STA Observations 2019

[tonyp]

The current private operators are merely operators of contract services to the government since 2007.
The privates of the past were masters of their own businesses which had to make profits,purchase their own fleets,out of the take from their route services.Therefore standards were very important in attracting pax.
The current privates just do not have that imperitive to maintain standards and it shows all over Sydney

Yet it's certainly not that way in Perth (and possibly Adelaide although I'm not familiar enough with the situation there) and TSA is one of the very successful operators over there. I think we still have to wait for everything to settle down, it's early days. TSA has obviously had to quickly get a lot of drivers from everywhere and train some of them as the supply of displaced drivers from STA was not enough. I would think that it's a bit early to judge.

Re speed of driving, I remember when it was the DGT drivers who were the wild ones and the privates quite sedate! In the first decade or so after the end of the trams, a lot of DGT drivers were ex tram drivers and they drove (or tried to drive) the buses like they did the trams, except as far the poor passengers were concerned, the buses did not have the smoothness and pax were thrown around like peas in a tin. This wild driving style persisted for many years - maybe until all the tram drivers retired?!

Nowadays the tram drivers here don't know how to drive a tram - or maybe more correctly, aren't allowed to by their nannying managements.

[aussieboy]

Sydney's buses will never reach their potential if efforts to consolidate multiple routes on busy corridors into fewer, high frequency high capacity high quality routes are overturned by naked politics harnessing (for pure political gain, not transport outcomes) every opportunistic complaint from a minority desire to have a single trip from everywhere to everywhere.

But that's not what happened here. The 379 route is not higher frequency or higher capacity. If there had been a trade-off, fine, but they have just made life unnecessarily harder for a huge amount of people for no discernible benefit.

Also we're not talking about "everywhere to everywhere", we're talking about an extremely busy direct high density corridor. As a principle, single seat journeys should absolutely be offered all the way along high density corridors - it makes so much more sense than having weird fragmented routes that reduce convenience for no reason.

The fact that m40s/440s are running so empty shows people have voted with their feet and are using other means of transportation rather than having to change buses for a 4km, 15min trip.

The busy Bronte Rd corridor does merit a direct service to Oxford St. Whether this is the 379 or the extension of another service (e.g. 400) it doesn't matter.

[moa999]

I do agree however that having some Bondi services operating down Moore Park Road (with a stop at the Stadium) then into the ED would be good

[David10]

Nowadays the tram drivers here don't know how to drive a tram - or maybe more correctly, aren't allowed to by their nannying managements.

"Tram drivers don't know how to drive", what a stupid statement. You mean no longer can they drive at breakneck speed with scant regard for their surroundings? Fortunately the hairy chested days of the dark ages which you evidently think we should return to, are long gone.

[tonyp]

"Tram drivers don't know how to drive", what a stupid statement. You mean no longer can they drive at breakneck speed with scant regard for their surroundings? Fortunately the hairy chested days of the dark ages which you evidently think we should return to, are long gone.

No they certainly haven't long gone as you'll see if you ride tram systems in Germany, Czech Republic, Poland, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary.... Even to a degree Gold Coast and Melbourne (where possible). And they do it perfectly safely as they're highly trained. There is absolutely no reason to drive a tram like a hearse, just as there's no reason to drive a bus like that.

Passengers appreciate the quicker journey times. Some nowadays lose sight of that priority.

[In Transit]

Sydney's buses will never reach their potential if efforts to consolidate multiple routes on busy corridors into fewer, high frequency high capacity high quality routes are overturned by naked politics harnessing (for pure political gain, not transport outcomes) every opportunistic complaint from a minority desire to have a single trip from everywhere to everywhere.

But that's not what happened here. The 379 route is not higher frequency or higher capacity. If there had been a trade-off, fine, but they have just made life unnecessarily harder for a huge amount of people for no discernible benefit.

Also we're not talking about "everywhere to everywhere", we're talking about an extremely busy direct high density corridor. As a principle, single seat journeys should absolutely be offered all the way along high density corridors - it makes so much more sense than having weird fragmented routes that reduce convenience for no reason.

