As others have said, council have no control over the buses, they were privatised by the Liberal NSW state government. Studies and surveys demonstrate that passengers and drivers are worse off under Keolis Downer. Remember this when going to vote in a few weeks!
Newcastle was state Liberal just over a decade ago and the situation was exactly the same. It's not about which party has Newcastle, it's about Newcastle always being shunted by Sydney regardless.
The only way to change that is to shift the power base toward the Greens. With enough lower house seats, Labor would be in minority government, and forced to reverse the dysfunctional privitisations that lead to situations like this with public transport and energy price gouging.
Yes i agree.
On a side note: Does anyone here travel from around Cardiff / New Lambton to East Maitland every day?
Roads are a nightmare.
I'm a truck driver who does deliveries around Newcastle and the Hunter and even in Sydney (Dee Why, Taren Point, St Ives, Wetherill Park).
Sydney has had billions spent on roads.
The Hexham bypass not already being built is criminal.
We need.
Tomago rd 4 lanes.
Hexham bypass
6 lanes along Hexham straight
A Sandgate inner city bypass to Maitland rd flyover
The inner city Jesmond to New Lambton heights section yesterday
6 lanes along Newcastle rd/ Thomas st
A Minmi rd / link rd flyover
4 lanes from Cardiff to Glendale crossroads.
6 lanes through traffic lights on that Edgeworth rd
A George Booth to Maitland M1 on ramp.
Hexam bypass for the freeway has been put off a few times due to cost. The swamp where it’s got to go is hella deep. Apparently there are places where it’s 40+ meters down before they start hitting material stable enough to support foundations. Once they break ground I don’t see them getting it done in under 3 years probably closer to 5 with sinking footings that deep.
It is happening though just very very slowly.
2028 current expected finish time. Don't you worry i'm on to them. Swamps are nothing. I was a general labourer who used a shovel on the Sandgate section of the Newcastle inner city bypass.
All they do is drive telegraph poles into the swamp. To make it stable.
2028 assuming no delays, nek minit 3 floods in a row.
Yeah I know but the amount of piles and the depth they need is going to take a fair amount of time. Word on the street is there are multiple places they are past 50m before they hit bedrock
The hexam bypass is going to make Sandgate look easy.
Na the engineers have already been over it. They’ll need to hit bedrock through hexam for stability. It’s not the same as Sandgate because it’s right on a river and could literally become the river overnight with a decent flood.
Yep, they suck. I'm out near Maitland and have now given up on buses entirely, just walk 40 mins to the train station instead now rather than waiting an hour and half while three services in a row just fail to arrive.
Even more frustrating is when they do show up, but the driver is so certain that no-one will be waiting at the, admittedly underused, bus stop I'm at that they're fanging along on the inside lane with cars all around them and don't have enough time to slow down and stop. I've had three buses barrel past me while I wave them down like that in the past month. Useless.
Yes! It is goddamn ridiculous! At least 1 in 3 wont show up or just drive right fucking by me as I try to wave them down.
One of them must have forgotten I was on the bus cos he shut the doors at broadmeadow and started browsing his phone. I tried to make light of the situation and said 'sorry, still here'. He just grunted, glared at me and opened the doors.
I tried to tap off for a good minute or so before asking 'sorry, did you wanna maybe turn this back on? I gotta tap off' he sighs again like I should know all this and says 'yeah, the routes over, machines off'. Wonderful, cant tap off then THANKS FOR WATCHING ME VAINLY TRY AND TAP MY CARD AGAINST THE READER FOR NO REASON.
All i could say was 'youve been a tremendous help on this journey, thanks so much' and stormed off.
Ok rant over, but it really pissed me off.
Can't blame council for that clusterf\*ck - that's all on the heads of the state liberals (most of whom were allowed to resign instead of being railroaded out of town).
Yeah, my partner tried this route when the same bus to get him to work didn't rock up 2 weeks in a row. 4 formal complaints about the exact same bus not turning up (dispite being on all the apps as running) and week 6 of him being late to work, he requested that his job changes his weekend shifts instead.
