Concerns of school bus overpatronage

Started by CanberraTransport, April 21, 2009, 05:48:21 PM

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CanberraTransport

QuoteParents are calling for an urgent review of ACTION's school bus services, after discovering their children are practically on top of each other in overcrowded buses.

WIN News understands several students required medical attention after being thrown forward in a near collision with a car several weeks ago.

ACTION Buses has told WIN News when school returns next week, it will monitor the services in Kingston to gauge demand.

Source: WIN News

Bus 400

The 690 is full by Summerland Circuit after doing the Kambah Loop. But this can be fixed by not diverting via Marist College.

A few others have been fixed up by combining an artic & normal bus on the same route. I wonder how school runs will go with the 14.5's

CanberraTransport

So many of the services which travel to and from my school - including my morning and afternoon buses - are overcrowded. It's an absolute joke and the Government and ACTION needs to clean up this shit.

Buzz Killington

They need to split routes up a bit more to 'share the load' - but that means more buses and thats something that ACTION can't cope with, at least not right now

Sir Pompously

Quote from: TP 3000 on April 21, 2009, 05:56:31 PM
The 690 is full by Summerland Circuit after doing the Kambah Loop. But this can be fixed by not diverting via Marist College.

A few others have been fixed up by combining an artic & normal bus on the same route. I wonder how school runs will go with the 14.5's

So then what do you do with the Marist Students off this run? You can't just offer a solution but not think about the other's who get displaced from your decision.

School Buses have been overcrowded since Hitler was a little boy, and it is not going to change any time soon. I had to put up with it for many years, especially the 695 from Marist to Tuggeranong which was always packed with boy's and with constant food fights and shenanigan's it made me go to public buses which got me home 10 minutes earlier. I don't know why the complaints are only starting to come out now, seeing as though it has always been this way. With ACTION's resources (Driver v. buses ratio, plus the amount of buses out during peak hour and leading up to peak hour) the only solution to the problem (more buses, more routes and drivers to cover the new routes) will be quite a while away.

CanberraTransport

There were a select few buses which had overcrowding in the time which you speak of - it's now a rareity to find a school bus with no students standing.

Sir Pompously

You obviously were not catching or sighting the buses I was........

Bus 400

More Marist kids go along with Melrose High kids 30-40 minutes later

Irisbus Rider

ACTIONs theory; kids don't complain.
Parents do, and they didn't think of that.

As Pompously mentiopned, school bus overcrowding is common, and this isn't changing anytime soon. Solution = More buses and drivers. Not exactly a realistic option just for school students. Anyway, as long as drivers adhere to the carrying capacity on each buses, overcrowding will not be an issue.

Bus 400

Does ACTION have the policy of "No child gets left behind"?

Things should change when the extra 40 buses come in the next few years. As they do have a grand total of around 600 drivers (part timers, full timers, casual) & 400 buses.

Irisbus Rider


Busnerd

You have no idea how the services work.

It is not like a regular commuter service. The school has liason meetings with ACTION to find out where the students are, so that they can best plan the route to service everyone. The idea is to get as many people on the one route as is possible, and ive found school buses in every city in the country are done similar ways and are always crowded. Its not because they dont want to put on a bigger bus, cause by all means they cannot! But its just that the routes are planned for maximum amounts of students to utilise.

It will never change from this, you will always have your empty and full school buses, if you don't like it catch route buses instead like some other kids do, or get some excercise and walk! most people live just down the road from their schools anyway.

seat cover

What is the standard for overcrowding on school buses in the ACT? Is abus over crowded if students stand? do they use the NSW formula were primary kids are 2/3 of a passenger?

CanberraTransport

The definition of overcrowded in ACTION's terms is if it exceeds the legal limit. A reasonable passenger would consider a bus overcrowded if they are squashed up next to other passengers and are only able to stand in the one spot for the entirity of the journey.

Busnerd

Would you two stop bitching, there is no problem with the services, they have been crowded for the last 20 years at least nothing will change, if you don't like it too bad.

