Bus tow? No problem!

The persistant bugger that I am…here goes…

Even if the truck is old now, it was new at some point and as things age they cost more to maintain.

Abels are one company, they may have more than one truck

No, I am not an expert on bus maintenance per se, but I am well and truly across the benefits and methods of maintaining ‘equipment’, I am also across the benefits of leasing/hiring as opposed to owning

Buses don’t carry their own tow-truck, and the NRMA will only change your tyre if you have one on-board.

Crash the tow-truck into the giant penis, two problems solved but I’m guessing the wrong one will be re-erected.

Following banshee’s logic I’m going to throw away my vehicle’s spare tyre and jack. When I get a flat tyre I’ll just call NRMA and wait an hour or two for them to show up, rather than having the equipment to deal with the problem myself in 10 minutes.

ACTION is not an airline, and as such there is no need for them to have a 100% preventative maintanence program. I would wager that the cost of a dedicated tow truck (and cost of bus downtime) is far less than increasing the level of preventative maintanence across the entire bus fleet. Standard risk vs cost equation.

screaming banshee said :

No, its false economy. If the buses are breaking down often enough that action were spending too much on towing contractors, the answer is not to buy your own tow truck, the answer is to address the maintenance issues.

You’re really determined to display your ignorance aren’t you?

Are you an expert on bus maintennance? Are you sure that more preventive maintennance/checks would be enough to prevent the brakes locking on as happened in this case or all the other things that can necessitate a tow?

Do you know how much a tow truck costs to buy compared to how much it costs for someone else to tow a bus?

Classified said :

That tow truck is not new. I suspect Action has owned it for many years, and that it is more effective for them to be able to collect a bus when they need to with their own equipment rather than using a private towing service (which may not be available when they need).

Sometimes buses break down, and if they already own the towing vehicle it makes sense to use it. I wouldn’t have thought it would cost bulk dollars to keep the tow truck running at the age it is anyway.

Fo sure.

Also a quick look in the yellow pages indicates that there is only one tow truck in the area that could tow a bus & thats Abels in Queanbeyan. Most people here want ACTION busses to be uber efficient but that would not happen if they are stuck waiting for a tow truck to finish on another job down on the Cann Valley Highway or the Clyde Mountain.

Can you imagine the uproar if a bus was torched overnight while waiting for a tow? There is your cost benifit saving right there……….

That tow truck is not new. I suspect Action has owned it for many years, and that it is more effective for them to be able to collect a bus when they need to with their own equipment rather than using a private towing service (which may not be available when they need).

Sometimes buses break down, and if they already own the towing vehicle it makes sense to use it. I wouldn’t have thought it would cost bulk dollars to keep the tow truck running at the age it is anyway.

screaming banshee said :

No, its false economy. If the buses are breaking down often enough that action were spending too much on towing contractors, the answer is not to buy your own tow truck, the answer is to address the maintenance issues.

Man, you sing a familiar tune. It goes a little something like this “If we lived in a perfect world where everyone and everything played by my perfect rules, you wouldn’t need that capability, therefore I’m keen to remove that capability in order to save a few bucks”

I totally get your viewpoint, but economic rationalism doesn’t necessarily fit best with practical reality. I’m not going to rant and argue, I’m just going to say that I for one am totally cool with the idea of Action having this capability in house.

Oh and plus, it’s a very cool and useful machine. I can think of worse things for tax dollars to be “wasted” on. For example penis shaped public art.

No, its false economy. If the buses are breaking down often enough that action were spending too much on towing contractors, the answer is not to buy your own tow truck, the answer is to address the maintenance issues.

screaming banshee said :

Yes, s*** breaks down and that is unavoidable, but should/does it break down often enough that it is financially justifiable to operate their own tow truck with all the compliance and expenditure that goes along with it?

So what’s the alternative? Isn’t it better to have an in-house tow truck staffed by drivers who are experienced with the ACTION fleet than to use a private heavy vehicle towing service?

Anyway, if it were more cost-efficient to outsource the towing operations they would have done so long ago.

Jesus christ, you’re all missing the point. Yes, s*** breaks down and that is unavoidable, but should/does it break down often enough that it is financially justifiable to operate their own tow truck with all the compliance and expenditure that goes along with it?

screaming banshee said :

Not joking, a preventative maintenance schedule should mean any wearing parts are replaced well before a failure, and courtesy of a team of mechanics non wearing parts would be inspected regularly. With are large fleet you gain the benefit of seeing where the failure points are on the higher use units and apply that knowledge to ensuring you prevent failures in other buses.

After all these steps have failed to prevent a fault occuring, the bus must experience a fault that is not only critical to the continued operation, ie not a blown lamp/squeaky drivers seat, but also one that cannot be repaired quickly by a roadside response team….they have one right?, right??

So I ask again, how many breakdowns requiring a tow per week do they have?

Geez, you are so far off its not funny. Yep, they have a maintinence schedule to try to prevent breakdowns but how can you predict a catastrophic failure due to faulty manufacturing/poor component quality in something such as a universal joint which would disable a bus?

Maybe it had a rock hole a sump?

Also, you tell me how to predict the breakage of something like a band in an automatic transmission or an axle that has a stress fracture?

Mechanics are not able to predict all things in the future.

Optimus?

screaming banshee said :

Not joking, a preventative maintenance schedule should mean any wearing parts are replaced well before a failure, and courtesy of a team of mechanics non wearing parts would be inspected regularly. With are large fleet you gain the benefit of seeing where the failure points are on the higher use units and apply that knowledge to ensuring you prevent failures in other buses.

After all these steps have failed to prevent a fault occuring, the bus must experience a fault that is not only critical to the continued operation, ie not a blown lamp/squeaky drivers seat, but also one that cannot be repaired quickly by a roadside response team….they have one right?, right??

So I ask again, how many breakdowns requiring a tow per week do they have?

Yeah, that’s what I get done to my car every week, just to make sure it won’t accidentally break down. It costs me my annual salary, but at least I don’t have to get NRMA membership!

screaming banshee said :

Not joking,

considering someone down there is striking every 5 minutes from lack of staff/poor conditions etc, i doubt there is much time to do “preventative maintenance”. Plus, when you repair something, things can break again. Towing can also reduce further damage, than “limping” back to the depot

Not joking, a preventative maintenance schedule should mean any wearing parts are replaced well before a failure, and courtesy of a team of mechanics non wearing parts would be inspected regularly. With are large fleet you gain the benefit of seeing where the failure points are on the higher use units and apply that knowledge to ensuring you prevent failures in other buses.

After all these steps have failed to prevent a fault occuring, the bus must experience a fault that is not only critical to the continued operation, ie not a blown lamp/squeaky drivers seat, but also one that cannot be repaired quickly by a roadside response team….they have one right?, right??

So I ask again, how many breakdowns requiring a tow per week do they have?

screaming banshee said :

Speaks wonders for the reliability of the action fleet that they can justify their own tow-truck, how many breakdowns requiring a tow per week do they have?

You have to be joking right? According to wiki they have 430 buses, alot of which would do over 100 hours a week.

screaming banshee said :

Speaks wonders for the reliability of the action fleet that they can justify their own tow-truck, how many breakdowns requiring a tow per week do they have?

For a fleet that big, one mega tow truck is justified I think. And give them some credit, those Macks were the new shiny things when I was catching them in primary school, and they still mostly run OK. How many XF Falcons do you still see on the road for example?

Speaks wonders for the reliability of the action fleet that they can justify their own tow-truck, how many breakdowns requiring a tow per week do they have?

That Mack is actually some of the smaller to trucks around. There are bigger than that.