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

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

Post by tonyp »

1whoknows wrote: Wed Sep 21, 2022 7:59 am 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!
And the dissenting statement was subject to a word limit, so they never got to address all the issues for dissent. The report is basically a political charter for Labor and Greens. One point the dissenting statement made is that Labor needs to explain its own history of privatisation if it's now so against it.
Merc1107 wrote: Wed Sep 21, 2022 11:29 am 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.
My perception of the quality of the Perth services is that they're excellent and still fully justify the operational contracting after all these years.

Isn't one of the reasons for franchising to reduce the amount of public subsidy? I don't see any conflict at all. The NSW Auditor found that franchising reduced costs to the taxpayer and increased efficiency of the operations. That's a public benefit.

Public transport isn't inherently unprofitable. It wasn't in the past and there's no real reason why it couldn't become profitable again. The Sydney Metro project is partly premised on its operation eventually breaking even, if not yielding a profit.
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Re: New bus contracts to drive improved services (as from 2020)

Post by Swift »

To me contract is a dirty word when it's associated with government. To many instances of private companies not keeping their end of these contracts and milking tax payer's money like a teet. Sydney are just copying the other capital cities with this model. Nothing creative at all. Just a follower.

This leaves Brisbane, Hobart(?) and Canberra as that last hold outs for fully government run services -as it should be. Brisbane is unique in having a city council run their services. That could prove to protect them from this scourge.
Don't forget many American cities, including LA and New York run their large city bus fleets as a government run service in a very capitalist country. Something these privatisation proponents here and and the other Keynsean economy England refuse to acknowledge like good little Tories.
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Re: New bus contracts to drive improved services (as from 2020)

Post by Merc1107 »

tonyp wrote: Wed Sep 21, 2022 11:40 am My perception of the quality of the Perth services is that they're excellent and still fully justify the operational contracting after all these years.
I would wager this is because the bar is deliberately held exceedingly high, and enforced stringently, through varying means.

However one of the biggest oversights in recent years was the Government having to step in and mandate artic usage on the route that for years beforehand was in need of the extra capacity - so much for the contractors being "innovative" :roll:
(outside of that mandate things are still as they always were, with artics plodding around suburbia for 8hrs a day because of one trip on a shift that needed the capacity - it's many things, including a waste of expensive diesel). That's not an argument to undo 25yrs of progress; merely acknowledging there are occasionally some very serious oversights within the contracting model.
As far as I know, the contractors are not measured on levels of staff happiness or turnover. In any first year studies of business at the tertiary level, lecturers will turn themselves purple on the subject of staff turnover; as it's such an important indicator of a workplace's potential productivity, and of significant underlying issues that threaten the long-term viability of a business. In this case, it's also going to impact on the Government, as industrial disputes that grind on and on (as seems to be the case in Sydney presently) are not good for the incumbent Liberal Government!
Swift wrote: Wed Sep 21, 2022 11:57 am Brisbane is unique in having a city council run their services. That could prove to protect them from this scourge.
Given BCC are also the largest (in area & population, for a CITY council, before the keyboard warriors come after me!) LGA in Australia I imagine that works in their favour too.
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Re: New bus contracts to drive improved services

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Linto63 wrote: Wed Sep 21, 2022 6:11 am
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.
Regardless of your political persuasion, this report is so laughably full of mistakes, misleading statements and hyperbole that it has no credibility whatsoever. It's not just a hatchet job. It's page after page, comment after comment, of basic errors.

The number of clear errors in fact on practically every page is extraordinary. Where conclusions have been drawn, you can interpret those through your own perspectives, but there's a lot of statements repeated as if its fact, when it's demonstrably not.

Equally disappointing, but not surprising, is that media reporting has been effectively an unpaid advertisement for the opposition, with little curiosity or appetite for the facts. Similarly the apparent inability of government - both the political wings and the bureaucracy - to both effectively explain their position and counter blatant errors is laid bare. This is what happens when govt relies on secrecy rather than making its case transparently.

The biggest disappointment is that an opportunity to genuinely explore issues with public transport (including privatisation) has been completely wasted, instead expended on partisan, opportunistic nonsense.

