Dangerous Buses

Adelaide / South Australia Transport Discussion
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Skexis
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Dangerous Buses

Post by Skexis »

I saw the Today Tonight story on "dangerous buses" earlier. Anyone else catch it and if so what do you think? (Link here in case you missed it). Personally I wonder if it's a bit of a non-story given there was only one bloke complaining. Even that was more about his back hurting than anything else and that is most likely due to the shockingly poor road surfaces rather than the driver. Otherwise it seemed to be a couple of shots of dented buses and some generic bus video footage.

The only thing that interested me was the time stamped footage from March 2014 of the Southlink artic. Checked back and worked out it wasn't me so all good.
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boronia
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Re: Dangerous Buses

Post by boronia »

Skexis wrote:I saw the Today Tonight story on "dangerous buses" earlier. Anyone else catch it and if so what do you think? (Link here in case you missed it). Personally I wonder if it's a bit of a non-story given there was only one bloke complaining. Even that was more about his back hurting than anything else and that is most likely due to the shockingly poor road surfaces rather than the driver. Otherwise it seemed to be a couple of shots of dented buses and some generic bus video footage.

The only thing that interested me was the time stamped footage from March 2014 of the Southlink artic. Checked back and worked out it wasn't me so all good.
I think they did a similar story in Sydney a while back. They must have run out of programs to promote, or no specials at Woolies this week?
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Re: Dangerous Buses

Post by TA3001 »

I thought this was a thread about a few buses in Adelaide, or an rehash of an experience from March 2016 on 423 bus which had nasty gearbox vibrations for months prior.

There are some buses in Adelaide that were unfit for service last time I went on them, like 1008, 1129, and 1133, but it's not like much can be done about their awful condition.
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Re: Dangerous Buses

Post by jibb »

This wasn't about any particular bus, rather that unrealistic timetables that often force drivers to speed(putting passengers at risk of injuries),and drivers having to front up to managers to explain.
Companies concerned that they don't wont to miss out on the renewal of their contracts when their current contract expires.
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Re: Dangerous Buses

Post by busrider »

TA3001 wrote:I thought this was a thread about a few buses in Adelaide, or an rehash of an experience from March 2016 on 423 bus which had nasty gearbox vibrations for months prior.

There are some buses in Adelaide that were unfit for service last time I went on them, like 1008, 1129, and 1133, but it's not like much can be done about their awful condition.
Dangerous, not just uncomfortable.
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Re: Dangerous Buses

Post by TA3001 »

jibb wrote:This wasn't about any particular bus, rather that unrealistic timetables that often force drivers to speed(putting passengers at risk of injuries),and drivers having to front up to managers to explain.
Companies concerned that they don't wont to miss out on the renewal of their contracts when their current contract expires.
I have seen quite a few occasions in which bus drivers have done over the limit. One driver doing a J1 around October 2016 got 859 up to about 73kph on SDB drive between the airport and Tapleys Hill Rd, and the same driver sat on 67kph along Military Rd on a B12 once.

I have also seen a weird occurrence of a CNG NL getting into top gear in a 60 zone which is one that obviously changes at over 60kph. Several drivers in recent years have treated the portion of Military Rd that both the J1 and 163 traverse as a 60 zone, when it's clearly 50!

There is no need for a driver to speed just to keep their job. If the timetable is too tight or unrealistic, put in a complaint about it. There is an outbound 178 just before 4:30PM that I have caught a few times and have never once seen a driver stop to layover on any occasion. It is preceded by a 171 that usually runs 5+ minutes late.
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Eagle Eye
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Re: Dangerous Buses

Post by Eagle Eye »

Some clown was after their 5 minutes of fame. Bloke complains of sore back but is happy to "risk" his life riding a motorbike, which funnily enough has no back support! Majority of report was fake news. End of story.
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Re: Dangerous Buses

Post by jibb »

2MSJ wrote:
TA3001 wrote:I thought this was a thread about a few buses in Adelaide, or an rehash of an experience from March 2016 on 423 bus which had nasty gearbox vibrations for months prior.

