NSW Bus Observations 2022.

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jake_s_258
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Re: NSW Bus Observations 2022.

Post by jake_s_258 »

A local news article about a minor intersection upgrade in Sylvania included an interesting quote from the local MP, claiming Transdev route 970 (Miranda-Hurstville via Sylvania Heights) is the 5th busiest in the area. Would be interesting to know what this data is based on (Opal taps presumably) and see a more complete list.
https://www.theleader.com.au/story/7771 ... int-fixed/
A particular focus has been on improving the service reliability of bus route 970 between Hurstville and Miranda, which is the fifth-busiest bus route in southern Sydney.
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Re: NSW Bus Observations 2022.

Post by pgt »

jake_s_258 wrote: Mon Jul 04, 2022 7:41 pm A local news article about a minor intersection upgrade in Sylvania included an interesting quote from the local MP, claiming Transdev route 970 (Miranda-Hurstville via Sylvania Heights) is the 5th busiest in the area. Would be interesting to know what this data is based on (Opal taps presumably) and see a more complete list.
If you have access to the TFNSW Open Data website [ie. a login for it] you can probably get that data yourself and analyse it (I don't so can't tell you what the CSV file has, but the description is on that site).

https://opendata.transport.nsw.gov.au/d ... -trips-bus
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Re: NSW Bus Observations 2022.

Post by Jurassic_Joke »

pgt wrote: Fri Jul 01, 2022 7:58 am
Swift wrote: Sat Jun 11, 2022 5:36 pm
That would certainly be revealing whether it's a depot thing or a company policy thing.
Didn't see any answers to this but from pure observation of the route 144 buses I get (Keolis Downer Northern Beaches), those no longer have the front Opal reader and front seat taped off (ie. both able to be used).
Same goes for Busways North West (Ryde/Willoughby), but didn't notice whether this applied to Hillsbus or not.

Transit Systems (R6) still block their front seats and front Opal readers though.
From my travels and observations, for the buses, can confirm, the front seats are available again on:

-Transdev John Holland (Eastern Suburbs)
-Busways (North Shore and surrounds, Ryde)
-Keolis Downer (Northern Beaches)
-Hillsbus (Northwest)
-Forest Coach Lines (North)

So in total, that’s a lot of buses.

Unfortunately, the following operator is still stuck in March 2020:

-Transit Systems (Inner West).

And yes its deliberate, the front seats on their newest Yutong buses which just entered service, all taped off.

It’s really a shame on Transit Systems and not to mention, it is a pretty bad look in relation to inconsistencies. You cannot expect passengers to believe its okay to sit at the front on some companies buses, and somehow not okay on others. Then you know its not health advice anymore, but rather vested interests. Hopefully Transit Systems gets pulled into line here, honestly, with basically every other Covid restriction in life gone (besides mask wearing on PT), if they won’t remove it now, then when? Seats are there for people to sit on, taping them off was never a permanent way to live. The way they should’ve done it is TfNSW sends a directive out to all the operators to remove the tape so you know you don’t have pick and choose, but anyways, good on the other operators for getting with the times!
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Re: NSW Bus Observations 2022

Post by Linto63 »

Seriously? There are another 40 seats on a bus to choose from. You’re carrying on as if COVID has been eliminated, it hasn’t. Even though it gets little mainstream media coverage, it has claimed more lives in the first six months of this year than the other two years combined.
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Re: NSW Bus Observations 2022.

Post by tonyp »

Jurassic_Joke wrote: Tue Jul 05, 2022 3:48 am
It’s really a shame on Transit Systems and not to mention, it is a pretty bad look in relation to inconsistencies. You cannot expect passengers to believe its okay to sit at the front on some companies buses, and somehow not okay on others. Then you know its not health advice anymore, but rather vested interests.

Of course, one of major steps taken by bus operators around the world, including across Australia, to isolate drivers and passengers from each other during covid was to enforce boarding and exiting through centre and rear doors rather than the front door. Except in NSW where the vested interests in the RTBU and TWU need to maintain the rage against a Coalition government and force use of the front door in NSW but not in every other jurisdiction in Australia where they also have members. That's certainly an inconsistency too.
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Re: NSW Bus Observations 2022

Post by Linto63 »

tonyp wrote: Except in NSW where the vested interests in the RTBU and TWU need to maintain the rage against a Coalition government and force use of the front door in NSW but not in every other jurisdiction in Australia where they also have members. That's certainly an inconsistency too.
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Re: NSW Bus Observations 2022.

Post by boronia »

Jurassic_Joke wrote: Tue Jul 05, 2022 3:48 am

-Transit Systems (Inner West).