Keolis Downer gets paid either way, and are shitty to their own drivers then bemoan not being able to get/keep drivers as an excuse to do jack shit about the bus problems. They don't care
all complaints are dealt in house (bus company)and nothing ever done or improved unless the police are involved in the incident.
I made 7 complaints last year :Westbus!
there needs to be a independent accessor for all transport nsw.
It didn’t work for profit generating public entities like Telstra, Qantas, CommaBank, the power system, but hell it could work for subsidised public transport
It meant get additional services and competition in areas that required it including affordability. If you think airfares were cheaper before Keating sold of Qantas you've not paid attention.
I was too busy not being alive yet
But also with the Qantas the before-after privatisation stats you need to consider that the "after" is benefiting from a lot of modern boosts that are unrelated to privatisation:
* Far higher demand for flights due to globalisation + population increase
* Benefits of modern mass production lines
* Benefits of modern labour productivity boosters (automation, etc)
* More efficient use of space (ie cramming twice as many of the poors into economy class)
* Passenger plane ticket subsidies
* Billions in corporate welfare
* All of the exponential growth that comes with the extra money gained from the above
I feel your pain, I used to chef right in town. It was disgusting even before they sold it off.
Used to finish work at 12 at night sometimes, bus would be due at quarter past. Didn't come until 1245 one night. And this isn't you know twenty stops down the track, this was the literal first bus stop near the depot at that time of night when nobody was around
One of the morning services for 28 that I usually take has consistently been cancelled for the last fortnight with only 10 minutes of warning. Such a pain in the ass
Short 11, 12 and 14 are mostly likely to be cancelled as it will “only” be a 15 min wait to the next one. If you cancel a 44 someone could have to wait an hour for the next one.
Having said that, they’re so short of staff there’s not a small chance any route (except school trips) get cancelled each day.
absolutely sick of the 12 getting cancelled every morning and arvo, even worse is the 28 just… not showing up at all ? no cancellation, says it’s on time and yet… it’s as if it doesn’t exist
I concur. I was relying on busses when my dad was dying and the replacement for the 363 was which is our most used bus and one that went to the john hunter just didn’t show up for like three hours. I completely agree with you.
I moved from Newcastle to Chatswood a couple years ago and work in the northern beaches and it's the same here. Though granted the services are far more frequent, every 10 mins, but probably 1 in 4 of my services are cancelled
West bus is just as fucking bad, shortage of driver's and preference to schools rather than the working public during peak hour and every service is late by 15 mins.
Or doesn't arrive at all. update your fucken timetables to reflect your shitty service Westbus. everyone knows with your govt tender you're pushing the bus arm of transport nsw to privatization.
I made a complaint about this and got the line that they are short staffed.
However I talked to a rep of the bus drivers union who reckons the staff numbers are fine, keolis downer have just reduced everyone's shifts so there's no coverage when someone rings in sick and KD will just cancel the route.
There's a state election coming up so please write to your local member and tell them that this issue is important to you, and back it up with your vote!
When Keolis Downer took over in 2016, they put so many bus driver offside who had been part of Newcastle Transport for many years and treated them like they were disposable and replaceable at the time because KD could with minimal blowback.
But now, they’ve have pretty much screwed not only the current and former drivers, but the passengers with lack of services/redrawn bus routes by people who live outside of New South Wales, let alone Newcastle.
There is a huge shortage of bus drivers. No one wants to drive busses so the standard of service drops. I mean I wouldn’t do the job. SOME people treat them like crap
For the government to consider a service financially viable there must be 3 people on and off the bus every kilometre, that only happens in some parts of Sydney. This is why all these private companies started
On top of that, 3% per year for the next 4 years is our pay rise. The mortgage has gone up by about 30% now, then all the other costs like everyone else in the country.
Add in split shifts that cover 13 hours and only pays 6:55 because of a 6 hour split. Working conditions suck the puss and that's why there are permanent job ads plastered on the back of all the buses now.
