Northern Beaches bus routes canceled due to driver shortages, privatisation to blame

By ABHA HAVAL

In an attempt to forgo the industry-wide shortage of bus drivers, Transport for NSW has cancelled a number of B-line bus services along the routes coming into the Sydney’s CBD from the northern beaches and lower north shore.

As of Monday 17 July 2023, privately owned franchise Keolis Downer Northern Beaches (KDNB) has adapted a temporary, reduced timetable to ‘improve the predictability and visibility of available services’, allowing passengers to plan a better trip.

Commuters from the northern beaches and lower north shore are expressing frustration for several months over delayed and cancelled buses since the former Liberal Government handed over service operations to KDNB.

The Greens are coming out front to address the issue in hopes of taking back control of the public transport.

Ongoing disruptions 

Greens MP Philipa Veitch said, “[Bus privatisation] was a terrible mistake, and it is a bad policy. Transportation should be public and not put in the hands of private operators.”

“Driver shortages is increasing since the privatisation by the liberal government.”

“Privatisation has decreased the working conditions for drivers, routes have been changed and shortened.”

“Ideally, for a driver, you need to live near the depot. They work early morning shifts. If you live a long way, and you work 12-hour shifts but only get paid for 8 hours, it gets difficult and inconvenient.”

“The wages are not high enough for people who live in the northern beaches, and you can’t expect them to commute at 4 in the morning. With less pay, and high rent and mortgages, its difficult to get workers,” she said.

“Public transport should be affordable, efficient, and reliable. We need a transport service which can deliver that.”

The Liberal-National government in NSW privatised over 75% of the bus services in Sydney and 100% in Newcastle over the last decade. A parliamentary inquiry by the Greens found that privatisation has caused the bus routes to be disrupted resulting in fewer services, high cost for passengers, and worse conditions and pay for the drivers.

Greens MP Cate Faehrmann told City Hub, “In addition to all the other issues caused by privatisation, the government is now struggling to attract and retain bus drivers because of drop in conditions, along with a reluctance by some drivers, to work for the private sector, meaning operators are axing services.”

“Privatising our bus services was always going to be a disaster, because the number one consideration for private operators will always be turning a profit. If that means cancelling services, shifting the so-called dynamic timetabling and dropping conditions for workers, then so be it.”

“Now, we see the disaster of bus privatisation rolling before our eyes.”

“What’s particularly frustrating is that the previous government was warned about these consequences but chose to do it anyways.”

“For people trying to get to work, they’re seeing every second bus get cancelled or extremely delayed and all they’re told by Transport for NSW is that buses ‘may operate on a reduced service level’.

“Meanwhile, private bus contractors are earning bonuses by cancelling thousands of services to meet ‘on-time’ targets because cancelled buses aren’t considered ‘late’ under their service contract.”

‘The government needs to step up’

The NSW Government has launched a Bus Industry Taskforce along with a recruitment campaign by waiving the application fees to address the shortage of drivers to fill over 350 vacant roles across Sydney.

Transport Minister Jo Haylen said, “We are seeing solid increase in bus driver applications since the beginning of the year, and we need to ramp this up to deliver a better service for the communities.”

“We will be targeting areas that are experiencing the worst shortages like the Sydney’s northwest, northern beaches, eastern suburbs, and inner west, to get more people into the role.”

Transport for NSW will work with KDNB to take active measures to recruit more drivers and return to a full timetable.

“We know that our services are not meeting passenger expectations and we are working hard to get more drivers safely on to the road to return services to where they need to be,” a spokesperson for KDNB said.

“The changes are focused on high frequency route corridors and mainly affect peak hour routes to the CBD and north Sydney.”

Contrarily, the Greens are committed on bringing back the State Transit Authority and end privatisation.

“We need to make public transport a reliable form for those who can’t afford it. We need to get the buses to remove privatisation,” said Veitch.

MP Faehrmann told City Hub that an Upper House inquiry last year recommended that the privatisation of the bus services be struck down.

“The new government is claiming to be working on the issue, but all they’ve done is remove an administrative fee to become a bus driver. This does nothing to retain existing drivers with years of experience and hardly makes a dent in the hundreds of vacancies,” she said.

“The government needs to step up and follow through on those recommendations.”