The official advise does not mention the renumbering of T61 to 661, T62 to 662 and T63 to 663.

From Sunday 28 July extra services are being added to key bus routes in Sydney’s North West, making it easier to use public transport to get to key local destinations, including North West Metro stations.

But no mention that that will be offset by quite a few withdrawn routes.

Click on the Metropolitan Services heading below that text and it lists all the changes by route, including renumbering of the Tway services.

They have added them since I looked earlier.

And here's the network map:
https://transportnsw.info/document/4237 ... 190728.pdf
Interesting how the routes are colour-coded by frequency.

Seems that 622 will be the last remaining Hillsbus service to run along Epping Road in Lane Cove.

facm337 wrote:Very curious to see the new routes and frequencies of 632, 633 and 651 which they're extending to Rouse Hill. Those services, as well as the 626 and boosted 601 will be crucial in ferrying commuters from the greater NW onto the metro. Hopefully we will see these services become more and more frequent over the years, and bus then changing to metro will be seen as a normal and convenient trip, as opposed to the single seat journey mentality that's been ingrained into the Sydney commuter for so many decades.

From the new map, route 633 iscoloured dark blue, indicating they will run every 20-30 min during weekday off-peak and weekends.
Route 651, coloured green, will continue to remain an hourly off-peak and weekend service, since its convoluted routing weaves in and out along the metro corridor between Epping and Rouse Hill. The redirected and extended 632 is also marked green, too.
https://transportnsw.info/document/4237 ... 190728.pdf

Be interesting to see if there is a change in Hillsbus peak vehicle requirement with the withdrawl of many of the CBD services.

Richard, colours are representative of weekday midday only, not weekends.

"Bus routes are colour-coded based on approximate frequency during the middle of weekdays.
Services may operate more frequently during peak times, and at lower frequencies at night and on weekends"

Richard290 wrote:

facm337 wrote:Very curious to see the new routes and frequencies of 632, 633 and 651 which they're extending to Rouse Hill. Those services, as well as the 626 and boosted 601 will be crucial in ferrying commuters from the greater NW onto the metro. Hopefully we will see these services become more and more frequent over the years, and bus then changing to metro will be seen as a normal and convenient trip, as opposed to the single seat journey mentality that's been ingrained into the Sydney commuter for so many decades.

From the new map, both routes 632 and 633 are coloured dark blue, indicating they will run every 20-30 min during weekday off-peak and weekends.
Route 651, coloured green, will continue to remain an hourly off-peak and weekend service, since its convoluted routing weaves in and out along the metro corridor between Epping and Rouse Hill.
https://transportnsw.info/document/4237 ... 190728.pdf

Interesting. I think the coverage is fairly decent, ie. most people not within walking distance to a metro station will have a bus option to get to one, at least for the area east of the line between Rouse Hill and Bella Vista. I'm not too sure whether on the other side (Region 1 bus network) the connections/frequencies have been modified post-metro?

However there's still too many blue and green routes for my liking (midday frequency of every 30 and 60 min respectively). Oh well, I expect them to increase the frequencies as demand grows. Of note I never realised how many of the T-way buses have such poor frequencies (with the exception of T65).

facm337 wrote:
However there's still too many blue and green routes for my liking (midday frequency of every 30 and 60 min respectively). Oh well, I expect them to increase the frequencies as demand grows. Of note I never realised how many of the T-way buses have such poor frequencies (with the exception of T65).

With the exception of T80 and T65 (combined with T66), every other T-prefixed route has never been fantastic in terms of frequency

I'm now expecting T80 to be gone soon but perhaps renumbered along with the B-line scheme. B8 anyone?

I wouldn't be surprised if the T80 only had a few months to go before being renumbered, I couldn't see TfNSW waiting until the end of the year or early next year to do so.

swtt wrote:

facm337 wrote:
However there's still too many blue and green routes for my liking (midday frequency of every 30 and 60 min respectively). Oh well, I expect them to increase the frequencies as demand grows. Of note I never realised how many of the T-way buses have such poor frequencies (with the exception of T65).

With the exception of T80 and T65 (combined with T66), every other T-prefixed route has never been fantastic in terms of frequency

I'm now expecting T80 to be gone soon but perhaps renumbered along with the B-line scheme. B8 anyone?

I think TfNSW will just use 8xx series route number for T80.
By the way, will T80 be gone first or the remaining metrobus routes be gone first?

stupid_girl wrote: By the way, will T80 be gone first or the remaining metrobus routes be gone first?

I'd expect the M10 and M50 to go upon opening of the CSELR, and it wouldst surprise me if they went and did all of the routes including the T80 in one hit.