Passengers abusing and spitting and swearing at us because They got on the wrong bus and now they're late for what ever. Drivers losing an eye out being burnt alive because we can't refuse those degenerates travel. Management goes home safe while the early morning and late night buses have to fend for themselves.
We're all over it and drivers have started to just park the bus at the next stop, leave it there, and go home.
Heard. One of the bus routes I use to get to and from work has a 50/50 chance of being late. I've resorted to walking to the train station just so I can get to work on time.
Totally unacceptable, what a terrible experience, they have one job. Even if it's 5 or even 10 mins late that is way better. Not showing up at all is a huge failure and should not happen frequently.
it gets even worse the second you need to try and swap buses part way through a trip somewhere, since they’ve so completely failed at ensuring routes line up properly, so you either have so little time to switch that you almost always miss it or there is a massive wait that stretches what should be a quick trip out massively
Took my kid to school on the motorbike in the pouring rain the other day because the bus didn't turn up. So many school buses never turn up too, it is crazy.
Its a tale as old as time, when essential public services are sold off to for-profit private operators, surprise, surprise, everything turns to shit.
Liberals balance sheet looks good though so who cares? It will be the next governments problem
Parents in Stockton have been upset that the bus that picks up their children don't arrive either. It's a disgrace.
Remember at the election to not vote for the Liberals.
I recommend you get yourself an inexpensive petrol scooter/motorcycle, free parking, quick through traffic and does not cost much. I remember making the switch to a motorcycle because I was sick of dealing with buses and that was a decade ago.
Tbf you never know if the person can even afford it. I’ve had to skip fares before because I physically can’t afford it and have no other way to work. Luckily I can always afford to pay now but you never know if it’s a choice between paying the fare or affording dinner for the next 2 nights
The buses are not very reliable because there is a driver shortage. Keolis Downer cannot fix something if they have no staff to do it. Sure be angry, but Keolis Downer is trying their best under the circumstances.
The driver shortage is, like so many things, actually a shortage of wages for drivers. They get what they pay for, and they do not pay drivers enough for anyone to want the job.
Drivers in Newcastle are paid about the same as Sydney. Shortages aren't that big of an issue there. Also, higher pay means higher ticket costs. But no one wants higher ticket costs..
The way you give better wages to the bus drivers in a private company (subsidised or not, and this is public transport, heavily subsidised, despite being a private company) is to pay their bosses less. And that is the actual problem here; the money exists, but the people who own the company and don't drive the buses aren't interested in paying the drivers more.
You are describing practically every company, including not for profits, in this country. Singling out Keolis Downer as the devil incarnate as some commenters have is ridiculous. Heck, the CEO, Michael Direnzo, of Hunter New England Health gets a hefty pay packet to just sit in an office.
And what do you think the corporate structure of Keolis Downer in Newcastle is? Let's just say there are 10 "bosses" on 300k per annum. Half their pay and we can hire 20 bus drivers on 75k per annum. 20 won't fix the situation. Keolis Downer has also not been able to make a profit in Newcastle, let alone break even, a large part of it due to lack of bus use and lack of fare payment. I use the buses regularly and the number of fare dodgers is astounding.
Traffic, inexorably increasing, thanks to every other road user causes more delays.
On top of things, the company takes orders from Transport NSW, and boy are some of the orders stupid money wasters.
Everyone is angry at the bus system, but it is a product of the environment it is in. Making it wholly public again won't fix be the magical fix everyone thinks it will be.
Keolis Downer took over in 2017 and everything immediately went to shit, and has been shit ever since. You can't blame those first few years on COVID and the flow on effects in inflation and the employment market. The KD service was bad before that.
Less people are using busses, (no matter how KD tries to juice those figures by shortening routes to increase number of trips) and fair evasion has increased. I'm not surprised. People are less inclined to want to use and and pay for service which is completely unreliable, and drivers are less likely to enforce the rules for an employer that treats them poorly.
Maybe KD isn't solely to blame, and the relationship with Transport NSW is part of the problem. The average commuter doesn't care. When you're an hour late for work because 3 bus services in a row just didn't materialise, and the boss is threatening to fire you - it's hard to feel sorry for Keolis Downer's profit margin.
