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

Sydney / New South Wales Transport Discussion
Merc1107
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Re: New bus contracts to drive improved services (as from 2020)

Post by Merc1107 »

Stu wrote: Sat Jul 30, 2022 9:47 pm Time will tell it this info is genuine (leaked) or just over excited gunzels hoping that a fantasy becomes real.
What's so good about Busways that people think the sun shines from their behind?

It's a dangerous game thinking the contractors playing at this business are somehow beyond reproach, or that some are truly any better than the rest. The same is true of blindly sprouting off about Government operators.
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Campbelltown busboy
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Re: New bus contracts to drive improved services (as from 2020)

Post by Campbelltown busboy »

Stu wrote: Sat Jul 30, 2022 9:47 pm I’ve seen a number of written posts on Facebook with people saying in various ways that ‘they have heard that Busways was successful’ regarding Region 12. Time will tell it this info is genuine (leaked) or just over excited gunzels hoping that a fantasy becomes real.
The same person that posted the Busways region 12 news in the Transdev group posted in the Busways enthusiast fan Facebook group that CDC was taking over region 1 I think admin from both groups removed that member for posting misinformation
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Re: New bus contracts to drive improved services (as from 2020)

Post by Fleet Lists »

Swift wrote: Sat Jul 30, 2022 8:46 pm Oh. Does this mean a region number is lost. Example region 10 and 11 become a larger region 10 and there's no longer an 11?
There has not been a region 11 since 2009. It was a very small region covering the Sutherland Shire east of Miranda.
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Re: New bus contracts to drive improved services (as from 2020)

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Stu wrote: Sat Jul 30, 2022 9:47 pm
Campbelltown busboy wrote: Sat Jul 30, 2022 8:53 am A member of the enthusiast inspired Transdev fans Facebook group put a post up there saying that Busways was taking over region 12 the post was taken down not long after it was posted that would of been a couple of weeks ago now
I’ve seen a number of written posts on Facebook with people saying in various ways that ‘they have heard that Busways was successful’ regarding Region 12. Time will tell it this info is genuine (leaked) or just over excited gunzels hoping that a fantasy becomes real.
Much the same happened when Busways took over region 8. I think the only official reference was an eventual post on the Busways website.
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Linto63
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Re: New bus contracts to drive improved services

Post by Linto63 »

Difference was that the region 8 information had come from sources in the know, the same sources are saying region 12 is not yet agreed.
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Re: New bus contracts to drive improved services (as from 2020)

Post by Campbelltown busboy »

Is there a possibility that regions 2 and 15 could become a combined contract
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Re: New bus contracts to drive improved services (as from 2020)

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Living in the Shire.
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Re: New bus contracts to drive improved services (as from 2020)

Post by SthnStarRail »

Busways actually took over Region 7 not Region 8
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Re: New bus contracts to drive improved services (as from 2020)

Post by Enviro 500 »

Are Transdev and Transdev-JH gonna be run as separate business units without sharing of any resources? I remember Swan Transit and Swan Transit-Riverside in Perth were eventually combined.
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Re: New bus contracts to drive improved services (as from 2020)

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It ii hard to tell what will. Some weeks ago there was a report that some Easter Suburbs rail replacement services which were previously operated by the STA, were being being operated by Transdev NSW and NOT Transdev JH. Of course it will also depend on whether Transdev will retain their existing contracts.
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Re: New bus contracts to drive improved services

Post by Linto63 »

Enviro 500 wrote: Are Transdev and Transdev-JH gonna be run as separate business units without sharing of any resources? I remember Swan Transit and Swan Transit-Riverside in Perth were eventually combined.
There would likely be the sharing of some back office functions, finance, IT etc, between the two and with Transdev's other Australian operations, But as the two have separate shareholding structures, they will operate with a fair amount of autonomy with a merge unlikely.
Fleet Lists wrote: Some weeks ago there was a report that some Easter Suburbs rail replacement services...
Speaking of which, the T1 North Shore replacement service for the weekend just gone was back to being a Punchbowl and Transdev operated affair, having been operated by Transdev John Holland earlier in the year. Maybe it is to take effect at a later date, but is looking less likely that the T1 replacements are tied to Busways region 7 contract.
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Re: New bus contracts to drive improved services (as from 2020)

Post by Merc1107 »

Is there any possibility TfNSW engages operators on a standalone basis for each shutdown based on the best charter pricing structure? That may explain the somewhat variable nature of operators on rail.
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Re: New bus contracts to drive improved services (as from 2020)

Post by mactransit »

Contract award dates have been pushed back to the following: (https://infrastructurepipeline.org/proj ... -contracts)
  • Regions 4, 12 and 14 - Oct 2022
  • Regions 3, 5, 10 and 13 - Jan 2023
  • Regions 1, 2 and 15 - Mar 2023
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Re: New bus contracts to drive improved services (as from 2020)

Post by Glen »

Are they the award (announcement) dates or the Transition dates?
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Re: New bus contracts to drive improved services (as from 2020)

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They have pushed back the Contract award dates back as shown by Mactransit above.
But the transition dates have not been updated in al places.