I just thought I would put my two cents worth in on the updated Hillsbus network.
As facm37 stated just too many low frequency routes that will not attract pax at even peak hours.30 and 60 minute frequencies just will not cut the mustard.Needs to be 20 minute at a minimum.That is as long as pax will wait.Preferably better-10-15 at peak.20 off peak.
Additionally a large number of the routes are long, convoluted and winding in their nature.That will be a negative in terms of reliability picking up pax from the metro stations and the bus stations.A golden opportunity not taken up to create a network of frequent short distance feeder services serving the metro stations and the busway.
It will be interesting to see if the on demand services operated by Hiilsbus and Busways Blacktown in the area will attract reasonable pax numbers.The Ourbus service at Carlingford and North Rocks failed badly.

And could I add more frequent,more direct services between the major pax generators .

Would this new bus network also indicate that the NW Night Bus would cease and Metro NW would operate full time everyday instead of stopping service earlier on Sun - Wed nights?

(Wording on how route 642X weeknight service withdrawn might hint to this?)

I dont think so.

swtt wrote:

Stu wrote:Region 6 changes are apparently due in a few weeks.

Any more details you can satisfy our unending curiosity with, Stu?

Sent from my Huawei P30 Pro using Tapatalk

Burwood Depot will commence operating a small amount of route 420 services which is due to the impending retirement of the Scania 14.5 units. Previously it was not possible to transfer any route 420 work from K to B which involved standard sized buses due to the exclusive 14.5 bus shifts scheduled (mixed) throughout the timetable that prevented schedulers from picking and choosing any standard size bus shift that they wanted.

Now that there will no longer be any shifts involving route 420 that require an HR license, all blocks of work can be reworked and new shifts created which allows the schedulers flexibility to transfer any block of work from K to B.

Is there really no willpower to replace the 14.5s with say, artics?

(The other question is, are artics needed on route 420/400?)

High capacity buses are needed on routes 400 & 420, TfNSW had to revise the original 420 timetable in December 2018 due to capacity issues. There will most likely be a timetable update again at the end of this month in conjunction with the 14.5 units have been retired, some short working services to meet expected capacity.

Are there any 400 runs that use the 14.5s in the new STA shifts from 30/6? The two weekday AM shifts that used to run with a 14.5 appeared to all be VSTs last week and today.

J_Busworth wrote:Are there any 400 runs that use the 14.5s in the new STA shifts from 30/6? The two weekday AM shifts that used to run with a 14.5 appeared to all be VSTs last week and today.

Yesterday (07/07/19), I caught an Ansair Orana 14.5m on the 400. It was about 1:30pmish, going from Bondi Junction to Eastgardens. I caught it from Randwick Junction to Maroubra Junction. Hope this kinda answers your question.

North West Night Bus relates to the Metro work, and will run until late 2019 per the below link, which I understand to be November.

https://transportnsw.info/plan/north-west-night-bus

J_Busworth wrote:Are there any 400 runs that use the 14.5s in the new STA shifts from 30/6? The two weekday AM shifts that used to run with a 14.5 appeared to all be VSTs last week and today.

Due to the progressive withdrawal of the 14.5m long buses, there are no longer any weekday 400 trips operated by them, as STA needs the remaining vehicles to operate busier AM peak trips on other routes. On the weekend for the foreseeable future the 14.5's will continue to operate selected 400 trips.

Gusbus wrote:

J_Busworth wrote:Are there any 400 runs that use the 14.5s in the new STA shifts from 30/6? The two weekday AM shifts that used to run with a 14.5 appeared to all be VSTs last week and today.

Due to the progressive withdrawal of the 14.5m long buses, there are no longer any weekday 400 trips operated by them, as STA needs the remaining vehicles to operate busier AM peak trips on other routes. On the weekend for the foreseeable future the 14.5's will continue to operate selected 400 trips.

Wouldn't the priority for 14.5m buses from P to be used on Anzac Parade corridor services since there use to also be a few AM peak trips operated by 14.5m buses on the 309 but have reverted to 12.5m or 18m bendy operation. I imagine there would have to be a timetable update to 391/392 as outbound they can only be operated by rigid buses. My fear is once 14.5m buses of STA/TSA are retired will have a flown on effect to other routes that use other types of high-capacity buses.

Stu wrote:High capacity buses are needed on routes 400 & 420, TfNSW had to revise the original 420 timetable in December 2018 due to capacity issues. There will most likely be a timetable update again at the end of this month in conjunction with the 14.5 units have been retired, some short working services to meet expected capacity.

Very surprised that there have been no artics ordered to replace the 14.5s.