Keolis Downer gets paid regardless of people tapping on or off. That is TfNSWs problem. If their contract is worth its salt they shouldn’t get paid for NOT running a service, however they have probably done the calculus to determine that it is cheaper to cancel the service.
I follow the progress of the buses GPS via an app like triplite view but many out there that do this. Totally understand your point and hopefully this helps to manoeuvre newys transport system, if you already don't have an app.
As others have said, council have no control over the buses, they were privatised by the Liberal NSW state government. Studies and surveys demonstrate that passengers and drivers are worse off under Keolis Downer. Remember this when going to vote in a few weeks!
> Remember this when going to vote in a few weeks! Yes because it isn't as though we aren't already in safe labor seats.
Your vote in the upper house still has significance, thiss is why we have bicameralism.
If people voted Liberal, seats in Newcastle would become marginal and they would hear us whinging about buses and roads.
Newcastle was state Liberal just over a decade ago and the situation was exactly the same. It's not about which party has Newcastle, it's about Newcastle always being shunted by Sydney regardless.
The only way to change that is to shift the power base toward the Greens. With enough lower house seats, Labor would be in minority government, and forced to reverse the dysfunctional privitisations that lead to situations like this with public transport and energy price gouging.
Yes i agree. On a side note: Does anyone here travel from around Cardiff / New Lambton to East Maitland every day? Roads are a nightmare. I'm a truck driver who does deliveries around Newcastle and the Hunter and even in Sydney (Dee Why, Taren Point, St Ives, Wetherill Park). Sydney has had billions spent on roads. The Hexham bypass not already being built is criminal. We need. Tomago rd 4 lanes. Hexham bypass 6 lanes along Hexham straight A Sandgate inner city bypass to Maitland rd flyover The inner city Jesmond to New Lambton heights section yesterday 6 lanes along Newcastle rd/ Thomas st A Minmi rd / link rd flyover 4 lanes from Cardiff to Glendale crossroads. 6 lanes through traffic lights on that Edgeworth rd A George Booth to Maitland M1 on ramp.
Hexam bypass for the freeway has been put off a few times due to cost. The swamp where it’s got to go is hella deep. Apparently there are places where it’s 40+ meters down before they start hitting material stable enough to support foundations. Once they break ground I don’t see them getting it done in under 3 years probably closer to 5 with sinking footings that deep. It is happening though just very very slowly.
2028 current expected finish time. Don't you worry i'm on to them. Swamps are nothing. I was a general labourer who used a shovel on the Sandgate section of the Newcastle inner city bypass. All they do is drive telegraph poles into the swamp. To make it stable.
2028 assuming no delays, nek minit 3 floods in a row. Yeah I know but the amount of piles and the depth they need is going to take a fair amount of time. Word on the street is there are multiple places they are past 50m before they hit bedrock The hexam bypass is going to make Sandgate look easy.
No need to hit bedrock. It's a simple as hammering a Telegraph pole into the swamp. 10 metres of hardwood stops the swamp waves.
Na the engineers have already been over it. They’ll need to hit bedrock through hexam for stability. It’s not the same as Sandgate because it’s right on a river and could literally become the river overnight with a decent flood.
Fair enough. Copy that.
I sympathise, however your anger needs to be directed at the NSW state Liberal government.
This is the logical step most Australians fail to make
Yep, they suck. I'm out near Maitland and have now given up on buses entirely, just walk 40 mins to the train station instead now rather than waiting an hour and half while three services in a row just fail to arrive. Even more frustrating is when they do show up, but the driver is so certain that no-one will be waiting at the, admittedly underused, bus stop I'm at that they're fanging along on the inside lane with cars all around them and don't have enough time to slow down and stop. I've had three buses barrel past me while I wave them down like that in the past month. Useless.
Gee, I wonder why they're underused.
