New contracts for about a third of Melbourne's bus routes commenced a week ago today. This involved some shuffling of routes between operators and the exit of three smaller operators. Bus operators gaining new routes include CDC, Kinetic and Dysons (in order of number of routes gained).
We know that CDC routes are going through a rough trot with unresolved industrial unrest stopping or severely curtailing services for several days in the last month. Not only that but further strikes loom not only for CDC but also Kinetic routes this Thursday 10 July 2025.
But what about services on other days and for other operators?
But what about services on other days and for other operators?
There have been some critical social media posts but before rushing to conclusions I would rather first look at hard performance data after a settling-in period. The latter poses a risk because a switch to a different bus fleet is involved; this is far more than just a simple replacement of old senior managers with new senior managers like with (say) a Yarra Trams or Metro Trains changeover.
More than just a few management changes
This work required included significant recruitment, driver training and familiarisation, as captured in this Kinetic Linked-in post below.
Given incoming operators gave assurances that they could do this, one hopes contract managers at DTP are keeping a close eye on performance.
Without such oversight there is no way of knowing whether the new contracts are delivering service equal to or better than what operated before July 1. That's important because driving performance improvement and better value should be their whole rationale.
Vigilance is particularly required here given the varied history of contract management. Victoria has sometimes been a good place in which to be a low performer. Even if you lose a contract involvement in or around even a major crisis (such as the Transdev bus fleet safety affair of 2017) does not preclude your career or business bouncing back bigger than ever a few years later (like when Transdev won the tram franchise in 2024).
Transport operator chiefs often have life-long professional backgrounds in running transport but DTP executives often don't, leading to potential mismatches. The old saw about the person with money meeting the person with experience such that the person with experience gets the money while the person with money gets the experience springs to mind.
DTP should be mindful of risks such as regulatory capture, perverse incentives, skill asymmetries, gold-plating, low-balling, special pleading and executives 'failing upwards' with effective safeguards erected against them. As well DTP may face pressures from others in government to cut cost, but if these go too far then there can be false economies.
This work required included significant recruitment, driver training and familiarisation, as captured in this Kinetic Linked-in post below.
Management teams and systems have had to have been integrated. Plus new buses, different depots and revised rosters. All happening while keeping existing services running (a full-time challenge in itself). So it's been a huge amount of work for all involved.
Contract performance managementGiven incoming operators gave assurances that they could do this, one hopes contract managers at DTP are keeping a close eye on performance.
Without such oversight there is no way of knowing whether the new contracts are delivering service equal to or better than what operated before July 1. That's important because driving performance improvement and better value should be their whole rationale.
Vigilance is particularly required here given the varied history of contract management. Victoria has sometimes been a good place in which to be a low performer. Even if you lose a contract involvement in or around even a major crisis (such as the Transdev bus fleet safety affair of 2017) does not preclude your career or business bouncing back bigger than ever a few years later (like when Transdev won the tram franchise in 2024).
Transport operator chiefs often have life-long professional backgrounds in running transport but DTP executives often don't, leading to potential mismatches. The old saw about the person with money meeting the person with experience such that the person with experience gets the money while the person with money gets the experience springs to mind.
DTP should be mindful of risks such as regulatory capture, perverse incentives, skill asymmetries, gold-plating, low-balling, special pleading and executives 'failing upwards' with effective safeguards erected against them. As well DTP may face pressures from others in government to cut cost, but if these go too far then there can be false economies.
The stakes here are high, not just in providing an efficient transport system but also to the budget bottom line, as Victorian taxpayers pay out hundreds of millions per month in payments to transport operators. I've said more about transport management here and here.
Data reporting
Something that can help accountability is data transparency and reporting.
Data reporting
Something that can help accountability is data transparency and reporting.
PTV reports daily performance here. You can see network performance for the past week or so by day. Metro Trains, Yarra Trams and V/Line trains are included. There isn't much lag between the day and when it is reported on. However, as the 'forgotten mode', daily bus performance is not reported.
