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

[Fleet Lists]

Their web site is still active, if that's any indicator......

https://www.maianbarbundeenabus.com/

They are still sub-contracted to run 989 however, if the Mercedes Benz O500LE VST broken down or unavailable then U-GO will supply the bus for the service required.

AnyTrip shows U-GO m/o 1975 operating route 989 today. Now that they show the rego of the bus, it is easier to track this,

[BAMBAM]

The government have practically bent over backwards to make U-Go work.

Which begs questions. They certainly aren't worthy of it.
What sort of message does it give to the other contract holders? You can be as slack as you like, the government will bail you out regardless.

I’m sure if they continue to be slack, they won’t be successful in retendering.

[Fleet Lists]

But that is still a long time off - surely this needs to be resolved before then.

[tonyp]

https://www.theleader.com.au/story/8384 ... utherland/

Ms Haylen said the former government decided to privatise our local bus services to the lowest bidder.

"Our Bus Industry Taskforce found that those opposite ripped more than $375 million out in operational savings in that process," she said.

"But, they did not return any of that to the community, particularly for the growth needed for bus services in the growing communities of western and southwestern Sydney."

She has a funny way of expressing things. Most bus operations were already privatised.

"Ripped" - in other words saved taxpayers more than $375 million in operational costs. Good to have a figure. It sounds more like a benefit than a rip.

I seem to recall that there has been a huge increase in western and south-western Sydney bus services during the last decade, so that money has in fact been returned to the community - either directly or indirectly.

It would be good if she just got on with her job rather than trying to score political points. The election is well past now.

[Linto63]

The $375 million has nothing to do with western and south-western Sydney, it is what the taskforce reported as being the savings from privatising State Transit regions 7-9. A large chunk of the savings would appear to be on the assumption staff could be recruited on lesser terms, which must be contributing to the inability to hire enough drivers. All well and good to make savings, but if the whole thing becomes a basket case, as it has in some regions at various times, a false economy.

[Swift]

It was already terrible job but with more remuneration working for the STA, now you'd have to be a masochist to work for giant corporations with bosses using terms like tear you a new one in workplace memos.
Companies have become the unprofessional ones while government departments have made huge inroads in customer service. Just go into a Service NSW outlet to see the contrast in true customer experience.

[boronia]

You won’t get the same level of service at Services Australia. All the staff there can do is give up a website link or a phone number to call (with maybe a long wait to get answered).

[Swift]

But with courtesy at least.

[Lt. Commander Data]

"Ripped" - in other words saved taxpayers more than $375 million in operational costs. Good to have a figure. It sounds more like a benefit than a rip.

Maybe if a bus “operator” tendered under the premise that they would not run a single bus service, the savings would be so big the government could not resist. After all, why run something for no reason other than the benefit of the public good in this penny-pinching money-saving-at-all-costs society we live in?

[Aurora]

There needs to be a balance, there needs to be value from expenditure otherwise it becomes a taxpayer-crunching job which reduces the money available for other areas of government. Money is a scarce resource.

[Swift]

After all, why run something for no reason other than the benefit of the public good in this penny-pinching money-saving-at-all-costs society we live in?

The Liberal party that is. The voters didn't ask for it.
Most people oppose privatisation of government run services but evidently, it doesn't deter them from eventually trying it on like the Liberals did with region six, to get us desensitised to the concept.

Yes, on that basis, we should have the end goal of complete privatisation of bus services but that would allow small business back in. Liberals won't have that either.

[Campbelltown busboy]

All there is now is the region 1 contract rollover as Busways retains region 1

[Fleet Lists]

Those OTR figures can also be seen here:

https://www.transport.nsw.gov.au/data-a ... me-running

The August figures are now also available with U-GO Mobility again at the bottom of the list still below 90% and this would be based on the reduced timetable for a full month.

Still the bottom in September but above 90 with 90.6%

They had a bad day yesterday when in the afternoon four successive trips on route 971 ran 40 minutes, 20 minutes, 33 minutes and 44 minutes late in one direction and 20 minutes and 25 minutes late in the other direction with the next trip cancelled.

And there were customer complaints again in the St George Leader this week.

[Swift]

What do they expect with no bus lanes and other priority measures, to fly over traffic or mount the footpath and go around it?

[Aurora]

What do they expect with no bus lanes and other priority measures, to fly over traffic or mount the footpath and go around it?

Difficult to mount such a defence when Transdev never had these ongoing reliability issues.

[Campbelltown busboy]

What do they expect with no bus lanes and other priority measures, to fly over traffic or mount the footpath and go around it?

Difficult to mount such a defence when Transdev never had these ongoing reliability issues.

If U-Go is still going that bad after 4 months even after government intervention then that is bad

[Linto63]

The problem was never going to be solved quickly. U-Go commenced with a shortfall of drivers and in a tight labour market these positions cannot be filled quickly. Seemingly existing of heavy vehicles licences couldn't be enticed, so new drivers have had to be recruited, trained and licenced, a process that takes time.

[Bus 400]

They had a bad day yesterday when in the afternoon four successive trips on route 971 ran 40 minutes, 20 minutes, 33 minutes and 44 minutes late in one direction and 20 minutes and 25 minutes late in the other direction with the next trip cancelled.

Yesterday, the Princes Highway was closed at Kareela due to an MVA from 1:30pm & not fully opened until 7:30pm. All traffic diverting via The Boulevard & Port Hacking Road.

Sent from my SM-S911B using Tapatalk

[Swift]

You're misgendering a highway.

[Bus 400]

You're misgendering a highway.

I was just thinking of the drivers who use the Princes Highway when I typed that.

Sent from my SM-S911B using Tapatalk

[Campbelltown busboy]

The biggest mistake that U-GO made was doing route familiarisation from day one where the better idea was to let drivers from Transdev and PBC do routes they where familiar with for the 1st few months of the contract then slowly start to train those drivers on routes that they don’t know

[alleve]

The biggest mistake that U-GO made was doing route familiarisation from day one where the better idea was to let drivers from Transdev and PBC do routes they where familiar with for the 1st few months of the contract then slowly start to train those drivers on routes that they don’t know

Wasn't the problem that they didn't have any/enough PBC drivers?

[Fleet Lists]

Yes but also the problem they had allocating buses to depots with the Punchbowl depot not available to them. Buses from Taren Point were doing Menai routes and vice versa with a lot of dead running and similarly with the other depots. Some drivers told me they were doing more dead running than actual route services. This has now been pretty much sorted out,

[Campbelltown busboy]

Here is my observations after Transit Systems first month in region 2
On time running is better in Campbelltown and Liverpool
Smeaton Grange and Bradbury depots have a mix of drivers from both Interline and Busabout at the same time I've got a feeling that No Busabout drivers said yes to moving to Macquarie Fields or it looks like Transit Systems are keeping operations of the Macquarie Fields depot as close to the way Interline ran it as possable as they have only added a BYD electric from Busabout and 2 reinstated ex Brisbane Transport Volgren O500LEs to whatever Interline had running out of that depot before the contract handover. The depot summary is from what is documented in the Transit Systems fleet lists
But things can be better with the on time running as that is up and down with some services

[stupid_girl]

U-go uploaded trip data for 452,453,953,954 from 19 Nov onwards.
Do they have enough drivers for those routes?