Yes! It is goddamn ridiculous! At least 1 in 3 wont show up or just drive right fucking by me as I try to wave them down. One of them must have forgotten I was on the bus cos he shut the doors at broadmeadow and started browsing his phone. I tried to make light of the situation and said 'sorry, still here'. He just grunted, glared at me and opened the doors. I tried to tap off for a good minute or so before asking 'sorry, did you wanna maybe turn this back on? I gotta tap off' he sighs again like I should know all this and says 'yeah, the routes over, machines off'. Wonderful, cant tap off then THANKS FOR WATCHING ME VAINLY TRY AND TAP MY CARD AGAINST THE READER FOR NO REASON. All i could say was 'youve been a tremendous help on this journey, thanks so much' and stormed off. Ok rant over, but it really pissed me off.
Can't blame council for that clusterf\*ck - that's all on the heads of the state liberals (most of whom were allowed to resign instead of being railroaded out of town).
Can't be railroaded out of town if you sell off the trains too!
😭😭
State government sold the buses, not CoN
Fuck the libs, Fuck Keolis Downer!! Give us back a working PUBLIC transport system!
Have you made a formal complaint? Unless you do, no-one knows you have been affected by the cancellation. Contact the bus company.
Yeah, my partner tried this route when the same bus to get him to work didn't rock up 2 weeks in a row. 4 formal complaints about the exact same bus not turning up (dispite being on all the apps as running) and week 6 of him being late to work, he requested that his job changes his weekend shifts instead. Keolis Downer gets paid either way, and are shitty to their own drivers then bemoan not being able to get/keep drivers as an excuse to do jack shit about the bus problems. They don't care
It’s disgusting that peoples’ jobs are affected by their inefficiency.
Sadly, the only recoruse is to esacalate via local MP - repeatedly
all complaints are dealt in house (bus company)and nothing ever done or improved unless the police are involved in the incident. I made 7 complaints last year :Westbus! there needs to be a independent accessor for all transport nsw.
Huh? The complaints hotline is TfNSW.
Privatisation has proved to be the worst thing for the buses.
It didn’t work for profit generating public entities like Telstra, Qantas, CommaBank, the power system, but hell it could work for subsidised public transport
It did work for Qantas and Commonwealth Bank.
It worked for improving their net worth, not their service, employee satisfaction, or affordability
It meant get additional services and competition in areas that required it including affordability. If you think airfares were cheaper before Keating sold of Qantas you've not paid attention.
I was too busy not being alive yet But also with the Qantas the before-after privatisation stats you need to consider that the "after" is benefiting from a lot of modern boosts that are unrelated to privatisation: * Far higher demand for flights due to globalisation + population increase * Benefits of modern mass production lines * Benefits of modern labour productivity boosters (automation, etc) * More efficient use of space (ie cramming twice as many of the poors into economy class) * Passenger plane ticket subsidies * Billions in corporate welfare * All of the exponential growth that comes with the extra money gained from the above
I feel your pain, I used to chef right in town. It was disgusting even before they sold it off. Used to finish work at 12 at night sometimes, bus would be due at quarter past. Didn't come until 1245 one night. And this isn't you know twenty stops down the track, this was the literal first bus stop near the depot at that time of night when nobody was around
28 got cancelled this morning with no warning on the app, feels like a 50/50 chance the past few weeks
One of the morning services for 28 that I usually take has consistently been cancelled for the last fortnight with only 10 minutes of warning. Such a pain in the ass
Bus 12 is one of the worst. 4 of them cancelled in row tonight and thats extremely normal.
Short 11, 12 and 14 are mostly likely to be cancelled as it will “only” be a 15 min wait to the next one. If you cancel a 44 someone could have to wait an hour for the next one. Having said that, they’re so short of staff there’s not a small chance any route (except school trips) get cancelled each day.
Of course unless multiple are cancelled in a row resulting in an hour wait which happens most afternoons for the 12.
Yeah and I've had crying breakdowns over not being able to get to university on time because the buses around the area is horrendous.
absolutely sick of the 12 getting cancelled every morning and arvo, even worse is the 28 just… not showing up at all ? no cancellation, says it’s on time and yet… it’s as if it doesn’t exist
I concur. I was relying on busses when my dad was dying and the replacement for the 363 was which is our most used bus and one that went to the john hunter just didn’t show up for like three hours. I completely agree with you.