What is also telling is a focus on returning former STA regions to govt operation because private operation is apparently bad - but seemingly far less interest in those regions where STA never ran - private operators there seem ok apparently. This seems rather intellectually inconsistent.... but perhaps, just perhaps, this was never about improving public transport for the passengers and general community...
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Re: New bus contracts to drive improved services (as from 2020)

Post by tonyp »

Some of those bus operators must be feeling a bit psychotic at the moment, on the one hand being praised as decades-old family businesses, strongly attuned to their local communities, but at the same time being condemned as merciless exploiters who alienate their communities. This would be among the worst Parliamentary inquiries I've seen, but I'm sure there have been worse, in situations where a government doesn't have a majority in the upper house.
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Re: New bus contracts to drive improved services

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tonyp wrote: Public transport isn't inherently unprofitable. It wasn't in the past and there's no real reason why it couldn't become profitable again.
Public transport hasn't been profitable for many decades, governments only recover 20 to 30% of costs through the farebox. Some services may be profitable at certain times of the day, but as a whole no network is even close to being profitable.
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Re: New bus contracts to drive improved services

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In Transit wrote: Wed Sep 21, 2022 12:48 pm
What is also telling is a focus on returning former STA regions to govt operation because private operation is apparently bad - but seemingly far less interest in those regions where STA never ran - private operators there seem ok apparently. This seems rather intellectually inconsistent.... but perhaps, just perhaps, this was never about improving public transport for the passengers and general community...
Those existing private regions are far less dense and intensive than the recently converted regions. The former STA run areas are a very different kettle of fish accustomed to a much higher standard of frequency than the traditional privately run areas. This is a very steep learning curve for these new operators of the former STA sevices. STA had a level of expertise that allowed them to maintain the standard of services they ran. Just look at the bus 2000 debacle that occurred during the Olympics where the STA had to step in and quickly organise shuttle services. It was a damning exposure of the private bus industry's ability to run larger scale and intensive operations.
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tonyp
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Re: New bus contracts to drive improved services

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Swift wrote: Wed Sep 21, 2022 2:09 pm Those existing private regions are far less dense and intensive than the recently converted regions. The former STA run areas are a very different kettle of fish accustomed to a much higher standard of frequency than the traditional privately run areas. This is a very steep learning curve for these new operators of the former STA sevices. STA had a level of expertise that allowed them to maintain the standard of services they ran. Just look at the bus 2000 debacle that occurred during the Olympics where the STA had to step in and quickly organise shuttle services. It was a damning exposure of the private bus industry's ability to run larger scale and intensive operations.

That's because governments over the last 90 years have kept private operators out of the mass movement market.
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Re: New bus contracts to drive improved services

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tonyp wrote: Wed Sep 21, 2022 2:16 pm
Swift wrote: Wed Sep 21, 2022 2:09 pm

That's because governments over the last 90 years have kept private operators out of the mass movement market.
Because they were the ones doing it. No need for both to do it.
Now we have no hope of running another Olympic scale bus programme with multiple companies and their different ways of doing things.
The constant driver shortages reported seen to indicate they are not ideally run silos.
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tonyp
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Re: New bus contracts to drive improved services

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Swift wrote: Wed Sep 21, 2022 2:23 pm Because they were the ones doing it. No need for both to do it.
Now we have no hope of running another Olympic scale bus programme with multiple companies and their different ways of doing things.
The constant driver shortages reported seen to indicate they are not ideally run silos.
The DGT pushed into any area where any private operator had volume and was doing well.

It's up to TfNSW to coordinate any mass movement nowadays.
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Re: New bus contracts to drive improved services

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tonyp wrote: Wed Sep 21, 2022 3:04 pm
Swift wrote: Wed Sep 21, 2022 2:23 pm Because they were the ones doing it. No need for both to do it.
Now we have no hope of running another Olympic scale bus programme with multiple companies and their different ways of doing things.
The constant driver shortages reported seen to indicate they are not ideally run silos.
The DGT pushed into any area where any private operator had volume and was doing well.

