What should we do with ACTION? [With poll]

johnboy said :

No, no, no.

We do not need buses driving around when drivers feel like driving.

We need buses driving when customers want to get to place.

If the current bus divers don’t want to drive at those hours then get bus drivers who do want to work the hours needed.

This sort of transport is available with taxis.

pink little birdie said :

I disagree they should have some say in the hours that they work. A rigid system of working times would suck regardless of industry. I pretty sure if we did that we would end up with alot of casual drivers with a high turnover of staff. That means more money on training drivers and recuitment.

Is there a bus driver on this forum willing to give an opinion on shifts and other things?

No, no, no.

We do not need buses driving around when drivers feel like driving.

We need buses driving when customers want to get to place.

If the current bus divers don’t want to drive at those hours then get bus drivers who do want to work the hours needed.

johnboy said :

We need to completely throw out the window what bus drivers want.

Write the schedule for what is the best service and then offer the roles to the existing drivers and advertise the un-filled positions.

Anything else is just a taxpayer transfer to the TWU.

I disagree they should have some say in the hours that they work. A rigid system of working times would suck regardless of industry. I pretty sure if we did that we would end up with alot of casual drivers with a high turnover of staff. That means more money on training drivers and recuitment.

Is there a bus driver on this forum willing to give an opinion on shifts and other things?

Why not replace the bus drivers with Google’s driverless car system?

Busses could run for free, 24 hours a day, and costs would still be cut.

If buses only ran peak hours we’d have even more trouble getting bus drivers.

say 7-9 that’s 2 hours 5 days a week (10 hours)
then 3-6pm 3 hours 5 days a week (15 hours
That does make 25 hours a week say an extra 2 hours per day for start/end of shift takes us to 35 hours a week (which is almost a full time workload)

However Bus drivers with families would missout always on seeing kids to school and early evening family time (maybe even bed times for the very young) and would have the free time only when school aged children are at school.
It would be pretty crappy for the bus drivers to have that split shift each day if they only wanted one job.

Gumby said :

Unfortunately buses are unable to wait at my child’s daycare while I run them in, then take me to work…..then do the same on the way home…..

So not everyone can use buses all the time – who woulda thunk it?

Unfortunately buses are unable to wait at my child’s daycare while I run them in, then take me to work…..then do the same on the way home…..

dtc said :

Making buses free seems easy, but just look at the outrage people feel about believing cyclists get lots of free stuff and dont have to pay rego. Get ready for people saying ‘but I can’t catch the bus’ or ‘but I ride to work, why should I subsidise’.

These people are d1ckheads and should be ignored, or – even better – mocked and belittled until my throat is sore.

Making buses free seems easy, but just look at the outrage people feel about believing cyclists get lots of free stuff and dont have to pay rego. Get ready for people saying ‘but I can’t catch the bus’ or ‘but I ride to work, why should I subsidise’.

But a nominal bus fare – say $1 per trip – would be better. People ‘pay’ but it makes it much more cost effective.

What would happen if the buses only ran during peak times? Would there be much money saved?

A great survey Johnboy and it is after all up to Taxpayers to ensure that funds are appropriately managed and should be audited as to what caused the excess $$.

Which raises questions too regarding the level of public consultation undertaken by Action and government prior to spending thousands of dollars on the My Way ticketing, routing monitors and other concepts introduced and planned over the next few years.

ACT Government has a habit of charging ahead like a bull and introducing concepts without adequate public consultation conducted first. A few tweets do not cut it I am afraid.

Just a note for a few here on RA, some of you are mixing up the responsibilities of bus drivers and their own professional, competent, hard work as opposed to the management and political responsibilities of Katy Gallagher and Mr Rankin and co.

My opinion is that privatisation would be a disaster (forget state of the art scanias and other later model buses which are safer and heated, disregard your childrens safety and your own, disregard paying a low price for fares and disregard an overall more efficient service) given that business owners are suffering financially and receive zilch assistance from government anyway.

Re-routing issues require addressing; the remainder of the Action services are excellent in comparison to other states and cities.

Public transport that was free at the point of use would have huge benefits, societal and environmental. It would also be a great selling point for the city.

To help us poor taxpayers subsidising it, however, maybe we could introduce a special lottery, a la the Opera House lottery of the 1970’s, which pretty effectively paid it off.