And yes its deliberate, the front seats on their newest Yutong buses which just entered service, all taped off.

It’s really a shame on Transit Systems and not to mention, it is a pretty bad look in relation to inconsistencies. You cannot expect passengers to believe its okay to sit at the front on some companies buses, and somehow not okay on others. Then you know its not health advice anymore, but rather vested interests. Hopefully Transit Systems gets pulled into line here, honestly, with basically every other Covid restriction in life gone (besides mask wearing on PT), if they won’t remove it now, then when? Seats are there for people to sit on, taping them off was never a permanent way to live. The way they should’ve done it is TfNSW sends a directive out to all the operators to remove the tape so you know you don’t have pick and choose, but anyways, good on the other operators for getting with the times!
Geez, if the front seat is untaped and empty, you can sit there. If someone else is already sitting there, what do you do then?; look for another seat.

If the seat does have the tape, what do you do? You look for another seat. I can't see why all the drama.

Maybe it's not "vested interests", just lack of attention. Still a few buses getting around with Vivid and even NYE signage.

There is still selective covering of the driver's Opal reader too, at least in R9.
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Re: NSW Bus Observations 2022.

Post by Merc1107 »

I think the point is here that you cannot possibly say the seat taping is safety... Are some buses inherently less prone to COVID transmission? (That's a rhetorical question, by the way).

Back door loading as a COVID measure is somewhat laughable when everyone breathes the same recirculated air by virtue of air-conditioning. Even cashless fares, when COVID has been demonstrated to be airborne. Each of these initiatives have their place, but after 2yrs of this, we have a much better understanding of the transmissibility of this thing than Jan 2020.
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Re: NSW Bus Observations 2022.

Post by tonyp »

Merc1107 wrote: Tue Jul 05, 2022 3:07 pm Back door loading as a COVID measure is somewhat laughable when everyone breathes the same recirculated air by virtue of air-conditioning. Even cashless fares, when COVID has been demonstrated to be airborne. Each of these initiatives have their place, but after 2yrs of this, we have a much better understanding of the transmissibility of this thing than Jan 2020.
The closing off of the front door was mainly about protecting drivers, not passengers. Anyway, one great benefit is that it resulted in Melbourne being added to the list of Australian cities that are now using all-door loading permanently.
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Re: NSW Bus Observations 2022.

Post by Merc1107 »

tonyp wrote: Tue Jul 05, 2022 3:32 pm The closing off of the front door was mainly about protecting drivers, not passengers.
Drivers aren't in a sealed box with their own oxygen supply, so the benefit of rear-door loading is dubious when we have people getting infected from passing by someone, let alone breathing the air in the same enclosed space for anywhere from a few minutes to over an hour.
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Re: NSW Bus Observations 2022.

Post by tonyp »

Merc1107 wrote: Tue Jul 05, 2022 4:35 pm Drivers aren't in a sealed box with their own oxygen supply, so the benefit of rear-door loading is dubious when we have people getting infected from passing by someone, let alone breathing the air in the same enclosed space for anywhere from a few minutes to over an hour.
Well don't shoot the messenger. I'm just relaying what happened at the urging of drivers and their unions across regions like USA, UK and Europe and various cities in Australia. You could argue that they were all wrong.
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Re: NSW Bus Observations 2022.

Post by Swift »

It would have to reduce the chances, so worth it, but NSW the staid arrogant state knows better.
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Re: NSW Bus Observations 2022

Post by Jurassic_Joke »

Linto63 wrote: Tue Jul 05, 2022 7:14 am Seriously? There are another 40 seats on a bus to choose from. You’re carrying on as if COVID has been eliminated, it hasn’t. Even though it gets little mainstream media coverage, it has claimed more lives in the first six months of this year than the other two years combined.
All I’m asking for is consistency. As said, why should pax be lead to believe its okay to sit at the front of a bus going to Bondi Beach, but its not ok on a bus going to Balmain? It just doesn’t make sense - you cannot have these passenger inconsistencies like this, but anyways, Transit Systems is in the minority here. It’s in contrast to back to March 2020 when this restriction was first introduced, it was uniform - all bus operators did the exact same thing, at the same time. See, that was good. Two years later when the Government removes public transport capacity restrictions/green dots and says its back to 100% aka all seats are available again, then operators clearly decided, we’ll do what we want. Most operators see patronage is getting pretty close to pre-pandemic levels and that two years on, the red tape restriction has passed its use-by date as its useless anyway when the bus is full.

