT GOVERNMENT own the ACTION fleet,and the 2 contractors in Darwin own their own fleets.

[busrider]

Some corrections to some of the above; the Transperth fleet is 100% government owned, although there have previously been some buses owned by the operators, there aren't any such buses anymore. In Adelaide, Torrens Transit owns about 53 vehicles by my count, making up less than 10% of their fleet but still a sizable loss if they were to lose their contract/s. SouthLink owns a very small amount of their vehicles in their outer north and outer south contract areas, however they own about 80% of the buses in the Adelaide Hills contract area, basically all 32xx and 33xx Volgren units, except 3230.

[marcnut1996]

Route 440 is currently timetabled to have its Rozelle terminus at Victoria Road intersection, and not the Terry Street/Wellington Street terminus. http://sydneybusroutes.com/ states that since October 2015, it does not beyond the Victoria Road intersection. However, in the street view (https://www.google.com.au/maps/@-33.862 ... 312!8i6656) for December 2016 and July 2017, there was a parked then-State Transit bus (Dec 2016 view had 440 desto) at Wellington St. From older state transit network maps, I know 440 used to go to Wellington Street. Has there ever been an official announcement that says 440 has been curtailed to Victoria Road intersection, or are the street views showing 440 layover at Wellington Street but it doesn't have a stop there?

[Stu]

^ The 440 terminus was changed to Darling St in 2010 - Region 6 service review implementation 21/03/2010.

This provided an additional layover space on Wellington St which caters for services running late or have run not in service from L-Depot or from another terminus and have time to lay over.

[robert]

http://sydneybusroutes.com/ states that since October 2015, it does not beyond the Victoria Road intersection.

Look at the previous entry for 440 in http://sydneybusroutes.com/ to see that it ran only to Victoria Rd "by 21.3.10". Stu tells us that change occurred ON 21.3.10.

[marcnut1996]

I missed that line yesterday somehow. So Wellington Street is purely for layover purposes nowadays? Does TS still use this for layover?

[kypros1992]

Early 70s

[mandonov]

Barely any difference to today.

[tonyp]

Barely any difference to today.

And prior to that, one sees the tram routes ghosted in the background. What has changed is a dramatic loss of capacity over the years and a failure to recover the tram patronage that was lost.

[Stu]

I missed that line yesterday somehow. So Wellington Street is purely for layover purposes nowadays? Does TS still use this for layover?

Yes, layover only. TfNSW own the routes so no change to lay over requirements.