The death of Metrobus.

[tonyp]

Reminds me long ago when I was on a staff bus and when an old lady went to flag it down (it had 000 Special on the roll) the driver yelled out the open front door "can't you read the f####n sign?!!".

That's because she probably couldn't read it. Ever wondered about those people who flag a bus down, then when it gets close they wave it through? People with poor vision have to do this so that they can see the destination. If they don't flag it down and it's the bus they want, then they'll miss it. It's a hedge against missing it.

Would Parramatta council let the state government discontinue their creation if that ever happens

I don't think council would have a say. My bet is the service will be discontinued when the tram opens.

]Aside from a handful of Atlanteans and later Mercedes O305Gs on Northern Beaches services, Sydney operated without high capacity vehicles for over 20 years from about 1980. No reason it couldn't happen again, would just require more rigids.

And that's exactly the problem. From the 70s to the early 2000s, Sydney bus patronage bumped along its lowest point. The general unspoken official attitude since the 1950s was that if there wasn't enough capacity and people couldn't board, they could drive - and they did, on the ever-expanding road network. Nowadays, we have a more wholesome attitude and seek to provide public transport capacity to encourage people out of driving. Now, the population is also growing in leaps and bounds and there's no way we can go back to the old way. Finally, there's the economics of running lots of little buses (and the extra drivers) around when we can make it more efficient with higher-capacity buses.

Sydney never had any higher-capacity buses until the Atlantean and, more especially, the artics arrived. The double deckers and underfloors prior to these had the same capacity of 70 passengers. There was a myth that the double deckers were the "heavy lift" vehicles for crowds, but they had exactly the same capacity as the underfloors and the latter handled crowds better (at least before OMO) with their entrance at each end of the bus and single level.

[Linto63]

And that's exactly the problem. From the 70s to the early 2000s, Sydney bus patronage bumped along its lowest point. The general unspoken official attitude since the 1950s was that if there wasn't enough capacity and people couldn't board, they could drive - and they did, on the ever-expanding road network.

It was also the want of the people, they didn't buy cars in ever increasing numbers because the TfNSW of the day told them to.

Finally, there's the economics of running lots of little buses (and the extra drivers) around when we can make it more efficient with higher-capacity buses.

Obviously there are economies of scale in operating higher capacity buses, more buses need more drivers driving up costs, but your suggestion we couldn't survive without artics is simply not true, we did so for many years. But its a moot point, the current artic fleet will be with us for another 10-15 years, so they will continue to play a role for some time to come.

[Swift]

Why did TNSW seek to acquire the shuttle off Parramatta Council who showed rare initiative for a bus service?
I suspect they couldn't stand the thought there's a bus service THEY had no say about. It's all about the craving for all encompassing control. Now they close it down.
Parra council should start another one just to spite them.

[Campbelltown busboy]

Why did TNSW seek to acquire the shuttle off Parramatta Council who showed rare initiative for a bus service?
I suspect they couldn't stand the thought there's a bus service THEY had no say about. It's all about the craving for all encompassing control. Now they close it down.
Parra council should start another one just to spite them.

Labor was setting up vote grabbing free shuttles in as many places as possible in the lead up to the 2011 state election the acquired Parramatta council shuttle ended up being one of those vote grabbing free shuttles

[Nugget]

The death of metrobus is simply an act of bastardry by the current NSW government.

No doubt there were political machinations behind it but it also was only going to work for a limited time. As I remember it it came in at a time when prepay was only in it's infancy, there was no opal and the first routes were meant to be long through routes that would've previously required numerous transfers.

As prepay became more prevalent, the routes became duplicates of existing routes and once opal was introduced there was no real point of differentiation for the metrobus.

The failure to implement all door boarding was also significant in the fact became that metrobus was just another route.

[boronia]

Why did TNSW seek to acquire the shuttle off Parramatta Council who showed rare initiative for a bus service?
I suspect they couldn't stand the thought there's a bus service THEY had no say about. It's all about the craving for all encompassing control. Now they close it down.
Parra council should start another one just to spite them.

