Linto63 wrote: ↑Thu Mar 07, 2024 5:17 pmSydney has plenty of artics, perhaps too many given the keenness of the operators of the former State Transit regions to move them on.
In fact, there are hardly enough. The disdain of artics held by a certain operator and a certain former minister are very misguided. That operator has been directed to use them on weekends an increase their utilisation rate on weekdays but appears to have refused to do both to some extent.
On the other hand, other operators are desperately short of artics. At least three operators have attempted to source additional artics and had those requests denied. A further two were successful in managing to gain additional artics off the anti-artic operator, but again I gather the operators who were the beneficiaries would have liked even more artics.
In Region 9, the region with the most artics (91 at current count, out of 232 in service in Sydney), there is a desperate need for more artics and newer artics. Buses that are between 13 and 18 years old, in many cases running 24 hours a day, are getting very tired and could probably use some TLC. Shifts rostered for artics out of Randwick and Port Botany often get substituted for a rigid due to a lack of available artics, and this often leads to overcrowding.
There really needs to be a plan to get electric artics on the road in NSW. We need some now for growth (Port Botany, Willoughby and even Menai at U-Go could probably use some now) and we need a plan for a replacement order of at least 80 in 5 years to replace the Euro 3 B12s. 80 Euro 3 B12s replaced 30 O305Gs, at this point we could probably make use of 130 electric artics to replace the 80 Euro 3s.