NSW Bus Industry Taskforce announced

[Stu]

^ Hopefully the stats surrounding July 2023 will be in the next report or other future reports.

[Fleet Lists]

A most comprehensive report.
But how quickly can it be out of date,
The table showing the worst regions for service cancellations as the result of driver shortages makes no mention of region 10 which until 1 July did not have a problem but which on the figures from July would have topped the table.

This is what Stu' post refers to - other posts in between were later moved to this thread

[Aurora]

“Forty four percent of all public transport users jump on board a bus but the network only attracts two percent of the public transport budget.”

Maybe so but I am sure many of those same people also use other modes in their journeys. Mr Lee should know you can’t go past 100%. A misleading/gotcha comment to make it look worse than it is for regular folk.

[tonyp]

“Forty four percent of all public transport users jump on board a bus but the network only attracts two percent of the public transport budget.”

Maybe so but I am sure many of those same people also use other modes in their journeys. Mr Lee should know you can’t go past 100%. A misleading/gotcha comment to make it look worse than it is for regular folk.

He sounds like a blinkered, single-focus bus type. One of the most effective paths out of all these bus issues is more investment in metro and light rail, so that those modes can take over the high demand line-haul work that buses are pretty hopeless for. These routes suck up large numbers of low-capacity buses and the drivers to go with them. Many of these major bus corridors in Sydney have long since passed European thresholds for conversion to trams or metro. Of course, many of our local busy bus corridors replaced trams, a misfortune of history that needs to be reversed.

So, I think it's pouring good money after bad to increase the spend on buses. Better to make them more productive - maximising passenger capacity, increasing efficiency of passenger processing, decreasing dwells and other dead time and providing much more bus priority.

[boronia]

And the infrastructure costs to run buses, like roads, comes out of someone else's budget.

[Linto63]

The cost of delivering these projects is astronomical. The $3 billion spent on the L2/L3 that benefits (it you want to call it that) only a small part of Sydney and removed all of a couple of dozen buses from the fleet, would have been enough to replace the entire Sydney bus fleet of 4,000.

[tonyp]

The cost of delivering these projects is astronomical. The $3 billion spent on the L2/L3 that benefits (it you want to call it that) only a small part of Sydney and removed all of a couple of dozen buses from the fleet, would have been enough to replace the entire Sydney bus fleet of 4,000.

They're permanent investments for the long term, buses aren't.

[Swift]

The cost of delivering these projects is astronomical. The $3 billion spent on the L2/L3 that benefits (it you want to call it that) only a small part of Sydney and removed all of a couple of dozen buses from the fleet, would have been enough to replace the entire Sydney bus fleet of 4,000.

They're permanent investments for the long term, buses aren't.

I agree, but the cost was unacceptable for it.
That money should have gone toward righting the wrong of cancelling the ESR all the way to Kingsford and beyond and leave Anzac Pde to the buses with a long term plan to reinstate light rail -at significant lower cost.
It's done now and they need to expand the LR to Maroubra forthwith.

[Merc1107]

Most buses in their time with the original operator, will cover close to if, not in excess of, a million kilometres. Many of those buses go on to have second, third lives with private operators, especially in states where there is no age limit. For example, many of Adelaide's articulated buses have ended up with private operators in Perth, and forty years after they first entered service, are still going strong.

Doesn't sound to me like buses are "throwaway" goods.

[Swift]

They are generally built very heavy duty for constant stop start work which is the most arduous for a vehicle.
The engines are engineered for this work for great differences in revs all day. They thrive on lugging weight.
What many don't consider is the amount of parts replacement that happens through their life to the point they're hardly the bus they were when they left the plant!

[Linto63]

They're permanent investments for the long term, buses aren't.

Buses are a capitalised asset with a 25 year lifespan, they are not a here today, gone tomorrow consumable.

[Swift]

They're permanent investments for the long term, buses aren't.

Buses are a capitalised asset with a 25 year lifespan, they are not a here today, gone tomorrow consumable.

It's far more easy to cancel a bus route on a whim than a LR line.

[tonyp]

Twenty-five years is nothing compared to a rail-based transit system, but the point is capacity. It's almost impossible to grow capacity to match population and development growth with a bus system. They have a much lower ceiling than a rail-based system. Even the Brisbane double-artic operation can't anywhere near match the potential capacity of a light rail line, let alone a metro line. Even if all those systems can achieve reliable 2 minute headways (requiring all-door loading and plenty of doors on buses), buses are limited to 18 or 24 metre vehicles compared to up to 60 metres for trams and up to 160 metres for trains. It's simple maths.

Buses are also holding back the potential for growth in areas of Sydney in which they're the only public transport, the NE (Warringah) and SE being prime examples, unable to contribute to the growth capacity that the metro is enabling in other areas of Sydney. That may be good news for nimbys, but it means that some suburbs are doing the heavy lifting for accommodating future population and activity growth and others aren't. Or can't, because they only have buses. Buses are best for feeder and cross-regional services and the long-term objective should be to cut them back to those roles.

[Swift]

Just try the Bondi Jcn to Bondi Beach shuffle (shuttle).
Nimby trash prevented the solution.

[Linto63]

It's all a bit academic, there is no indication that heavy or light rail is on anybody's agenda in either of those areas, so the best scenario is to we improve what we have.

[Linto63]

Bus Industry Taskforce launches white paper for better bus services

Doesn't appear to offer any tangible solutions, just a bit of blue sky thinking.

[boronia]

Wow, someone found the Christie and Unsworth Reports at the back of the filing cabinets?

[Fleet Lists]

The Telegraph contained an article this morning which was enthusiastic about this
"Sydney urged to follow New York’s bus system to keep the city moving

New York style rapid buses travelling on dedicated transit lanes could fix a flailing Sydney bus system seen as complex, confusing and unreliable."

Unfortunately the article is locked.

[eddy]

Unless it is done overseas it cannot be done ha ha

[Swift]

New York does buses better than Sydney ever shall. Funny, theirs is totally government run in a land of capitalism, but we know better right? Whoahahaha!!
Doing something is better than the status quo.

[Fleet Lists]

https://ehq-production-australia.s3.ap- ... 91643dd3b0

[Fleet Lists]

So much for Constrance's 2056 plan

[boronia]

https://ehq-production-australia.s3.ap- ... 91643dd3b0

"Expired"?

[rogf24]

Interesting recommendation in Page 36.



And wow new innovations on Page 23.

[Campbelltown busboy]

Interesting recommendation in Page 36.



And wow new innovations on Page 23.

The 3 door 12 metre bus thing is something that Tony P has been going on about for years