SOT - Solution to Westbus Problem?

["Erk" <erk@erkV69.au.com>]

According to the cover of The Daily Cynic, Westbus have a plan to solve the
problems that have been reported. They are:

40 new high capacity buses
25 new midibuses
$8 million to rebuild Northmead and Bonnyrigg Depots
Service review starting 1/1/2001
Extra supervisory staff to monitor and respond to service complaints
Improved mangement training.

<cynic> I'm sure that will do the trick. That is like CityRail buying 40 new
4GT trains, rebuilding Flemo MC and having an internal talkfest between
managers. </cynic>

Methinks that Westbus is trying to compete (albeit unsuccessfully and with
at least half of the services) with CityRail on selected routes. Routes
where this occurs IMHO include:

Hills - City (competing Epping - City)
Penrith - St Marys
St Marys - Mt Druitt
Penrith - Liverpool
Liverpool - Parramatta
Parramatta - Blacktown

I have seen over time many of these services running empty over long
distances. They should concentrate on serving areas not well served by rail
and let CityRail do the station-station stuff. So to use the examples above,
none of these services would operate as listed. Instead:



Hills - City would operate Hills - Epping or Parramatta only

Penrith - St Marys would operate to Penrith to suburbs like Werrington
County, Claremont Meadows, Kingswood South etc etc


St Marys - Mt Druitt would operate to suburbs like Tregear, Wilmott,
Lethbridge Park etc (there seems to be duplication between Westbus and
Busways which doesn't seem to make a difference to service levels)


Penrith - Liverpool - services operate in the local area/suburbs only



Liverpool - Parramatta - - services operate in the local area/suburbs only


Parramatta - Blacktown  - services operate in the local area/suburbs only

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Eric

URL: http://www.erk.au.com
Email: erkV69@erk.au.com (remove the V69)

"We earn $3 per hour. Where do you
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