Labor was setting up vote grabbing free shuttles in as many places as possible in the lead up to the 2011 state election the acquired Parramatta council shuttle ended up being one of those vote grabbing free shuttles

Operating the shuttle would have been costing the council $x00,000 per year to run. What council wouldn't take up an offer from either party to absorb those costs?

[tonyp]

I remember the early publicity for Metrobus included images of double artics, like the Brisbane ones, and all-door loading. What we got was the wreckage that was spat out after the RMS and the RTBU worked over the concept!

[Linto63]

Or maybe as often happens, once the blue sky thinking phase is over, a dose of reality sets in and what ends up being delivered is something more practical.

[Nugget]

Or maybe as often happens, once the blue sky thinking phase is over, a dose of reality sets in and what ends up being delivered is something more practical.

Practical for whom, without the blue sky thinking and implementation we're going to be stuck with an irrelevant hodge podge of services.

[Linto63]

Practical for everybody. Blue sky thinking is all well and good, but it often formulated by dreamers living in a parallel universe devoid of any idea as what is realistically deliverable.

[CityRail]

The death of metrobus is simply an act of bastardry by the current NSW government.

Yet Metrobus is also a political stunt caused by the previous Labor government due to their mismanagement of bus services across Sydney.

If the current government can come out with solution that maintains the service level on key bus corridors, then I don't see why Metrobus cannot go.

On another note, I actually wonder what will the fate for M90, M91 and M92, as well as T80?

Seems like these are the remaining bus service which needs to be renumbered.

[stajourneyman]

1. Just because a new concept doesn't cost a fortune doesn't mean it can't work.

2. Metrobus carried people across town successfully for years, until the current Government systematically pulled it apart for their own political purposes and not much else...

[swtt]

1. Just because a new concept doesn't cost a fortune doesn't mean it can't work.

2. Metrobus carried people across town successfully for years, until the current Government systematically pulled it apart for their own political purposes and not much else...

Well, unfortunately any special "route branding" seems to be falling out of favour, with "B1" now the only "B" route, and any newer "frequent" routes, only getting the usual three digit (e.g. 100, 120) or "X" treatment (e.g. 500X).

I'm surprised the 610X hasn't been branded a "frequent" route!

[Swift]

It seems it's the Liberals, at least since that Nicholas Greiner character, that have a propensity to change everything just to put their stamp on everything and not consider what works or shows promise and potential, regardless of which political party came up with it.
They have to rebrand everything to make it look like it's being renewed altogether and attempt to wipe all public reminders of the previous administration's successes. It's pathetic and weak.
They also love to blame the previous Labor government well after it's use by date of a few months at most. They are pure perfection as far as they're concerned with self aggrandising virtuous language to match.

[Merc1107]

At the end of the day, do fancy Red (or rather, 'insert this week's livery of choice here') buses actually do anything for a service?

I'm increasingly becoming of the opinion that routes should just be numbered to fit in with whatever grouping is used for a specific area or corridor. If the service is frequent, convenient and not convoluted for residents, tourists, students and so on, then people will use it. Different cities approach their more prestigious routes differently, Brisbane has "BUZ" routes, Adelaide "Go-Zones" and Perth just numbers them in the 9xx range. In the latter case, it would only be enthusiasts that actually get worked up over different numbers meaning the route is somehow 'special' - whereas the passengers who encounter route number changes usually have a rather negative attitude to the change, usually along the lines of "they're just useless idiots trying to justify their existence by changing the timetables and numbers all the time".

In the case of these Metrobuses, and numerous other examples; Perth's being the High-Frequency livery adorning early O405NHs in Perth, the CityLink livery in the 1980s and Rockingham 'Dolphin' buses, we have seen the branding is created for some initial community attention, then over time, the concept is either never implemented in full, is shelved, whittled away, or operational constraints make it too much of a nightmare to have special-liveried buses performing the niche role of these routes.

Instead of using taxpayer's money in such a frivolous exercise, just run the appropriate service to meet the communities' demonstrated needs (i.e. from data collecting by the ticketing equipment) and advertise these properly to the public. It's all well and good running fancy-liveried buses all over creation, but if people miss the hype of the introduction of these branded services, it won't matter what colour the bus is, or what service it's "meant for", it'll be just as meaningless as any other bus running down the street.