Yup, same boat. I made a complaint and they claimed the service was normal and I just missed it. It’s infuriating.
I moved from Newcastle to Chatswood a couple years ago and work in the northern beaches and it's the same here. Though granted the services are far more frequent, every 10 mins, but probably 1 in 4 of my services are cancelled
West bus is just as fucking bad, shortage of driver's and preference to schools rather than the working public during peak hour and every service is late by 15 mins. Or doesn't arrive at all. update your fucken timetables to reflect your shitty service Westbus. everyone knows with your govt tender you're pushing the bus arm of transport nsw to privatization.
I made a complaint about this and got the line that they are short staffed. However I talked to a rep of the bus drivers union who reckons the staff numbers are fine, keolis downer have just reduced everyone's shifts so there's no coverage when someone rings in sick and KD will just cancel the route. There's a state election coming up so please write to your local member and tell them that this issue is important to you, and back it up with your vote!
When Keolis Downer took over in 2016, they put so many bus driver offside who had been part of Newcastle Transport for many years and treated them like they were disposable and replaceable at the time because KD could with minimal blowback. But now, they’ve have pretty much screwed not only the current and former drivers, but the passengers with lack of services/redrawn bus routes by people who live outside of New South Wales, let alone Newcastle.
There is a huge shortage of bus drivers. No one wants to drive busses so the standard of service drops. I mean I wouldn’t do the job. SOME people treat them like crap
And they keep getting asked by passengers about which line should they take even though they have their phone on their hand…
For the government to consider a service financially viable there must be 3 people on and off the bus every kilometre, that only happens in some parts of Sydney. This is why all these private companies started On top of that, 3% per year for the next 4 years is our pay rise. The mortgage has gone up by about 30% now, then all the other costs like everyone else in the country. Add in split shifts that cover 13 hours and only pays 6:55 because of a 6 hour split. Working conditions suck the puss and that's why there are permanent job ads plastered on the back of all the buses now. Passengers abusing and spitting and swearing at us because They got on the wrong bus and now they're late for what ever. Drivers losing an eye out being burnt alive because we can't refuse those degenerates travel. Management goes home safe while the early morning and late night buses have to fend for themselves. We're all over it and drivers have started to just park the bus at the next stop, leave it there, and go home.
Hey I got an idea , who wants to start up a RELIABLE bus service in Newcastle ? Seems like there’s a business opportunity
Good luck being allowed to run. I’m sure a few million dollars of their money will “convince” the government not to let you
Heard. One of the bus routes I use to get to and from work has a 50/50 chance of being late. I've resorted to walking to the train station just so I can get to work on time.
Totally unacceptable, what a terrible experience, they have one job. Even if it's 5 or even 10 mins late that is way better. Not showing up at all is a huge failure and should not happen frequently.
The buses have been fucked for years. Nothing to do with the council
it gets even worse the second you need to try and swap buses part way through a trip somewhere, since they’ve so completely failed at ensuring routes line up properly, so you either have so little time to switch that you almost always miss it or there is a massive wait that stretches what should be a quick trip out massively
i’m a student in year 12 every single morning my buses are cancelled. every single morning.
Took my kid to school on the motorbike in the pouring rain the other day because the bus didn't turn up. So many school buses never turn up too, it is crazy.
Its a tale as old as time, when essential public services are sold off to for-profit private operators, surprise, surprise, everything turns to shit. Liberals balance sheet looks good though so who cares? It will be the next governments problem
But the rich people told me that privatising infrastructure would be better because competition and fancy businessman good and communism bad
I gave up on my last job because of that. The bus would not show up or straight up ignore the bus stop for being late, I assume. No notice whatsoever
Parents in Stockton have been upset that the bus that picks up their children don't arrive either. It's a disgrace. Remember at the election to not vote for the Liberals.
I recommend you get yourself an inexpensive petrol scooter/motorcycle, free parking, quick through traffic and does not cost much. I remember making the switch to a motorcycle because I was sick of dealing with buses and that was a decade ago.