It’s actually very similar to how on the light rail, opening the doors yourself through pressing the button, another pre-pandemic thing, has only just been been reintroduced after a two year hiatus- however I note at least in my experience, its only on L2 and L3, and not L1. That’s also wrong in my view - should be L1 as well to be consistent across the board.
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Re: NSW Bus Observations 2022

Post by Linto63 »

Jurassic_Joke wrote: As said, why should pax be lead to believe its okay to sit at the front of a bus going to Bondi Beach, but its not ok on a bus going to Balmain?
I doubt 99.99% of the travelling public would notice nor care. Under their contracts with TfNSW, a degree of autonomy is placed with operators, this is one of them.
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Re: NSW Bus Observations 2022

Post by Campbelltown busboy »

Jurassic_Joke wrote: Wed Jul 06, 2022 5:55 am
Linto63 wrote: Tue Jul 05, 2022 7:14 am Seriously? There are another 40 seats on a bus to choose from. You’re carrying on as if COVID has been eliminated, it hasn’t. Even though it gets little mainstream media coverage, it has claimed more lives in the first six months of this year than the other two years combined.
All I’m asking for is consistency. As said, why should pax be lead to believe its okay to sit at the front of a bus going to Bondi Beach, but its not ok on a bus going to Balmain? It just doesn’t make sense - you cannot have these passenger inconsistencies like this, but anyways, Transit Systems is in the minority here. It’s in contrast to back to March 2020 when this restriction was first introduced, it was uniform - all bus operators did the exact same thing, at the same time. See, that was good. Two years later when the Government removes public transport capacity restrictions/green dots and says its back to 100% aka all seats are available again, then operators clearly decided, we’ll do what we want. Most operators see patronage is getting pretty close to pre-pandemic levels and that two years on, the red tape restriction has passed its use-by date as its useless anyway when the bus is full.

It’s actually very similar to how on the light rail, opening the doors yourself through pressing the button, another pre-pandemic thing, has only just been been reintroduced after a two year hiatus- however I note at least in my experience, its only on L2 and L3, and not L1. That’s also wrong in my view - should be L1 as well to be consistent across the board.
I've noticed a few Busabout buses still their front seats taped off but the majority of buses in their fleet aren't taped off

Do the Urbos trams that are used on the L1 even have those push button doors
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Re: NSW Bus Observations 2022

Post by boronia »

Linto63 wrote: Wed Jul 06, 2022 9:39 am
Jurassic_Joke wrote: As said, why should pax be lead to believe its okay to sit at the front of a bus going to Bondi Beach, but its not ok on a bus going to Balmain?
I doubt 99.99% of the travelling public would notice nor care. Under their contracts with TfNSW, a degree of autonomy is placed with operators, this is one of them.
Exactly. If the seat is vacant, passengers can choose to sit there; if it's not, they keep walking. I doubt too many many people are going to throw a tantrum because the previous seat was different. How about the "inconsistency" that some of these seats are single, some are double, some are 1-1/2, width?

If you want to debate inconsistencies, how about the location of the second Opal reader at the front. On some buses, they are right on the corner of the front bulkhead. On others, clearly visible on the near side luggage rack. On the latest builds, they are hidden in the valley between the electrical pyramids over the wheels - not visible till you actually walk past them. And finally there are the Volgrens which have them on the off side behind the driver's bulkhead - you are well past it by the time you realise it is not in one the more usual places, so you have to double back into the crowd to tap.

The use of the front Opal reader needs more consistency. Either they should all be open or all closed. They slow down pax enough as it is; they get on, stand in front of the reader then decide to hunt through their wallets for the card.

As for the L2/L3 all the trams I've ridden on in the last 2 weeks have had driver operated doors. The change to passenger operation was shortlived.
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Re: NSW Bus Observations 2022.

Post by tonyp »

TfNSW is poor at enforcing consistent standards of anything across bus fleets, all the way from design to operation, so just add this to the list. Some buses are so poorly designed they don't even have seats right at the front. The only issue is whether the total seating capacity is reduced.
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Re: NSW Bus Observations 2022.

Post by Campbelltown busboy »

tonyp wrote: Wed Jul 06, 2022 12:22 pm TfNSW is poor at enforcing consistent standards of anything across bus fleets, all the way from design to operation, so just add this to the list. Some buses are so poorly designed they don't even have seats right at the front. The only issue is whether the total seating capacity is reduced.
Would a agency default network wide bus spec set by Transport For NSW instead of the operators setting their own bus specs help with the bus standards that you keep going on about
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Re: NSW Bus Observations 2022.