For instance for Region 1.
Mar 2023 Tranche Three expected to transition to new providers
but elsewhere
Mar 2024 Expected Contract Commencement
Mar 2023 Expected Contract Award.

Somewhat confusing.
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Re: New bus contracts to drive improved services

Post by Linto63 »

'‘Abject failure’: Parliament committee wants to roll back Sydney bus privatisation (Sydney Morning Herald)

A predictable conclusion based on party lines. Appears that some MPs still don't realise (or don't want to admit) that the cutbacks in the Eastern Suburbs last year had nothing to do with privatisation, they were made when State Transit operated region 9. :roll:
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Re: New bus contracts to drive improved services (as from 2020)

Post by tonyp »

It's best to go straight to the dissenting statement at Appendix 4 for the factual part.

https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/lcdoc ... rvices.pdf

The NSW Auditor looked apolitically at bus franchising and found favourably. I don't think this was referenced in the Parliamentary Inquiry.

https://www.audit.nsw.gov.au/sites/defa ... tracts.pdf
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Re: New bus contracts to drive improved services (as from 2020)

Post by Aurora »

These people forget that Transport still controls the framework including fares and timetables regardless of the operator.
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Re: New bus contracts to drive improved services (as from 2020)

Post by Swift »

It's still micromanaged by the private company and it's cultural peculiarities permeate the depot facilities.
NSW, the state that embraces mediocrity.
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Re: New bus contracts to drive improved services

Post by Linto63 »

tonyp wrote: It's best to go straight to the dissenting statement at Appendix 4 for the factual part.
'Factual' being that if you are a rusted on conservative voter, then only the opinions of Liberal and National Party members are worth listening to.
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Re: New bus contracts to drive improved services (as from 2020)

Post by tonyp »

Aurora wrote: Wed Sep 21, 2022 1:15 am These people forget that Transport still controls the framework including fares and timetables regardless of the operator.
They haven't forgotten. It doesn't support the narrative, so it's not mentioned. Most of the anti operational franchising propaganda paints it as an asset privatisation and the ignorant fall for that line.
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Re: New bus contracts to drive improved services (as from 2020)

Post by 1whoknows »

The report is a wonderful example of "Never Mind the Facts, get the Propaganda Out There". The dissenting statement takes only a page or so to destroy the preceeding 100!
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Re: New bus contracts to drive improved services (as from 2020)

Post by Campbelltown busboy »

Labor is complaining about how bad privatisation of the STA when it was their idea to have a review into the bus network in the mid 2000s that introduced the contracts that gave the current government the perfect way to get rid of the STA
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Re: New bus contracts to drive improved services

Post by Linto63 »

Don't think anybody is surprised that State Transit was privatised, just that it took until the government the best part of a decade to get around to it. The genesis lay in the Unsworth report that the previous government initiated and whose recommendations it largely accepted. IIRC, the plan was that after the consolidation down to 15 regions was completed in about 2006, each would be given one direct award contract of about seven years after which the regions would be tendered.

As Labor was out of office by the time the initial contracts expired, we will never know whether it would have followed through or chosen to negotiate extensions to the existing contracts as happened in Melbourne.
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Re: New bus contracts to drive improved services (as from 2020)

Post by Merc1107 »

I'll need to read more, but I think it is good the issue of a publicly-subsidised service being run to make a profit was brought up. Even if the privates are cheaper than the STA, that they can turn a profit from what is effectively an unprofitable venture is repugnant, in principle anyway.

Another issue that I've yet to see adequate response to, is how do you balance long-term business security for a contractor, against the need to maintain cost-competitiveness? It is now 25 years since the first areas in Perth were contracted out, yet the same trio of operators (with a few rebrandings) have survived all this time. Are they doing a good job (the answer to that depends on who you ask, and if you're prepared to go beyond dull KPIs) or have they found a way "around" the PTA and beginning to look more like a lumbering Government bureaucracy?

Swift is quite right in the assessment he makes too. I'll add that the instability within some operations is such that I know of long time staff who have 5-10 Managers in a 10yr period ... If an operator is churning through drivers and middle-managers at such an alarming rate, there's clearly a problem. Maybe with the contracts, maybe the Government, the contractor, or a bit of all three. In any case it permeates the entire workplace, with predictable results.
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