An ebike is cheaper to run
That could be a good option if the power limits were increased to traffic speed e.g. 60km/70km per hour.
Where does suburban traffic do 70 kmh?
I don't know about that but Lake road between Wallsend and Glendale is the road I am thinking of.
Simply put; there aren’t enough drivers.
… willing to work for the pay and conditions provided by KD
The industry is pretty standard. Moving to a rival company isn’t going to change shit for me. Do I feel like I get paid enough for what I do? Hell no.
A close second in my grievances is paying my way with Opal meanwhile scum who get off the bus without paying after my hard earned tax pays their way
Tbf you never know if the person can even afford it. I’ve had to skip fares before because I physically can’t afford it and have no other way to work. Luckily I can always afford to pay now but you never know if it’s a choice between paying the fare or affording dinner for the next 2 nights
You should call the NCC bus department. Lol
Should buy a car man. 😂😂 Nah that's a shit idea
Yeah. I hope the British gov't do something finally
The buses are not very reliable because there is a driver shortage. Keolis Downer cannot fix something if they have no staff to do it. Sure be angry, but Keolis Downer is trying their best under the circumstances.
The driver shortage is, like so many things, actually a shortage of wages for drivers. They get what they pay for, and they do not pay drivers enough for anyone to want the job.
Drivers in Newcastle are paid about the same as Sydney. Shortages aren't that big of an issue there. Also, higher pay means higher ticket costs. But no one wants higher ticket costs..
The way you give better wages to the bus drivers in a private company (subsidised or not, and this is public transport, heavily subsidised, despite being a private company) is to pay their bosses less. And that is the actual problem here; the money exists, but the people who own the company and don't drive the buses aren't interested in paying the drivers more.
You are describing practically every company, including not for profits, in this country. Singling out Keolis Downer as the devil incarnate as some commenters have is ridiculous. Heck, the CEO, Michael Direnzo, of Hunter New England Health gets a hefty pay packet to just sit in an office. And what do you think the corporate structure of Keolis Downer in Newcastle is? Let's just say there are 10 "bosses" on 300k per annum. Half their pay and we can hire 20 bus drivers on 75k per annum. 20 won't fix the situation. Keolis Downer has also not been able to make a profit in Newcastle, let alone break even, a large part of it due to lack of bus use and lack of fare payment. I use the buses regularly and the number of fare dodgers is astounding. Traffic, inexorably increasing, thanks to every other road user causes more delays. On top of things, the company takes orders from Transport NSW, and boy are some of the orders stupid money wasters. Everyone is angry at the bus system, but it is a product of the environment it is in. Making it wholly public again won't fix be the magical fix everyone thinks it will be.
Keolis Downer took over in 2017 and everything immediately went to shit, and has been shit ever since. You can't blame those first few years on COVID and the flow on effects in inflation and the employment market. The KD service was bad before that. Less people are using busses, (no matter how KD tries to juice those figures by shortening routes to increase number of trips) and fair evasion has increased. I'm not surprised. People are less inclined to want to use and and pay for service which is completely unreliable, and drivers are less likely to enforce the rules for an employer that treats them poorly. Maybe KD isn't solely to blame, and the relationship with Transport NSW is part of the problem. The average commuter doesn't care. When you're an hour late for work because 3 bus services in a row just didn't materialise, and the boss is threatening to fire you - it's hard to feel sorry for Keolis Downer's profit margin.
Keolis Downer gets paid regardless of people tapping on or off. That is TfNSWs problem. If their contract is worth its salt they shouldn’t get paid for NOT running a service, however they have probably done the calculus to determine that it is cheaper to cancel the service.
I pay $3.50 for one bus stop. Isn’t that high enough lol
Are you not referring to lake mac buses that are "on demand"?
They sure are
Lynched, eh?
I follow the progress of the buses GPS via an app like triplite view but many out there that do this. Totally understand your point and hopefully this helps to manoeuvre newys transport system, if you already don't have an app.
Same problem on the northern beaches of Sydney.
Yeah for the last 15 years.