Bus 400

While I saw the patronage on School Bus 583 yesterday. ACTION believe that it doesn't warrant a Dart. But this school route could be scrapped by just extending the 318 to Lanyon High School & diverting a particular 319 via Covenant College. It might add a few minutes to the route. But it frees up another medium size bus for other school routes.

Snorzac

Just a question for the drivers out there, can ACTION assign an artic to a school run for one day each week. My school bus has pretty good loadings Monday-Thursday but not enough for an artic, but on Friday it has to leave people behind because there isn't enough room on a rigid, on board it is way above the loading limit. 

The Love Guru

I'm sure ACTION could, if they hard any artics to spare!

Snorzac

Would a .3 give extra patronage? Then again the driver said he specifically hates then, his favorites are the Irises )there is something wrong with him), him and John might make a good pair.

Buzz Killington

a .3 was put on my school bus once because no artics were available and we had too many passengers for a .2

Snorzac

ok, so that could be an option for ACTION, what annoys me is that a school run that wouldn't have enough people to fill a dart and it has 713 as a shift bus, I am guessing it has another run on the shift that requires an artic. It would be great if ACTION could plan their shifts a bit better.

Irisbus Rider

Quote from: Mini Mat on April 30, 2009, 08:12:37 PM
his favorites are the Irises )there is something wrong with him), him and John might make a good pair.
Yeeeowch! The Iris' are quite nice buses, they just don't tick all of the boxes that makes up a 'Perfect bus'.

Yes, 100.3s usually are (poor) substitutes to artics, probably because they have an extra row of seats.

As for the shifts, you can blame Hastus for that, that program certainly lets ACTION down in a lot of areas.

Snorzac

Over 30 people were standing today on my school bus.

Busnerd

We've been over this, there will always be standees on a school bus, however I agree they shouldn't be leaving kids behind with out a viable option!

Yes, a .3 does have a higher seating capacity and should be used if possible if a .2 is crowded, whether the driver likes it or not.

I wonder what will happen when the artics are all replaced, as i believe 14.5's have a few less seats than artics!

Hence why they need to keep a few extra buses, like 20 or so to increase fleet size, the fleet can't stay the same size for 20 years, they need to increase the capacity if the passenger numbers are rising!

Snorzac

Here is an E-mail I am sending to ACTION:

QuoteHi

I go to ***** College and every day I get school bus ### home everyday.

I am sick and tired of having people crammed into the bus, there is way too many people. Today I counted over 30 people standing, it is beyond a joke.

I think it is about time that you put a bigger bus on the run, as it is not only uncomfortable to have 30 people standing on a bus but dangerous and illegal.

Please do something!

Z. Mathes

Bus 400

If you have a look at the school route updates on the ACTION page, you'll notice that there are only school services in either the morning or afternoon only. So somehow kids get to school by bus & have to walk home to Belconnen.

The other thing that annoys me is that it is a different route number between morning & afternoon services. I remembering asking ACTION about this before & they said something about sometimes it will be a bus from a different depot in the afternoon service to the morning service. However on some Xpresso services you could take a Scania to Barton & a Irisbus home.

But also the numbers need to be improved where something like numbers 400-499 are for Tuggeranong/Lanyon Valley Schools & follow on from that. Also Route 400 would take kids from Gordon/Banks/Conder to Lanyon Valley schools in morning & afternoon. Not this 583 in the morning & 612 in afternoon. Also having the same numbers will mean that younger school kids only have to look for the one school route number, which can lead to less kids getting lost.

Buzz Killington

Matching route numbers for AM/PM would be nice, but how often is the route identical?

Bus 400

I've been told of a few strange shift changes relating to school runs.

-One school run shift changes from a Midi Bus to an artic
-One school run shift changes from an artic bus to a midi bus
-One school run shift changes from a midi bus to a standard bus

I was told that they are Belconnen depot school runs. But school run 898 stays the same.