Just a thought. After all, the $101 million we’re already paying isn’t giving much bang for the buck.

Free buses benefit every single person in the community.

Unemployed people get free transport to go find work
Employed people can goto work easier as there would be more buses
Car drivers will have cheaper/easier to find parking as more people will use a bus.

Higher PT usage is a precursor to light rail so the trainies are happy.

We can do away with paying for government cars for the Members because now they can catch buses like the rest of us.

The only people who dont benefit are the retails who take their cut of government money to effectively sell us something we own and the ticket makers. Which if my way was used for parking instead.. its win win

dungfungus said :

Diggety said :

Jim Jones said :

Diggety said :

Privatize it.

Fire every single person that has had anything to do with it’s operation (including politicians). Buy a NERF gun and actually shoot them like Ari Gold.

No private company would ever want to run it. There’s absolutely no chance of making profit within current industrial relation laws.

There you are, fixed it for you.

ACTION could be offered “free” as a going concern to all ACTION staff. I am sure there are some people within the organisation that could form a company/co-operative to take it on after all, they probably all believe in credit unions. The TWU would have to do some teeth gnashing but they would have to accept it. If this offer was declined by the staff then the government could sell it to the private sector and there would be no way the ACTION people or unions could complain because they had first choice. Market forces (without subsidies) would do the rest.

I like your ideas…

Caveat: like all public ‘sale’ of assets (or liabilities in this case), there is no point in selling it over to the market if there is a chance of a monopoly– in which case the market won’t work. The scenario you suggest will still need competition.

Top marks for a thoughtful comment dungfungus, run in the election, I’d vote for you.

What are the costs? Fuel? What about solar powered buses like Adelaide? Drivers wages? What about DIY buses like North Haverbrook? Maintenance? What about POS busses like every other third world country?

Or you could just let Deanes take over. They seem to run at a mild profit.

Diggety said :

Jim Jones said :

Diggety said :

Privatize it.

Fire every single person that has had anything to do with it’s operation (including politicians). Buy a NERF gun and actually shoot them like Ari Gold.

No private company would ever want to run it. There’s absolutely no chance of making profit within current industrial relation laws.

There you are, fixed it for you.

ACTION could be offered “free” as a going concern to all ACTION staff. I am sure there are some people within the organisation that could form a company/co-operative to take it on after all, they probably all believe in credit unions. The TWU would have to do some teeth gnashing but they would have to accept it. If this offer was declined by the staff then the government could sell it to the private sector and there would be no way the ACTION people or unions could complain because they had first choice. Market forces (without subsidies) would do the rest.

PantsMan said :

This is how you work out what an ACTION bus driver costs to employ:

* Drive a bus: $45,000
* Public servant drives a bus: $60,000
* Public servant drives a bus at nights and weekends: $60,000+$20,000 in penalties = $80,000
* Public servant drives a bus at nights and weekends and gets super: $80,000+15.4 per cent PSS + worker comp etc = $95,000
* Oh, forgot, is a member of CSS so therefore get 21.5 per cent super: $100,000ish.

Seriously, split ACTION into two companies: one private and one publically owned. Have competitive tendering for bundles of routes that include low high traffic trunk routes and low volume distributor routes. The tender would be: what is the minimum that the ACT has to pay you to run these services? Lowest bid wins.

Also, extend services over to Queanbeyan; better access to cheap labour, cheap housing, etc. would be good for the ACT. Contract out all maintenance to the private sector.

+1

PantsMan said :

And smash the TWU.

They’re doing that themselves.

Nuke the depot and send free bicycles to everyone .. it’s the only answer.

This is how you work out what an ACTION bus driver costs to employ:

* Drive a bus: $45,000
* Public servant drives a bus: $60,000
* Public servant drives a bus at nights and weekends: $60,000+$20,000 in penalties = $80,000
* Public servant drives a bus at nights and weekends and gets super: $80,000+15.4 per cent PSS + worker comp etc = $95,000
* Oh, forgot, is a member of CSS so therefore get 21.5 per cent super: $100,000ish.

Seriously, split ACTION into two companies: one private and one publically owned. Have competitive tendering for bundles of routes that include low high traffic trunk routes and low volume distributor routes. The tender would be: what is the minimum that the ACT has to pay you to run these services? Lowest bid wins.

