New Sydney and Outer Metro bus contracts (as from 2020)

[Fleet Lists]

https://www.keolisdowner.com.au/keolis- ... -operator/

innovative transport solutions in Sydney’s Northern beaches as the future bus operator

28 May 2021

Transport for New South Wales announced Keolis Downer was awarded a $900 million contract to operate and maintain bus services in the Northern Beaches and the lower North Shore for eight years, from 31 October 2021.
Keolis Downer will work closely with Transport for NSW to deliver a range of initiatives to further enhance the journey experience of customers, across all aspects of the service.
The contract will see the introduction of 125 electric buses over the next eight years, delivering more sustainable transport options for the local community from two newly electrified depots in Brookvale and Mona Vale.
Keolis Downer will also introduce innovative headway technology to further increase the reliability and quality of service of the successful B-Line.
The popular On Demand transport service known as Keoride will also become a permanent part of the network.

Keolis Downer is delighted to partner with Transport for New South Wales (TfNSW) to deliver positive public transport outcomes to the local communities in the Northern beaches and the lower North Shore.

Keolis Downer’s first priority is to ensure a smooth transition of all the employees and maintain high standards of customer experience and operations. Additionally, we are focused on introducing global innovations like headway services, new electric buses, and wayfinding improvements that will deliver more connected and sustainable journeys.

“We are very proud to partner with TfNSW to support the future growth and transformation of the Northern Beaches. Drawing on our experience locally and globally, we will launch a range of new initiatives to enhance the customer experience building from the already excellent bus services in the area” comments David Franks, Keolis Downer CEO. “We will introduce new service technology to enable staff to actively manage routes and monitor bus running times, improving the frequency of bus services.

“We are also very excited to continue to deliver the highly successful On Demand transport service, which we have been operating in the area since 2017. We look forward to further engaging with the community to deliver a safe, efficient and reliable transport system that supports the liveability and future prosperity of this vibrant, growing region”.

About Keolis Downer

Keolis Downer is a leading operator of public transport services in Australia. With 4,900 employees and a presence in five states, Keolis Downer enables 250 million passenger journeys per year. We operate and maintain the integrated network in Newcastle, the largest tram network in the world in Melbourne (Yarra Trams), the light rail network on the Gold Coast (G:link), and 1,000 buses in NSW, Western Australia, South Australia and Queensland. We also operate and maintain the Adelaide Metro train services.

Established in 2009, Keolis Downer is a joint venture between Keolis, a leading public transport operator established in 15 countries, and Downer, the leading provider of integrated services in Australia and New Zealand.

www.keolisdowner.com.au
ALL MEDIA ENQUIRIES: Segolene Deeley – Director Corporate Affairs +61 421 929 334 / segolene.deeley@keolisdowner.com

[Fleet Lists]

Also see Australian Bus and Coach
https://www.busnews.com.au/industry-new ... s-contract

[Campbelltown busboy]

There is now two more STA region privatisation announcements to come in the next little while

[Fleet Lists]

Dont be impatient - give it at least another three months for region 7 and then another three for region 9 which would make it late November which I doubt will be met.

[Swift]

125 electric buses in 8 years. Big whoop.
In a year or two ok that would be worth crowing about.
Typical Sydney making out this represents a giant revolution.
I hope the Liberal voters in the blue ribbon seats this takes place in support their representative's ideologically driven contracting out their previously fully government run buses. Let's see if they experience better service quality the minister claims results from this. It couldn't be pure ideology now could it?

It is well known that the population hate services being sourced from the private sector which were previously supplied wholly by their government, because it has proven time and time again to be at the detriment to employees an as well as the user in lower wages and conditions and higher prices long term.

I'm sure the rich voters that the liberal party really are concerned about, won't be affected though.

[Jurassic_Joke]

Honestly, State Transits overall performance the last year or two really hasn’t impressed me - its gone a bit downhill in my opinion, whether thats a coincidence with the timing of the franchising and the Gov is trying to deliberately run the entity into the ground, I don’t know, but anyways, some key complaints from me would be:

-Unfortunate instances of “I’ll start when I feel like it”, that I don’t see with Transit Systems or other operators ie, see the bus driver sitting there at a terminus stop, app says its meant to start now, but drivers just sitting there on his phone, and meanwhile by the time the doors open to passengers, app notes a big red 6 minutes late, with no explanation.

-More and more greed with All-over Advertising Wrap (more coverage per bus, overall more buses have it) in recent years which make no mistake, no spin, it erodes the customer experience

-N90 , my night ride route which STA took over a few years ago, was and still is absolutely broken with the timetable that was rewritten as soon as they took over. I don’t know who wrote that timetable, but its been seemingly written as with consideration as if there is peak hour traffic on the Pacific Highway, so the bus stops at almost every stop along the route for several minutes at a time as it is way too early, and it happens every time I have to take the bus a few nights each week (thanks shift work). Particular offenders that come to mind along the route North Sydney, Artarmon, but also St Leonards and Crows Nest too. It’s mind numbingly irritating. Any feedback I’ve written about that including more importantly how predecessor Transdev didn’t have that problem when they ran the route just clearly goes straight into the bin, I’m well and truly over it. People on that bus are itching to get home and sleep or start an early shift, not sit there and go nowhere

-It feels like all the recent deliveries of STA specification buses have been designed with the absolute bare minimum in terms of passenger comfort, which I take issue with when you realise older buses are actually more comfortable. In particular, Bustech and CB80 Series 2 - lighting in these are just way too bright, the seats have very minimal recline and not to mention are very stiff, theres basically no plush at all on the seat-back. The B8 Volgrens don’t have this issue as much, but still suffer from less legroom. To compare, I recently caught a Ryde Volvo B12 Volgren rigid, a now ‘old’ STA bus I haven’t been on in a long time amid Ryde’s sea of B8RLE CB80’s and was surprised how much more comfortable the seats were with the additional recline and plush on the seat back and softer lighting

So yeah. Transit Systems hasn’t been anything particularly stellar over STA when they took over, but at least their spec sheet for procuring new buses (Merc Gemilangs, Merc Volgren Optimus, K310 Bustech as a few examples to note) sure is much nicer and more comfortable than a typical STA bus, and if the new operator fixes some of the above I’d be pretty happy

[moa999]

So is that the end of Forest?

