Transport for NSW has confirmed that more services have been cut from this week due to driver shortages, expanding the impact of the worsening driver shortage to more areas across Sydney.
This controversially includes reductions to the frequency of the B-Line between Mona Vale and Wynyard, which currently suffers from significant overcrowding.
“Temporary Timetables” have been introduced for Keolis Downer services on the Northern Beaches and Lower North Shore and U-Go services in the Sutherland Shire and South West. They join Busways in the North West, Transit Systems services in the Inner West and Transdev John Holland services in the Eastern Suburbs in operating a reduced timetable.
The intention behind the temporary timetables are to reduce the level of service to actually reflect the number of drivers available. By doing so, the hope is to reduce the level of ad-hoc cancellation of services across the network. The reduced services are focused at peak travel times when there are other travel options or higher frequencies in general. By doing so, operators can ensure that school services can run and that reasonable frequencies are retained at other times of day, such as late at night.
However, as with the changes made back in January, there are also some areas that will benefit from the changes. Commuters in and around North Avalon will now have access to 190X services to the City in peak, and 199 services late at night with both services extended from Avalon Beach. This will see route services once again using the former E88 terminus at North Avalon which has been without regular passenger service for a number of years.
Back in June, the NSW Government announced a plan to recruit additional bus drivers. At that time, it was estimated that Greater Sydney was short by over 500 bus drivers. Actions recommended by the Bus Industry Taskforce and being implemented by the NSW Government include;
- waiving the $70 application fee for the next 12 months
- allowing drivers over the age of 25 to apply if they hold a current unrestricted Australian driver licence and have held any kind of Australian driver licence, or a nationally recognised overseas driver licence, for at least three years
- enabling electronic issue of documents
- scrapping duplicated paperwork requirements and streamlining the application process.
At this stage, there is no clear resolution to this crisis. These “temporary timetables” have now been in place for nearly 6 months in some cases and this expansion of their use suggests that they will remain in place for the foreseeable future.