NSW Electric Bus Plan

Sydney / New South Wales Transport Discussion
Linto63
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Re: NSW Electric Bus Plan

Post by Linto63 »

tonyp wrote: The width isn't mentioned here, but what is the UK width anyway?
255 centimetres, same as continental Europe.
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Re: NSW Electric Bus Plan

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A video was posted to a Facebook group I'm a member of last night of what looked like a newly built Yutong E12 painted in Transport For NSW livery leaving the Yutong manufacturing plant in China
tonyp
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Re: NSW Electric Bus Plan

Post by tonyp »

Campbelltown busboy wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 8:27 am A video was posted to a Facebook group I'm a member of last night of what looked like a newly built Yutong E12 painted in Transport For NSW livery leaving the Yutong manufacturing plant in China
Having emerged from the special order booth with "high floor - Australian market only" ticked off on the job card.
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Re: NSW Electric Bus Plan

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Probably riddled with long lasting covid spores as well.
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Re: Private Bus Observations 2021

Post by Transport Buff »

3 new BYD D9RA/Gemilang Electric buses for Punchbowl Bus Co (PBC):

https://www.busaustralia.com/fleetlists ... &ltype=new
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moa999
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Re: NSW Electric Bus Plan

Post by moa999 »

Pretty sure I saw an electric bus on 389 service on Sunday, so possibly back with STA Randwick.

Didn't see rego unfortunately, just stickers on side.
Linto63
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Re: NSW Electric Bus Plan

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Route 389 is a Transit Systems route
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Re: NSW Electric Bus Plan

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Isn't the 389 still an R6/L run?
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Re: NSW Electric Bus Plan

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Transit Systems has a number of electric buses.
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moa999
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Re: NSW Electric Bus Plan

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Interesting.. I'd always thought almost all 3xx routes were STA, and as Bondi-Pyrmont only, definitely that one.

Quite possibly one of the TS buses then.
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Re: NSW Electric Bus Plan

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moa999 wrote: Tue Jul 20, 2021 8:08 pm Interesting.. I'd always thought almost all 3xx routes were STA, and as Bondi-Pyrmont only, definitely that one.

Quite possibly one of the TS buses then.
It's a question of what electric bus you saw. The only ones that STA ever operated afaik were two Custom Denning Element demonstrators.
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Re: NSW Electric Bus Plan

Post by Linto63 »

moa999 wrote: Interesting.. I'd always thought almost all 3xx routes were STA, and as Bondi-Pyrmont only, definitely that one.
Generally speaking 3xx routes are operated by STA region 9, i.e. Port Botany, Randwick and Waverley depots, but a few (308, 320, 389) are part of Transit Systems operated region 6.
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Re: NSW Electric Bus Plan

Post by Glen »

Transit Systems also operates Routes 305 & 348.
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Re: NSW Electric Bus Plan

Post by 1whoknows »

Nexport have now done a deal to assemble ADL bodies to Chinese BYD chassis so that's another one that will presumably make the list soon.
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Re: NSW Electric Bus Plan

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1whoknows wrote: Fri Jul 23, 2021 7:30 am Nexport have now done a deal to assemble ADL bodies to Chinese BYD chassis so that's another one that will presumably make the list soon.
I imagine this would be the Enviro200 Asia-Pacific model exported to NZ. Another obsolete low-entry design:

Image

I wrote something a while ago about "timber" flooring in demos. Here's another one. The best one I saw some years ago was a Solaris demo with a completely white floor! For some reason that's gone out of fashion....
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Re: NSW Electric Bus Plan

Post by ScaniaGrenda »

Given the Asian exports to AU / NZ I don't really have optimism It'll be full low floor all the way to the last seat at the rear of the bus. Someone correct me if I'm wrong but I don't even think the ADL BYD's themselves in the United Kingdom are full low floor so I don't think It is just AU / NZ issue in this case.

I guess I am somewhat keen to see some more "ADL" buses in Australia as I'm one for variety as well to break up the usual chain of Scanias & Volvos that roam our streets but this will just be ADL slapping their body on a BYD E-Bus chassis if I'm correct there as well. Still... it is something different so I'll take it but I agree there can be improvements made.

As for the wooden floor, I really don't expect it to last outside of demonstration models, if it is "real" timber and not some faux like laminate I can only Imagine it being a pain to upkeep & most operators will just leave it to get ruined so I'm happy if they stick with the usual material they do for floors.

Oh and one final thing, I'm keen seeing how bench seats play in these buses here when they are rolled out, I do know the British market really loves the type of seats as seen in the image above but I again can't see anyone sticking with that here. I just hope it isn't the Chinese plastic buckets seats that were fitted on early Chinese bus models here that they get fitted with.
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Re: NSW Electric Bus Plan

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Seating is typically client-specified so you'll get what the operator thinks is best and that's commonly bench in Australia.

BYD manufactures a low floor model only for the LHD European market and they have to, otherwise they'd miss out on lots of potential sales.

https://www.bydeurope.com/pdp-bus-model-12

The much smaller RHD market is determined by what the biggest customer (UK) wants, so that's high floor up the back. Here's a BYD in Singapore (note also that wasted space over the wheelarches, a really slack designer):

Image

Yutong's 12 metre electric bus is low floor in both LHD and RHD - except for the Australian market :roll:

All other Chinese electric buses are afaik low-entry only, including the BCI. Low-entry is a complete anachronism in an electric bus, it's like somebody forgot to tell the designer that there's no diesel engine to go underneath. We shouldn't be buying them but lots of our agencies and operators don't seem to know any better. They just tag along unthinkingly.
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Re: NSW Electric Bus Plan

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tonyp wrote: Fri Jul 23, 2021 1:42 pm Seating is typically client-specified so you'll get what the operator thinks is best and that's commonly bench in Australia.