Also, extend services over to Queanbeyan; better access to cheap labour, cheap housing, etc. would be good for the ACT. Contract out all maintenance to the private sector.

And smash the TWU.

Jim Jones said :

Diggety said :

Privatize it.

Fire every single person that has had anything to do with it’s operation (including politicians). Buy a NERF gun and actually shoot them like Ari Gold.

No private company would ever want to run it. There’s absolutely no chance of making profit within current industrial relation laws.

There you are, fixed it for you.

watto23 said :

.

Lets not go the whole hog with light rail initially but rapid transit busways that enable a 15 minute trip from Tuggeranong or Gungahlin to Civic. Then we can work on the feeders after that.

That takes more than 15 minutes in a car… going direct… 19 minutes Kaleen to Kambah using the barton highway on ramp and 21 minutes Kambah to Kaleen..

Good luck with that

Also my family catch the bus weekdays and never have a problem with the buses (aside from them missing it but that’s not action’s fault) daily from Kambah to Civic return, 1 bus feeder to Woden then trunk route the rest of the way.
If the 705 became a bike bus that would make it worth my while each morning. (the stop is a little too far from my house.

bitzermaloney said :

What’s there to extract from a system that $101m on top of the $20m it brought in?

If the entire ACTION business was sold lock stock tomorrow for $1, the company that bought it would shut 98% of the operations down, then they would put in place three or four trunk routes. They would probably do a little bit of charter work. And when the government had to put out a tender for someone to provide school buses (to replace all the suburban routes that disappear) they would bid for those as well.

I imagine that a company not much larger then Deanes in would be quite profitable in Canberra. But if you think that the service is crap and expensive now….

p1 said :

I am usually against the idea of privatising things like this because what almost always happens is that the private sector is very good at squeezing every cent out of the profitable parts, and just flat out ignores the unprofitable sections, which the government then ends up providing anyway.

What’s there to extract from a system that $101m on top of the $20m it brought in?

If you think about it, they could make ALL the buses FREE to ride and it would only cost $20m more than we currently fork out. That’s only $34 a person more per ACT resident.

Diggety said :

Privatize it.

Fire every single person that has had anything to do with it’s operation (including politicians). Buy a NERF gun and actually shoot them like Ari Gold.

No private company would ever want to run it. There’s absolutely no chance of making profit.

I don’t see charging for public transport the actual issue here. Its purely down to the time it takes from A to B vs a car or even a bike.

Lets not go the whole hog with light rail initially but rapid transit busways that enable a 15 minute trip from Tuggeranong or Gungahlin to Civic. Then we can work on the feeders after that.

Diggety said :

Privatize it.

Fire every single person that has had anything to do with it’s operation (including politicians). Buy a NERF gun and actually shoot them like Ari Gold.

I am usually against the idea of privatising things like this because what almost always happens is that the private sector is very good at squeezing every cent out of the profitable parts, and just flat out ignores the unprofitable sections, which the government then ends up providing anyway.

I kinda like Innovations idea, as it attempts to push some of the services into the privates sector while keeping the parts which actually work.

Privatize it.

Fire every single person that has had anything to do with it’s operation (including politicians). Buy a NERF gun and actually shoot them like Ari Gold.

1967 said :

And if, IF, we get a light rail system, can we have some carriages like these, to shift cyclists from one end of town to the other.

http://www.brentcyclists.org.uk/node/97

This is more what I had in mind…

jimbocool said :

@Madam Cholet – I think you’re partway right, some of the bus system should be free, but not the commuter routes as they are the only ones that actually make more money than they cost to run. If you make the feeder routes free you draw more people into the profit making part of the operation – more revenue which can then cross subsidise the loss-making part.

Effectively, this is already how it works, but in reverse. Each ride includes a transfer, so if you hop on another bus within 60 (? or is it 90?) minutes that trip is free. So if you catch a feeder route and then get on a trunk route, you only pay once.

Here’s the thing,
If you main objective is providing a service, then actually making any money out of it is immaterial.

If you’re trying to run a profitable business, then perhaps we should just do away with the busses altogether.

If you big goal is to reduce greenhouse gasses, then make it completely free and run them more regularly.