Post by Merc1107 »

It doesn't matter if TfNSW sets standards that are world's best practice, or more along the lines of worst practice. If they are not effective at writing contracts to advise of a clear expectation (whether in fleet acquisition, fleet maintenance & presentation, driver behaviour & presentation), not effective at monitoring adherence to any expectations, and not effective at communicating failure to meet the expectations, then the result will often be poor. There are exceptions; I think it was Swift who mentioned very positive experiences with Red Bus Service in terms of fleet and staff attitude.

The PTA (in WA) places some very onerous expectations upon contractors, right down to where the driver wears their name badge and issues like graffiti and placement of decals on buses. A small team of Inspectors monitor the on-road behaviour of buses, the PTA audit the operators on fleet maintenance, timetable adherence and so on.
Even though "Transperth" turn out a very presentable fleet, things still slip through the cracks. Having not only seen, but also heard, how those same three contractors behave at their interstate operations, I'm inclined to say the system works well. I might err towards saying it works too well, actually.
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Re: NSW Bus Observations 2022.

Post by Fleet Lists »

That has been discussed many times in the past. I believe Adelaide and Perth set such standards. But even in Adelaide when operators are short of buses they obtain buses which are non standard - an example would b Torrens Transit have been known to operate buses from other states.

Personally I dont think it is the ultimate solution.
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Re: NSW Bus Observations 2022

Post by Linto63 »

boronia wrote: If you want to debate inconsistencies, how about the location of the second Opal reader at the front. On some buses, they are right on the corner of the front bulkhead. On others, clearly visible on the near side luggage rack.
A lot of Opal readers were not placed in optimum positions when installed, as these were already taken by the Crouzet ticket machines, which needed to be retained for a few years during the transition from paper tickets to Opal.
tonyp wrote: Some buses are so poorly designed they don't even have seats right at the front.
Tend to have a luggage rack in lieu, so the space isn't totally wasted.
Merc1107 wrote: The PTA (in WA) places some very onerous expectations upon contractors, right down to where the driver wears their name badge and issues like graffiti and placement of decals on buses. A small team of Inspectors monitor the on-road behaviour of buses, the PTA audit the operators on fleet maintenance, timetable adherence and so on.
TfNSW likewise assesses its contractors, with KPIs that can attract penalties for not being met. Likewise operators maintenance records can be periodically inspected. A contractor can be micro-managed to the nth degree, but by the time you get down to name badge placements, you are getting seriously anal. Reality is that there is no perfect system, each state does some things better than others.
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Re: NSW Bus Observations 2022

Post by Swift »

Linto63 wrote: Wed Jul 06, 2022 4:32 pm A contractor can be micro-managed to the nth degree, but by the time you get down to name badge placements, you are getting seriously anal. Reality is that there is no perfect system, each state does some things better than others.
You are exemplifying the NSW thinking. She'll be right attitude leads to more important things not being so.
PTA Perth clearly believe that attention to detail like that fosters a high standard and I for one was impressed to see that. It showcases how things can be done better.

Small details can have huge importance down the line, something NSW is completely and always has been completely blind to.
Regards RedBus, their fleet may not consist of the more expensive European fleets of other operators, but at least one driver I had made the experience chalk and cheese over that other one. I'll take the budget chassis every time.
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Re: NSW Bus Observations 2022

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Linto63 wrote: Wed Jul 06, 2022 4:32 pm
boronia wrote: If you want to debate inconsistencies, how about the location of the second Opal reader at the front. On some buses, they are right on the corner of the front bulkhead. On others, clearly visible on the near side luggage rack.
A lot of Opal readers were not placed in optimum positions when installed, as these were already taken by the Crouzet ticket machines, which needed to be retained for a few years during the transition from paper tickets to Opal.
Ideally, both Opal readers should be in the aisle, one on each side. Then there won't be a clogged up entrance.
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Re: NSW Bus Observations 2022.

Post by J_Busworth »

Jurassic_Joke wrote: Tue Jul 05, 2022 3:48 am
Unfortunately, the following operator is still stuck in March 2020:

-Transit Systems (Inner West).

And yes its deliberate, the front seats on their newest Yutong buses which just entered service, all taped off.

It’s really a shame on Transit Systems and not to mention, it is a pretty bad look in relation to inconsistencies.
This doesn't seem to be fully the case at Tempe though. All of their artics have their front seat and Opal reader open again as do most of their B12s and Oranas. Certainly most Tempe buses I've been on in the past month are back to normal.

As so far as inconsistencies go, I wouldn't be so worried about inconsistencies between different operators but by this supposed difference between different Transit Systems depots. Clearly Tempe and Leichhardt are singing a different tune.
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Re: NSW Bus Observations 2022.

Post by Swift »

They should work on rolling out fully enclosed driver's cabs. No need for silly business with police tape.
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