Are you ready for more bus passengers?

Monday February 1, 2016 – By 2030 there’ll be nearly 30 million people living in Australia. That’s a 25% increase in just over a decade.

92% of those people will live in the major cities, and 25% them will be travelling by public transport (train and bus). Perhaps more importantly, the number of people aged 65 and older will double between now and 2030.

So we’re definitely going to need more buses!

Today there are 90,000 registered buses in Australia, and 3,000 bus operators. The coach sector of the bus industry – comprising long distance, rural, tour, charter and express bus operators – moves more than 1.5 million domestic travellers.

Readiness checklist

For bus operators, this population explosion will mean managing a mixture of cost and service quality Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) like:

• Total cost per service kilometre
• Boardings per service kilometre
• Early and late trips from departure
• Early and late trips at mid-point
• Complaints per 100,000 boardings
• Customer satisfaction
• Average number of Heavy vehicle Inspection Scheme (HVIS) failures per bus per annum

Here are a few questions to help you decide if you’re ready for the additional passenger load and route complexity.

1. What are the major issues currently affecting your business? People issues? Customer expectations? Profit or sales & service issues? Working capital or cash issues? Only by tackling your current challenges will you be are ready for the coming growth and complexity in public transport.
2. What areas of expansion have you identified? E.g. new areas of service, new markets, tenders? Are you planning to buy other businesses or consolidate? All has to match up with the growing and more complex public transport needs.
3. How do you manage your fleet maintenance? E.g. New fleet additions / depot locations? Maintenance plans? Labour budgets? Vehicle and parts budgets? How many bays, usage percentage per day, week, month? Idle time? Why? Quality issues? We are happy to advise you on your maintenance and replacement schedules

If you need help answering any of the above questions, please contact us. We can help you manage all your fleet requirements and maintenance budgets (total cost and performance e.g. parts, part quality, wear costs, labour costs, efficiencies, freight, stock, etc.) and assist with proactive advice, whenever we see an opportunity to help.