There are some buses in Adelaide that were unfit for service last time I went on them, like 1008, 1129, and 1133, but it's not like much can be done about their awful condition.
You really aren't in the best position to comment on that. Or if you are, you shouldn't be publicly!
There is absolutely no reason why he shouldn't comment.It is a public forum,and the issue has already been aired on Today Tonight.
There has been ongoing problems with on-time running, because DPTI won't improve running times on some routes, making it almost impossible on some trips to keep to the timetables.
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Re: Dangerous Buses

Post by TA3001 »

2MSJ wrote:
You really aren't in the best position to comment on that. Or if you are, you shouldn't be publicly!
It's a free country, and it's a public forum. I'll say what I want. If I'm not happy with maintenance standards, I'll comment on it. There are too many things to mention with Adelaide PT that annoy the hell out of me, so I'm not really sure what inspired you to post this.
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Eagle Eye
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Re: Dangerous Buses

Post by Eagle Eye »

If the producer/reporter did their homework they should have been asking the government why there haven't been any proper timetable changes for over 3 years when road conditions and passenger patterns have changed a lot since the last major changes in 2014/15 depending on the route).
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Re: Dangerous Buses

Post by jibb »

Eagle Eye wrote:If the producer/reporter did their homework they should have been asking the government why there haven't been any proper timetable changes for over 3 years when road conditions and passenger patterns have changed a lot since the last major changes in 2014/15 depending on the route).
DPTI have put out many times its future plans for the Adelaide Metro bus network-
including ;-
Simplified Route Numbering,
Fast His-speed,Hi-Frequency services on major roads,
More feeder services to major places like Busway and Train Stations,Major Shoping and Education centres.
Wondering how hard it is to start implementing these changes?
Our current Transport Minister obviously believes in the "Status Quo"-doesn't believe in changes?
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Re: Dangerous Buses

Post by TA3001 »

Well as a start, which routes could have time removed to enable fast services? The 228 used to have 57 minutes from Adelaide to Smithfield at night, and now it's been changed to 64. This schedule was in effect for at least a couple of years.

Some drivers don't even exceed 55kph on this run even at night when heading towards Adelaide.

So what's the solution? Keep the current schedules in effect with drivers doing 40kph in 60 zones much of the time, or remove time which will obviously cause a lot more late running, with operators copping fines when they're not always at fault.

The North Tce tramline works last week caused some buses to run 30-50 minutes late. So what would things have been like with a timetable that is biased towards fast services being in effect?
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Re: Dangerous Buses

Post by jibb »

I think your remark about buses doing 40 in 60 zones is a bit off the mark. Certainly there maybe times when this occurs, but the majority of services don't and in many cases still have trouble keeping up with the timetables due to loadings, traffic, roadwork etc. In fact if you look at the Governments traffic website app--"add-insight" you can see just how much roadworks are going on in the metro area, not too mention accidents and other holdups.
TA3001
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Re: Dangerous Buses

Post by TA3001 »

jibb wrote:I think your remark about buses doing 40 in 60 zones is a bit off the mark. Certainly there maybe times when this occurs, but the majority of services don't and in many cases still have trouble keeping up with the timetables due to loadings, traffic, roadwork etc. In fact if you look at the Governments traffic website app--"add-insight" you can see just how much roadworks are going on in the metro area, not too mention accidents and other holdups.
I meant in circumstances where the service is running on time, with next to no passengers, no traffic queues, no ticket sales etc, eg quiet times (mostly at night). I still remember my trip on 885 on a G10 in 2016 when it was stuck in a long queue on Fiveash Dr due to an accident on South Rd and ran about 45-60 minutes late, but I tend to get most annoyed about an extra two minutes in the timetable which does have an influence on the speed they do.

However, if drivers had to constantly get to the speed limit to stay on time, and hope there was none of the aforementioned, the statistics would be very different.

A driver mentioned something in regards to an extra few minutes in a timetable helping him stay on time in a lovely NL232 which was having computer issues or something causing it to not be able to exceed 45kph. Combined with this particular one's less than perfect mechanical condition, it was probably seen by this driver as being a tight schedule. I have not driven a bus, so I have not seen for myself what it's like to drive a bus in reality from the front seat.
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