Breakdown of costs to run a bus

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simonl
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Breakdown of costs to run a bus

Post by simonl »

Does anyone out there know what the rough % of costs for running a 12.5m bus are for these components:
Fuel
Maintenance
Driver
Overheads/Admin
Acquisition Costs
Anything I've left out?

?

How much difference is there to an artic?
Gday
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Re: Breakdown of costs to run a bus

Post by Gday »

You have left out a heap of stuff.
Impossible to work out without knowing aquisition price, capacity, age, maintenance progrom time intervals, time until major overhual to engine etc, time since overhaul. Whether the dick that has been driving it has caused damage. if its new, if its a BCI, how good are the tyres, how much insurance, how are the brakes, how is the AC, how blah blah blah blah.
Good luck!
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Re: Breakdown of costs to run a bus

Post by boronia »

You have to take into account fixed costs:

Registration
Insurance
Finance costs
Property and utilities costs
Admin staff costs
Fixed plant costs

Vehicle/usage specific Variable costs would include:

Fuel
maintenance and major repairs
drivers wages and expenses, insuarnce, super, uniforms, training, LSL,
replacement vehicle hire

Difficult to put % on any item, it depends on the size of your business, the amount of usage the bus gets, and its characteristics.
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Re: Breakdown of costs to run a bus

Post by Volvo B12B Driver »

just to have a driver in the drivers seat for an 8 hour shift on a weekday, cost around $230 to $250. Based on driver earning $20 an hour full time.
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Re: Breakdown of costs to run a bus

Post by 33 HBS »

Training costs can be quite large depending on what sort of work your company is performing and wether you can find good drivers that can offer good customer service skills and can competantly operate your vehicles.(e.g being able to drive a Fuller or Spicer Transmission correctly. There's heaps out there with HR licences but can't drive these vehicles properly).
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Re: Breakdown of costs to run a bus

Post by PAQ12 »

I think the only way to find out, would be to ask each operator individually, but i'm guessing their response will be 'Sorry, we can't release that information'.

But certainly would be interesting to know what it really costs to have a bus out there with all those overheads. Its food for thought if you were to ever start your own bus company, so you know what to charge, what you pay your drivers, and all depends if its charter business or an operator for TransLink.
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Re: Breakdown of costs to run a bus

Post by 08 XDi »

simonl wrote:Does anyone out there know what the rough % of costs for running a 12.5m bus are for these components:
Fuel
Maintenance
Driver
Overheads/Admin
Acquisition Costs
Anything I've left out?

?

How much difference is there to an artic?
Perhaps it might be worth putting in a right to information request? It would be handy to have some idea of cost when proposing some sort of change to the system.

UPDATE: There is a pile of correspondence between TTA and BT which has already been disclosed below, which I am having a look at, but it appears they have censored most of the cost information. Fortunately, it looks like they didn't actually black out the censored stuff when they scanned it in, so it is still possible to read what is behind the little white boxes throughout...

http://download.translink.com.au/rti/10 ... 929348.pdf
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simonl
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Re: Breakdown of costs to run a bus

Post by simonl »

Wow, thanks for that. I'm a bit shocked by the difference in the costs of a rigid bus and an artic. The artic really needs to be full, or close to it at those rates.
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Re: Breakdown of costs to run a bus

Post by simonl »

If I'm reading that document correctly, seems like fare revenue pays for roughly 50% of the service. Which compares to Sydney Buses which pays for over 90% of itself with fare revenue. That's mostly because Sydney Buses has much higher fares, of course.

If PT overall is 75% subsidised, then QR Passenger must be sucking up an awful lot of cash.
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Re: Breakdown of costs to run a bus

Post by reubot »

I'm in your bus
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Re: Breakdown of costs to run a bus

Post by dannyr »

reubot wrote:
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Re: Breakdown of costs to run a bus

Post by 08 XDi »

dannyr wrote:Try again - it's working for me now
I expect somebody cottoned on to the fact that they accidentally disclosed confidential information to the public :oops: , as that is a scanned version of the original document. I guess they do read this forum after all...
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Re: Breakdown of costs to run a bus

Post by simonl »