Monthly performance is here. This does include metropolitan bus. To get a fair idea you would need both June (previous operators) and July data (current operators). If processes are similar as for train and tram this is likely to come out around the 10th of July for June and the 10th of August for July. However to get a proper appreciation you'd need it to be broken down by route and preferably also by day so you can compare the performance of routes that changed operator and those that didn't. (Remember this as we'll unexpectedly return here)
The third approach is via the interactive dashboard . This provides route level data that you can view on graphs. Like with the daily data mentioned above, this only used to be available for Metro Trains, Yarra Trams and V/Line trains. However bus performance data by route was added in July 2021 with the government media release saying that it was part of the Bus Plan.
This has data only up to June 2024 for buses, with a screenshot below.
Monthly performance is here. This does include metropolitan bus. To get a fair idea you would need both June (previous operators) and July data (current operators). If processes are similar as for train and tram this is likely to come out around the 10th of July for June and the 10th of August for July. However to get a proper appreciation you'd need it to be broken down by route and preferably also by day so you can compare the performance of routes that changed operator and those that didn't. (Remember this as we'll unexpectedly return here)
The third approach is via the interactive dashboard . This provides route level data that you can view on graphs. Like with the daily data mentioned above, this only used to be available for Metro Trains, Yarra Trams and V/Line trains. However bus performance data by route was added in July 2021 with the government media release saying that it was part of the Bus Plan.
This has data only up to June 2024 for buses, with a screenshot below.
What if you want 2025 data? Getting this is quite a chore. There's a little link on the bottom right. But instead of it taking you to a dashboard covering 2025 it loops you back to the monthly page (the same one we saw before). This is where it's important to read the fine print below. Because if you click where the arrow is (below) and you get a new format dashboard with bus as one of the selections. Save the rigmarole of the above by clicking the direct link and scrolling to the bottom.
This takes you to a new-look dashboard, as below:
Route numbers are there but are grouped by operator so you may need to select several before you find yours. It will be interesting how the presentation copes with the operator changes for some routes after July 1, especially if comparing before and after performance over a period that straddles the changeover.
The latest data is up to May but June's is likely to appear soon.
We'll need July's for a fair comparison - that is a month's operation under the new arrangements.
To conclude then, we are likely to know in early August how well the transition to the new arrangements has gone. At least initially.
We'll need July's for a fair comparison - that is a month's operation under the new arrangements.
To conclude then, we are likely to know in early August how well the transition to the new arrangements has gone. At least initially.
3 comments:
Thanks for reminding me in Kinetic heartland to not to go anywhere on "Sunday" (Thursday) the 10th when everything is once an hour with no evening services or even anything at all for the entire day since that's what a Sunday timetable exists for in Victoria.
Note to the CDC/Kinetic drivers rostered on during the strike, remember to also turn off the myki readers on the few services that are actually running otherwise you're still throwing money away.
Really the strike should go for at least a week otherwise the government will just take it on the chin and get its money elsewhere like raising the fares beyond CPI ($20 fares by 2030 sounds about right, unless they copy Brisbane and then let the unmaintained PT network burn to make up for the revenue loss). Expect it to go up by a decent chunk anyway after they make under-18 fares free next year.
Without some commonsense changes around Reservoir, nothing improves on routes or frequency for me. Back to the car mostly.
That's the government's entire plan. Wean people from their petrol cars into government-subsidised "green" EVs by deliberately keeping PT at absolute-last-resort levels of usefulness.
If Victorian Labor was even remotely serious about improving PT, the SmartBus services (and equivalent e.g. 200, 207, 216, 220, 246, 302, 402, 670, 767) would be every 10 minutes from 5:30AM until 10PM and every 15 at every time, seven days a week, likewise with trains and trams (the 75 has a 23-minute weekday evening gap, weekday services are actually less frequent than Saturdays), with services only dropping to every 30 minutes between midnight and 5AM as Night Network services (also operating seven days). But no, Liberal lite does Liberal lite and proceeds to build a tollway to sell off to a for-profit multinational for half a century. And a busway in the middle of a railway reserve to put paid to ever having a train to Doncaster, so the bus can get stuck in traffic the instant the freeway ends, where it also losing its own road (bus lane) to parked cars as soon as the sun sets.
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