Who operates buses in St Kilda and Brighton?

[viccii]

Who operates buses in St Kilda and Brighton? and out of what depot/depots?

[maxy54]

Three operators dominate the St Kilda & Brighton areas

* Transdev North Fitzroy (246 through St Kilda)
* Transdev Heatherton (600, 603, 922 & 923 through both)
* CDC Melbourne Wyndham (606 through St Kilda)
* CDC Melbourne Oakleigh (623 through St Kilda & 626 through Brighton, Route 630
* Ventura Oakleigh (703 through Brighton)
* Ventura Dandenong/Moorabbin (811, 812 & 823 all through Brighton)

[MAN 16.242]

Is there a "culture" in Melbourne where private operators have multiple depots of each depot having their own set of routes, even though other routes may pass close by or share termini?

Depends on the operator. In case of Transdev and Ventura many routes are shared between depots

[Heihachi_73]

Some make no sense at all, such as Ventura's Knoxfield depot running the 742 which is nowhere near the depot (on the rare occasion, an "Invicta" bus from Lilydale can be seen running the service). It sounds even more silly given that Ventura has a depot at Oakleigh.

Likewise with the former 366/367 (now the 380 under Transdev) when Ventura was running it, they used National buses from Doncaster despite having their own depot at Croydon (which at the time was a dumping ground for SL200 MK1s and Leyland Tigers). I think the only reason for that was due to legacy operation, with the 366/367 going from Met Bus to National to Ventura. No idea what would have happened if Ventura had kept the route instead of it going to Transdev, maybe Lilydale or the former U.S. depot like the 688-690?

[1whoknows]

I think its more to do with computerised shift creation which supposedly makes the most efficient use of buses and drivers. However this does not always make sense. For example, there was a report a few years back that one Transdev bus would go empty from Footscray to Warrandyte to start an AM trip whilst a Doncaster bus was heading empty in the opposite direction to start a run in the west.