[booma]

Will North Sydney depot be electrified?

If not will the land be sold off?

[Merc1107]

It is well known that the population hate services being sourced from the private sector which were previously supplied wholly by their government, because it has proven time and time again to be at the detriment to employees an as well as the user in lower wages and conditions and higher prices long term.

Is it somewhat ironic that two of the big players, namely Transdev and Keolis-Downer are both partially owned by French State-Run enterprises (Wikipedia - hardly the most reliable, reports Keolis is also 30% owned by a Quebec State Investment fund)?

Interesting they have been so successful, yet the likes of the STA, and Metrobus in Perth were not successful, or not allowed to be successful.

Let's see if they experience better service quality the minister claims results from this. It couldn't be pure ideology now could it?

Is there enough appetite for improvement in Sydney (either from the public, and/or TfNSW), or would privatisation, followed by a raft of changes be negatively perceived by the public?

[Swift]

I wouldn't be surprised if STA has been run into the ground to fit the dictat..cough I mean minister's narrative of better outcomes with private run transit.

I wonder if the sitting at stops on nightride it's an extreme manifestation of that lol?

A for that driver on his telephone instead of starting his trip on time, that's more to do with slack work culture among some STA employees, one positive of private contractors, as it seems to have had an impact on that.

[Fleet Lists]

So is that the end of Forest?

Forest region 14 expires 31st March 2022 so they are up for contract renewal like most of the other regions. It will be interesting to see if CDC submits a renewal using the Forest name or another CDC name and then of course they must win that submission against what I suspect will be some opposition.
It has nothing do with the neighbouring region 8 contract.

[Swift]

So is that the end of Forest?

Forest region 14 expires 31st March 2022 so they are up for contract renewal like most of the other regions. It will be interesting to see if CDC submits a renewal using the Forest name or another CDC name and then of course they must win that submission against what I suspect will be some opposition.
It has nothing do with the neighbouring region 8 contract.

That first remark needs clarification.

[Fleet Lists]

In what way?

[Swift]

How the region next door affects theirs.

[Linto63]

I think some are under the misapprehension that regions 8 and 14 will merge or the routes they operate change because some services cross into each other's territory a bit. The transfer of region 8 from State Transit to Keolis Downer will have no impact on Forest, and likewise when region 14 is re-tendered, irrespective of whether it is retained by ComfortDelGro or passes to a new operator, there will be no impact on region 8.

[Fleet Lists]

Very true. However in some cases there will be reviews of boundary routes as was done for the STA regions. An example would be Transdev regions 10 and 13 where it is expected that the last Metrobus routes M91 and M92 and possibly M90 (and possibly route 925) will be split to allow the two regions to be put up for tender independently.

[Swift]

Splitting routes is nothing new. London went though this in the 1980s when London Transport businesses were sold off and routes were split and truncated to accommodate the areas served by the private companies who took over LT garages.
This is Sydney's 1980s London experience, but better organised and less traumatic.

[boronia]

London Transport had begun splitting routes earlier than that, when they started to realise that long routes were becoming too unreliable due to traffic congestion issues. Sydney can have the same problem, and most of these routes do not have end to end passengers to justify them.

[Linto63]

Very true. However in some cases there will be reviews of boundary routes as was done for the STA regions.

If there was to be some shuffling between regions 8 and 14, it would have been done as part of the review in December.

London went though this in the 1980s when London Transport businesses were sold off and routes were split and truncated to accommodate the areas served by the private companies who took over LT garages.

Many London services still operate through the cbd, rather then terminating. Some routes when re-tendered have moved from an operator with a depot at one end of the route to one with a depot at the other end.

Sydney can have the same problem, and most of these routes do not have end to end passengers to justify them.

There would be few if any end to end passengers, but there are plenty who do (or did) find them convenient. Much of the Metrobus network has been dismantled seemingly for operational convenience.

[Swift]

This all sounds very typical of the NSW way of doing things, that term operational convenience while we have the persistent wankspeak of customers always coming first.
Actions speak volumes.

[Fleet Lists]

No it was not "operational convenience". It was done to allow the three remaining STA regions to be allocated to different operators.

[Linto63]

There is no reason that routes need to be split just so that one operator doesn't operate on another's patch. It would be different if the regions were franchises and the operators bore revenue risk, but TfNSW only contract out the service provision and retain responsibility for revenue and service levels.

If we take route 400 when it used to operate from Bondi Junction through to Burwood before it was split in two. Obviously it would be silly to have one region operate it as it would result in a huge amount of dead running, But no reason that region 6 could not have operated some, and region 9 others. There may have been other reasons for splitting it, e.g. poor timekeeping, but all of the recent splits; 340, 343, 370, 430, have seemingly occurred more to suit franchise maps than passengers.

[Fleet Lists]

There may have been other reasons for splitting it, e.g. poor timekeeping, but all of the recent splits; 340, 343, 370, 430, have seemingly occurred more to suit franchise maps than passengers.

Exactly - make the regions more self contained for ease of contract arrangements.

[Linto63]

Or in other words, for operational convenience.

[Swift]

Just like the persistent use of Clayton's low floors.