Temporary bus service changes in Sydney's South and South West

We understand you rely on our services and the difficulty and frustration many people are facing from the recent performance of the Operator (U-Go Mobility).

Transport for NSW has assisted U-Go Mobility to make a number of changes to operations which aim to reduce the number of ad-hoc cancellations and improve the journey predictability and visibility of bus services using online trip planning applications. Changes include:

1. Rolled out temporary timetable adjustments to bus services in Region 10. These have been live on trip planners since 31 July 2023 for passengers to view.
2. Deployed bus marshalls at key interchanges, including Hurstville, Bankstown, Sutherland and Miranda, to help passengers on their journey.
3. Posters have been installed on buses and at key bus interchanges advising passengers of changes to bus services.
4. Additional operator support recruited into day-to-day bus operations, including dedicated resources to monitor U-Go Mobility bus routes and provide support and assistance as necessary.
5. Transport operations expertise and support to the operator including traffic commander with bussing background and on-site depot operations.
6. Prioritised dedicated school services, those with a number starting with an ‘S’ (eg. S001), to reduce impact to school students.
7. Identified and prioritised public service routes used by large numbers of local school students.
8. Established a U-Go Mobility Stakeholder and Communications Manager who is working with local schools to maintain regular communication related to impacted school services and to proactively manage school feedback.

Some service delays may be experienced in the short term, whilst these changes are happening. Transport for NSW will continue to work with operators to ensure suspended services are reinstated as soon as possible.

Passengers will need to check the Trip Planner or similar trip planning mobile applications each day for the latest information on available services before making their journey.

For all feedback, please contact Transport for NSW on 131500 or via the online Transport for NSW feedback form.

We are prioritising our resources to running all School Specials, services beginning with an 'S'. Given the driver shortage we are experiencing, we have reduced the number of trips on regular routes (services which do not begin with an 'S' across the region.

We appreciate there are a number of school students who rely on regular route services to get to and from school. We thank you for providing your feedback. We have taken this on board and have reinstated regular route trips that have school stops or have a high level of student activity.

U-Go Mobility circulated a letter regarding these changes to all local schools on 28 July.

Additional steps we are taking to address the current challenges:

1. Communicating directly with schools when services are running late
2. Directing all drivers to pick up school students who are waiting at stops
3. Redirecting buses to return and pick up students if/when issues occur
4. Reminding drivers to follow drop-off/pick-up procedures and follow their routes, including specific instructions for schools locations at drop-off or pick-up

U-Go Mobility has implemented simplified route instructions for drivers as of 24 July. Operational changes have also been introduced to limit the number of routes drivers are assigned to, so drivers are able to quickly become more familiar with the local routes you rely on.

In Sydney’s south and southwest, U-Go Mobility have accelerated a driver recruitment campaign and introduced referral and loyalty bonuses to their existing workforce. In the long term, the new operator is seeking to establish a driving school to help new recruits with heavy licence accreditation.

U-Go Mobility is working tirelessly to address driver shortages and encourage anyone interested in becoming a bus driver to apply through the U-Go Mobility website: https://u-gomobility.com/careers/.

U-Go Mobility has implemented new daily instructions to drivers to reinforce the importance of maintaining timetable operations of the day, including on time departure times. Passengers are thanked for their patience and understanding while new driver challenges are worked through.

Updated bus information will be available daily on the Trip Planner and trip planning apps.

Passengers are also recommended to arrive to their bus stop five minutes before their scheduled departure time.

As buses travel to and from depots and between service routes, they are not operating passenger services. Displays on these buses should indicate 000 or Not in Service. Sometimes, drivers have not remember to make these changes. U-Go Mobility will continue to remind drivers to display either the ‘service route number’ or ‘Not in Service’, whenever a bus is outside a depot.

We understand your frustration and while every effort is made to provide customers with accurate trip information, there are times when live information on the apps is affected by what is happening on the Transport network.

Occasionally, the real time data feed may be temporarily unavailable as it depends on network availability. There are also times when a service is changed or cancelled at the last minute, and the data update may not reach the real time apps in time to be received by customers. In this instance, apps provide timetabled service information (static data) and a ‘Real-time data unavailable’ message is displayed.

Transport for NSW is currently improving processes to push delayed/cancellation information to the real-time information trip planners and departure board apps to better inform customers when unplanned service disruptions occur.