The fact that m40s/440s are running so empty shows people have voted with their feet and are using other means of transportation rather than having to change buses for a 4km, 15min trip.

The busy Bronte Rd corridor does merit a direct service to Oxford St. Whether this is the 379 or the extension of another service (e.g. 400) it doesn't matter.

But here's the thing - it's not a "huge number of people". That's standard rhetoric. It's not the facts - facts rarely feature in these arguments, not helped by the paranoid secrecy of government that prevents release of statistics that reveal the truth. By a very substantial amount, the majority of passengers on the 378/440 before the BJI split used to get off and transfer to trains/other buses/stay at Bondi Junction. Local journeys to Oxford Street are not a significant number, and are better served (from an overall perspective) with a single high frequency route.

In reality, there is little good reason for retaining the 440 between the City and BJI either - that's purely historical accident. The M40 carries reasonable peak loads between the City and Oxford Street and is fairly quiet at other times, but you could easily remove either the 440 or M40 and have a two tier structure of a limited stops 333 and a single all stops service (with a better frequency than either the 440 or M40) on Oxford Street. However imagine the Facebook pages about bus routes in the east being "slashed"....

The M40 and 440 boardings have absolutely nothing to do with the 378 split - doesn't it stand to reason that (as the high patronage shows) any transferring passengers are predominantly catered for by the 333, which has both frequency and capacity between BJI and Oxford Street?

[stupid_girl]

Not sure why you would call 440 a historical accident. It was through-routed just a few years ago to reduce the number of buses terminating in the city. Having said that, as a loop service can fulfill the same purpose, it may be feasible to truncate it as a loop service to the city (similar to 308).

[J_Busworth]

Can bendies make it down to Bronte Beach? If so I’d suggest rerouting the M40 down that way, with the 440 cut to loop around Belmore Park like the 308. That way there is a reduction in unnecessary service duplication whilst shutting up the disgruntled people of Bronte.

[burrumbus]

As In transit said it would be far better to have three high frequency services.A single all stops service and a single limited stops service from BJI down Oxford St and a high frequency service from BJI to Bronte Beach.
With high frequencies interchange is not an issue.The vast majority of time seamless.Simple,single high frequency routes are business generators on busy corridors rather than trying to run a bus to everywhere.Keep them self contained with bus and driver and the reliabilty suddenly improves.
If you go down to BJI you will observe that the vast majority of pax from the east of BJI alight at either the intrechange or at the stops before that.
I don't think,as J_Busworth states that the people of Bronte are disgruntled.It is as usual,a very noisy minority doing their complaining in the background of an imminent state election,aided and abetted by the opposition candidates,looking for issues to flog,without actually considering what is a vastly superior outcome.

[sunnyyan]

Person got hit by STA bus on Anzac Pde outside Sydney Boys High today at around 2pm. Possibly jaywalking, although I don't see how as there's a fence along the median strip.

[boronia]

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/ped ... 50ykm.html

[Swift]

Person got hit by STA bus on Anzac Pde outside Sydney Boys High today at around 2pm. Possibly jaywalking, although I don't see how as there's a fence along the median strip.

Must have occurred at the crossing where there's a gap.

[hornetfig]

Person got hit by STA bus on Anzac Pde outside Sydney Boys High today at around 2pm. Possibly jaywalking, although I don't see how as there's a fence along the median strip.

Must have occurred at the crossing where there's a gap.

Nope, it was well north of the crossing. He may have tried squeezing through a broken piece of median fencing. Or he may have walked on the verge between the fence and the road. But how you miss something the size of the bus on a wide, level and straight piece of road to get smacked in the head on the offside windscreen, is probably why the police had the road 2/3 closed for so long.

[aussieboy]

The M40 and 440 boardings have absolutely nothing to do with the 378 split - doesn't it stand to reason that (as the high patronage shows) any transferring passengers are predominantly catered for by the 333, which has both frequency and capacity between BJI and Oxford Street?

No it doesn't - the 333 was there before the split, yet the 378 still had high patronage.