It's up to TfNSW to coordinate any mass movement nowadays.
The privates got their own back now. The question still remains. Are they up to it?
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Campbelltown busboy
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Re: New bus contracts to drive improved services (as from 2020)

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What would of happened if the STA where allowed to bid for contract tenders in the last round of open tender contracts for regions 1-5 12,14 and 15 around a decade ago
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Re: New bus contracts to drive improved services (as from 2020)

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That could be a very interesting discussion but this thread is NOT the place for such historic discussion.
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Re: New bus contracts to drive improved services

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Swift wrote: Wed Sep 21, 2022 2:09 pm
Those existing private regions are far less dense and intensive than the recently converted regions. The former STA run areas are a very different kettle of fish accustomed to a much higher standard of frequency than the traditional privately run areas.
I think you'll find the "former STA areas" emanated historically from (a) where the trams happened to run and (b) a few private companies that STA later purchased, particularly in what is now Region 7.

Oh and I wouldn't call the frequency that CDC runs along the M2 "less intensive" than many other major corridors.
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Re: New bus contracts to drive improved services

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Glen wrote: Tue Sep 27, 2022 9:36 pm

Oh and I wouldn't call the frequency that CDC runs along the M2 "less intensive" than many other major corridors.
Comparing a freeway run to inner city road conditions is drawing a bow and a half.
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Re: New bus contracts to drive improved services (as from 2020)

Post by Campbelltown busboy »

How broken was the Sydney bus network when labor requested for the bus network review that introduced these bus contracts and did the contract solution fix the issues
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Re: New bus contracts to drive improved services (as from 2020)

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NOT to be discussed here - this is NOT intended as a historic thread as mentioned previously.
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Re: New bus contracts to drive improved services (as from 2020)

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mactransit wrote: Sat Sep 17, 2022 12:15 am 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
That was back in September and now it is the end of October and nothing further has been heard.

Has anyone heard anything further?
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Linto63
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Re: New bus contracts to drive improved services

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Preferred bidder for region 4, 12 and 14 selected, finer details being ironed out before contract is signed and an announcement made.
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Re: New bus contracts to drive improved services (as from 2020)

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Thanks for that.
The way your reply is worded, it sounds as though all three regions are going to the one operator.I could hazard a guess as to who that would be but I wont speculate,
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Re: New bus contracts to drive improved services (as from 2020)

Post by rogf24 »

Correct, one operator for all three regions. Well, two regions now.
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Re: New bus contracts to drive improved services (as from 2020)

Post by 743 »

Announced on CDC NSW's Facebook page that they have been successful in retaining Regions 4 & 14 and will also gain 12:

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_ ... 9&sfnsn=mo
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Re: New bus contracts to drive improved services

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Most noticeable change will be the transfer of routes between depots to reduce dead running. As to how much will depend on whether CDC take over Transdev's Mount Kuring-gai depot or relocate it more centrally. All operations will operate under the CDC NSW banner with the Forest and Hillsbus brands to be retired.
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Re: New bus contracts to drive improved services

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Linto63 wrote: Mon Nov 07, 2022 2:41 pm Most noticeable change will be the transfer of routes between depots to reduce dead running. As to how much will depend on whether CDC take over Transdev's Mount Kuring-gai depot or relocate it more centrally. All operations will operate under the CDC NSW banner with the Forest and Hillsbus brands to be retired.
Why do they need 2 depots in Seven Hills just close the Hartley road depot and make Foundry road depot the only CDC depot in Seven Hills
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Re: New bus contracts to drive improved services

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Linto63 wrote: Mon Nov 07, 2022 2:41 pm Most noticeable change will be the transfer of routes between depots to reduce dead running. As to how much will depend on whether CDC take over Transdev's Mount Kuring-gai depot or relocate it more centrally. All operations will operate under the CDC NSW banner with the Forest and Hillsbus brands to be retired.
I assume that you refer to regions12 and 14 which it is taken will be combined into the one region. For region 4 routes to be involved Transport for NSW would need to approve any routes being operated from depots in different regions.

It is good to see that this has finally been announced.
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