And if, IF, we get a light rail system, can we have some carriages like these, to shift cyclists from one end of town to the other.

http://www.brentcyclists.org.uk/node/97

(Or convert a few busses, just a few, that’s all it’d take)

It should be renamed…. “INAction”

jimbocool said :

Alternatively, make the whole thing free – it’ll only cost $21m (actually less than that as you won’t need a ticketing system or a money/banking system/ loss control/accountants etc) and patronage will increase massively. Increased patronage means less cars on the road and all the benefits, monetary and other, that that brings.

This is spot on. If we completely removed the cost of managing ticketing and the associated infrastructure and resources the real cost would be a lot less than $21M more than now.

Getting more people onto buses would be good, and would justify further rationalising routes and times to further reduce operational cost (hey, people would be getting it for free). Anything to reduce traffic and associated cost and hassle has to be a good thing.

I wonder if the ACT govt has ever seriously costed making public transport completely free. Anyone know?

We just dont have the numbers to make any sort of public transportation profitable. Its easier to drive to places as well as in the city. Unlike places like Sydney where you are better off catching buses in the city.

I was always big on momorail simply because it is seriously cool.

And Sydney no longer has one.

However, I now see the errors of my ways and have but one word.

Underground.

(Well, it’s two words if you seperate them, but one if you… ah, you get the idea….)

And what’s so bad about living underground eh? … With just a handful of men. We’ll start – we’ll start all over again!!!

However, I now see the errors of my ways and have but one word.

Underground.

Underground would be the best option if the ACT Government had more than several billion dollars at their disposal or some private entity would be willing to splash out more of the funds…

Madam Cholet said :

The talk about light rail suggests that the Government will implement it perfectly. If they can’t get buses right, how the heck will they do light rail properly? Best stick with the devil we know. Not everyone will benefit from light rail due to where you reside but I don’t expect that this will make the remaining bus services any better either. And a bus service will still be required to get people to and from light rail hubs.

If the ACT Government don’t do anything, nothing will be improved and we’ll be stuck with the same crappy thing forever.. Most people will have to use both modes of transport because that’s how it’s meant to be, but that shouldn’t matter. And on the contrary, light rail will benefit everyone because it will cause a positive domino effect. Light rail will bring faster, more reliable, on-time services with more capacity and frequency and buses will carry people to the suburbs, which will also be faster, more reliable, on-time and will deliver more frequent services. Capacity shouldn’t be much of an issue with buses as they would become a feeder service.

@Madam Cholet – I think you’re partway right, some of the bus system should be free, but not the commuter routes as they are the only ones that actually make more money than they cost to run. If you make the feeder routes free you draw more people into the profit making part of the operation – more revenue which can then cross subsidise the loss-making part.

Alternatively, make the whole thing free – it’ll only cost $21m (actually less than that as you won’t need a ticketing system or a money/banking system/ loss control/accountants etc) and patronage will increase massively. Increased patronage means less cars on the road and all the benefits, monetary and other, that that brings.

Reon said :

Our city is too spread out for public transport to be cost-effective?
BETTER BUILD A TRAIN.

I believe the correct internet expression for this is:

“lol wut?”

Yep. Or “I don’t want to live on this planet any more”.

$21mil in ticket sales is doing better than other Government services such as schools, hospitals, roads, parks, ambulance, fire and police manage. The Government should stop providing so much free car infrastructure .

Free for commuter trips would be a good compromise. If the ticket sales are only bringing in $21 million, why not just be done with the expectation of income, but continue with incentives to use by only making the commuter buses free.

The talk about light rail suggests that the Government will implement it perfectly. If they can’t get buses right, how the heck will they do light rail properly? Best stick with the devil we know. Not everyone will benefit from light rail due to where you reside but I don’t expect that this will make the remaining bus services any better either. And a bus service will still be required to get people to and from light rail hubs.

Our city is too spread out for public transport to be cost-effective?
BETTER BUILD A TRAIN.

I believe the correct internet expression for this is:

“lol wut?”

We need the Government to invest in light/heavy rail system that will bring more capacity, frequency, speed, on-time services and more services on weekends. Then ACTION Buses can become a feeder service to the suburbs, which would bring more reliability, more frequency and on-time services for both weekdays and weekends. They spend this much on public transport already, so if they decided to spend some more and make this happen, people will be flocking to use public transport, commuters and tourists alike!