Another interesting thing is the talk of increases in the 180, and that it ranks in the top 10 of "Bus Full" reports. A bus which runs every half hour not being able to pick up pax is pretty unnacceptable.
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Re: Breakdown of costs to run a bus

Post by TransitBris »

simonl wrote:Another interesting thing is the talk of increases in the 180, and that it ranks in the top 10 of "Bus Full" reports. A bus which runs every half hour not being able to pick up pax is pretty unnacceptable.
I wouldn't think it would rate in the top 10 :shock: where did you get this information from?
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Re: Breakdown of costs to run a bus

Post by T1200 »

I wouldn't be surprised if that were true, where did you get that information from? Certainly during peak hour and around 3pm it can be a struggle to get on.
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Re: Breakdown of costs to run a bus

Post by simonl »

That was in the latter end of the pdf document, in the justification for some increases in services which appear to have been planned to be implemented in 2008. Not sure what the case is now. Actually it was the 181 which was to be increased; they said "180 corridor". Look around page 179-180.
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Re: Breakdown of costs to run a bus

Post by BGC »

T1200 wrote:I wouldn't be surprised if that were true, where did you get that information from? Certainly during peak hour and around 3pm it can be a struggle to get on.
Here here to that, the 180 is not known as the Sardine Express for nothing! :lol:

As for the 181, where I live it is the only express bus available, last year they did provide two extra services am and pm but it is still a Rocket not an express ie only in the direction of the peak and the extra services are still within the same first and last service times, we desparately need more express options in the section of Newnham Road between Wecker road and Broadwater Road, and I am sorry Mr Moderator I know I am now taking this thread off subject. :oops:
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Re: Breakdown of costs to run a bus

Post by simonl »

A few people on this board have talked about the 180. How come it isn't a BUZ? Not in a marginal electorate perhaps?
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Re: Breakdown of costs to run a bus

Post by moreton »

Average annual bus run 5 days per week=$250,000, one bus running costs avg.8 hours run time per day, 40 hours a week.
Don't ask me where I saw the document, because I can't say, but it was real.
I know a bus that runs 85 hours a week around 1000 litres fuel a week, 85 hrs wages for driver, so theres a starting point.

A 10.00x 20 tyre does 19 revoloutions per kilometre, so get out the calculators guys and have go. Good luck guys. :?
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Re: Breakdown of costs to run a bus

Post by boronia »

moreton wrote: A 10.00x 20 tyre does 19 revoloutions per kilometre, so get out the calculators guys and have go. Good luck guys. :?
Moreton :roll:
How did you work that out :shock: :?:
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Re: Breakdown of costs to run a bus

Post by smitty »

I'm told that the average for BT is $1100 per bus, per day.
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Re: Breakdown of costs to run a bus

Post by AnonymouslyBad »

That sounds about right. The documents linked to above do include some general costing information, for example that "BT's average cost per in-service kilometre at September 2008 was $3.98."

Services for special events, NightLinks, peak hour rockets, etc. - those with a lot of "dead running" - all cost *well* above this average. So it's fair to conclude that fuel and drivers are the biggest expenses (not that that's unexpected).
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Re: Breakdown of costs to run a bus

Post by simonl »

smitty wrote:I'm told that the average for BT is $1100 per bus, per day.
Sounds very expensive. I wonder how other operators, especially Sydney Buses do?
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Re: Breakdown of costs to run a bus

Post by beetea63 »

I realise your post is old but wondering if you still have a copy of the pdf document?
08 XDi wrote:
simonl wrote:Does anyone out there know what the rough % of costs for running a 12.5m bus are for these components:
Fuel
Maintenance
Driver
Overheads/Admin
Acquisition Costs
Anything I've left out?

?

How much difference is there to an artic?
Perhaps it might be worth putting in a right to information request? It would be handy to have some idea of cost when proposing some sort of change to the system.

UPDATE: There is a pile of correspondence between TTA and BT which has already been disclosed below, which I am having a look at, but it appears they have censored most of the cost information. Fortunately, it looks like they didn't actually black out the censored stuff when they scanned it in, so it is still possible to read what is behind the little white boxes throughout...

http://download.translink.com.au/rti/10 ... 929348.pdf
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Re: Breakdown of costs to run a bus

Post by Fleet Lists »

Since the link is not working and I cannot find an archived version I suspect it is no longer available.
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