What it goes to show is that there is demand for a through service along Oxford St from Waverley to Darlinghurst, but the demand disappears if you force interchange, because people probably drive or Uber instead.

In reality, there is little good reason for retaining the 440 between the City and BJI either - that's purely historical accident. The M40 carries reasonable peak loads between the City and Oxford Street and is fairly quiet at other times, but you could easily remove either the 440 or M40 and have a two tier structure of a limited stops 333 and a single all stops service (with a better frequency than either the 440 or M40) on Oxford Street. However imagine the Facebook pages about bus routes in the east being "slashed"....

I agree there should be only 1 all stops service - my point is there's no reason for it to end at BJI, when it could easily be extended to Waverley. It wouldn't consume any more resources, so why not try and make the system as convenient as possible?

Imagine if the 333 stopped at BJI, and the Gov introduced a separate limited stops from BJI - North Bondi. That would just be madness. It's the same principle here.

2 frequent services + 2 high frequency corridors to the east of BJI = it's not rocket science to route one route each way.

With high frequencies interchange is not an issue.The vast majority of time seamless.Simple,single high frequency routes are business generators on busy corridors rather than trying to run a bus to everywhere.Keep them self contained with bus and driver and the reliabilty suddenly improves.
If you go down to BJI you will observe that the vast majority of pax from the east of BJI alight at either the intrechange or at the stops before that.

Interchange is not an issue when:

• It's easy to interchange - try changing from a 379 to an m40 or worse 440. BJI has escalator queues! It takes a good 5mins just to get to the railway concourse from where you need to go back up the stairs and potentially walk up the street to the lights and cross it depending on what bus is coming next
• The total trip distance justifies interchange - for trips under 5km I can't see any person voluntarily taking 2 buses when they could drive or Uber. PT is meant to be easy.

[Stu]

I knew that bonus scheme for keeping on time was bound to end in disaster(s).

I don't believe that the tragedy that occurred at Kingsgrove had anything to do attempting to accumulate on time running all day to receive a financial bonus.

If 100 drivers were all to reach the on time running target, the prize money would have to be divided up, some drivers would hardly see that as an incentive for all of the effort put in to run on time and would most likely make more money by claiming late running thanks to the traffic in Sydney.

[Swift]

Ok, what happened at Kingsgrove and others?

[citaro393]

Ok, what happened at Kingsgrove and others?

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/two ... 50u7b.html.

[mandonov]

A way to provide Bronte with an Oxford Street service while still attracting them to change services is to extend the 355 to Bronte. It doesn't go to the CBD, but it does go through many attractive areas in the east.

[hornetfig]

352? 355 uses Lang Rd and Cleveland Street.

[Richard290]

352? 355 uses Lang Rd and Cleveland Street.

But the 352 and the BJI to Bronte leg of the 379 run at reasonably different frequencies. Route 352 runs every 20 min during peak and every 30 min during the weekday off-peak and weekends. 379 between Bondi Junction and Bronte run every 10 min during weekdays and Saturdays, and run every 20 mins on Sunday AM trips and every 10 min on Sunday PM trips.

[ScaniaGrenda]

Not sure if anyone knows this but on another Sydney trip I took today I went past Petersham Training College on a train and saw ex State Transit Mercedes-Benz 0405NH CC Citaro m/o 1169 sitting in the rear yard, apparently google street view shows that previously a MK5 PMC bus was sitting in the same yard.

m/o 1169 despite being withdrawn still retains it's STA stickers and has the desto set to "STATE TRANSIT".

[LB608]

very old news

[Qantas94Heavy]

Spotted someone at about 8am this morning at Central with a stopwatch. Seemed like they were measuring dwell times for the 891 services, wonder who would be using such data?

[tonyp]

Spotted someone at about 8am this morning at Central with a stopwatch. Seemed like they were measuring dwell times for the 891 services, wonder who would be using such data?

It wasn't me for once! Does TfNSW know what a dwell is? Perhaps it was somebody does a masters in transport.

[Swift]

^ must have been a long time between resets.