[stajourneyman]

I’m pretty sure red paint doesn’t cost any more than blue and white paint.

[Swift]

Just don't use gold leaf as wrap.

[Merc1107]

I’m pretty sure red paint doesn’t cost any more than blue and white paint.

It probably increases inventory costs. The cost of the paint really was not at all what I was getting at, though.

[Stu]

Yet Metrobus is also a political stunt caused by the previous Labor government due to their mismanagement of bus services across Sydney.

If the current government can come out with solution that maintains the service level on key bus corridors, then I don't see why Metrobus cannot go.

On another note, I actually wonder what will the fate for M90, M91 and M92, as well as T80?

Seems like these are the remaining bus service which needs to be renumbered.

All of those route numbers will definitely be renumbered.

Routes M91 & M92 will most likely be split as these routes traverse a long distance across two regions and if Transdev cannot retain both regions then it will not be efficient to be operating only one of these routes on its own from the respective regions 10 or 13. There would be a very high degree of dead running involved.

[tonyp]

At the end of the day, do fancy Red (or rather, 'insert this week's livery of choice here') buses actually do anything for a service?

They were the pseudo trams that Labor governments since the 1950s tried to convince us would replace the function of real trams. As I recall, many of the Metrobus routes were along former tram routes that still had the highest capacity requirements (the busiest routes of the system). This is why the concept kicked off with the notion of tram-like, all-door-loading, double artics. Realpolitik then dampened it down to ordinary artics which were still an improvement on rigid buses, but I think the red paint was appropriate because in essence it symbolised lipstick on a pig.

I'm just glad, though, that it triggered a major purchase of artics because they're still the capacity backbone of the Sydney bus fleet. The question now is whether they can remain in service long enough to outlast the current one-size-fits-all insanity. As it looks like a Labor government probably won't be returned for at least another decade, this would require an unexpected change of thinking at Transport HQ. The only other hope on the horizon is those metro lines coming into service as soon as possible and a possible revival of interest in further light rail lines. Implementation of any of these projects would, however, take longer than the lives of the current artic fleet.

[Campbelltown busboy]

All of those route numbers will definitely be renumbered.

Routes M91 & M92 will most likely be split as these routes traverse a long distance across two regions and if Transdev cannot retain both regions then it will not be efficient to be operating only one of these routes on its own from the respective regions 10 or 13. There would be a very high degree of dead running involved.

There should be questions asked about what region the Bankstown to Burwood section of the M90 along with 913 and 914 should be put under as the Strathfield/Burwood via Greenacre corridor would be classed as being in region 5 more then region 13

[Xplorer]

All of those route numbers will definitely be renumbered.

Routes M91 & M92 will most likely be split as these routes traverse a long distance across two regions and if Transdev cannot retain both regions then it will not be efficient to be operating only one of these routes on its own from the respective regions 10 or 13. There would be a very high degree of dead running involved.

I guess it's easy to split them at Bankstown, back to the days of 910/948 for M91

With M92, they really could extend it to Miranda to replace 961/962, with those cut back to Sutherland or maybe even Menai

[Linto63]

I’m pretty sure red paint doesn’t cost any more than blue and white paint.

Red paint makes then go faster though.

[iamthouth]

I'm surprised the 610X hasn't been branded a "frequent" route!

Threshold is 10 min daytime headway, so although it has a 3 min peak headway, 610X still runs at 15 mins middle of the day.

[Campbelltown busboy]

All of those route numbers will definitely be renumbered.

Routes M91 & M92 will most likely be split as these routes traverse a long distance across two regions and if Transdev cannot retain both regions then it will not be efficient to be operating only one of these routes on its own from the respective regions 10 or 13. There would be a very high degree of dead running involved.

I guess it's easy to split them at Bankstown, back to the days of 910/948 for M91

With M92, they really could extend it to Miranda to replace 961/962, with those cut back to Sutherland or maybe even Menai

962 could be cut back to Menai Marketplace with the M92 being the Menai road replacement between Menai and Miranda then the 961 can stay as the Miranda via Allison crescent service