BYD manufactures a low floor model only for the LHD European market and they have to, otherwise they'd miss out on lots of potential sales.

https://www.bydeurope.com/pdp-bus-model-12

The much smaller LHD market is determined by what the biggest customer (UK) wants, so that's high floor up the back. Here's a BYD in Singapore (note also that wasted space over the wheelarches, a really slack designer):
Yutong's 12 metre electric bus is low floor in both LHD and RHD - except for the Australian market :roll:

All other Chinese electric buses are afaik low-entry only, including the BCI. Low-entry is a complete anachronism in an electric bus, it's like somebody forgot to tell the designer that there's no diesel engine to go underneath. We shouldn't be buying them but lots of our agencies and operators don't seem to know any better. They just tag along unthinkingly.
They might need to put a full flat floor provision into the DDA so then a person with limited sight or people that are fully blind can navigate down the aisle way towards the rear of the bus without having that step as a obstacle
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Re: NSW Electric Bus Plan

Post by ScaniaGrenda »

Singapore itself to my knowledge has been using "low floor" diesel chassis for the last couple of years now. Yes the Gangway itself is low floor but the seats you need to step up onto the platform to sit on but I reckon that is a minor issue in itself compared to the issue of low entry but rear of the bus isn't steeples. To go from something like the above to having steps which aren't necessary in an electric bus of all things really feels like a major step backwards (pun intended)

Image

Accessibility is a very important key point in buses so why does the Chinese market in the first place still feel the need to build on something that is obsolete? Why aren't they going & saying "At this point it has made much more sense to design the buses to be accessible as possible, therefore we will no longer be building low entry designs and will be focusing on 100% low entry as much as possible"?. Sigh maybe I'm putting too much emphasis on the Chinese actually wanting to ever do such a thing, they'll do what they'll get paid for even if it makes zero per-cent logical sense what so ever.

I really know diddly squat but I dispute that switching from low entry to low floor isn't going to cause any lost sales or sleep. There are definitely operators out there who would jump at accessibility buses right down to the letter T. The problem as Tony points out is that if an international variant of the low floor design exists, it isn't offered for sale here and for some reason we're stuck in an never ending chain that we can't seem to break free from. I'm not just wanting E-Buses because "Low floors" but in saying that E-Buses are a chance to break free of other problems that have plagued the diesel builds of buses for a lot of years so again why isn't the opptunity to iron out these flaws now that we have the opptunity too not being used?
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Re: NSW Electric Bus Plan

Post by Mr OC Benz »

tonyp wrote: Fri Jul 23, 2021 1:42 pm Seating is typically client-specified so you'll get what the operator thinks is best and that's commonly bench in Australia.

BYD manufactures a low floor model only for the LHD European market and they have to, otherwise they'd miss out on lots of potential sales.

https://www.bydeurope.com/pdp-bus-model-12

The much smaller RHD market is determined by what the biggest customer (UK) wants, so that's high floor up the back. Here's a BYD in Singapore (note also that wasted space over the wheelarches, a really slack designer):
I'm not sure who operates that BYD bus pictured (does not appear to be a public service bus) but the Singapore LTA owned BYD's (Gemilang bodied) are full low floor to the last row, although in similar fashion to the Yutong E12, there is one less row after the rear wheel arch. The centre door is located closer to the front for some reason though.

Image
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Re: NSW Electric Bus Plan

Post by tonyp »

ScaniaGrenda wrote: Fri Jul 23, 2021 2:32 pm Singapore itself to my knowledge has been using "low floor" diesel chassis for the last couple of years now. Yes the Gangway itself is low floor but the seats you need to step up onto the platform to sit on but I reckon that is a minor issue in itself compared to the issue of low entry but rear of the bus isn't steeples. To go from something like the above to having steps which aren't necessary in an electric bus of all things really feels like a major step backwards (pun intended)
The DDA regs are designed to define minimum standards, that's all. The rest is up to agencies and operators having a knowledge of best practice in passenger transport design. Custom Denning (pretty much alone in Australia) is right up there with a unitary bus of its own. I can't think of any other manufacturer, agency or operator who is, except that Volgren doubtless knows everything but but is subservient to what clients want since it doesn't build its own unitary bus. It should be agency-led, they're supposed to be the transport professionals.

Low floor is defined by a stepless gangway. There may be a step up to some seats at the seat itself, but even most of these can be slid into backside first without having to actually step up.

Good to know about the Singapore bus. That may have been triggered by the expectation set by the Yutong, depending which came first. It shows that BYD can do it if required.
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Re: NSW Electric Bus Plan

Post by Linto63 »

Today's announcement that Busways have been awarded region 7 suggests that most new buses purchased won't be electric (or at least fully electric). It will operate 450 buses, so over the eight-year contract about 150 will need to be replaced. Yet Busways has only committed to purchase 35 zero emissions buses, so 115 will presumably be either diesels or hybrids. Appears that the all electric fleet by 2030 plan is well and truly dead.
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Re: NSW Electric Bus Plan

Post by boronia »

Will Busways purchase them, or TfNSW?
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Re: NSW Electric Bus Plan

Post by Linto63 »

Presumably TfNSW much like all new buses since about 2007.
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Re: NSW Electric Bus Plan

Post by Stonesourscotty »

Busways 7012 has been photod on the pits with 1239 has it transferred to Glendenning?
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