New transit provider at Mt Buller

The "Park & Ride SnowPlay" option will hopefully reduce the pressure on the mountain car parks on those weekends

 

Hope they took note of the lessons learnt from the Hotham experience when changing bus provider...

 

What lessons were they? (For those of us who don't know Hotham)

 

How do they compare to last year?

 

• The buses were too infrequent, leading to buses being full past 2 major stops. Sometimes passengers could not board at all on 2, sometimes 3 buses in a row, leading to long wait times
• Drivers were unfamiliar with the resort, where exactly certain stops were etc
• No ski racks on side of buses, exacerbating dot pt 1

If this happens at Buller, it will be an unmitigated disaster...

 

I’m glad it’s been shaken up but given we’re going through teething right now, it was my first thought.......

I still think that the Buller Village should be accessible to vehicles on a 3 stage system:

1) Road clear, all overnight 2WD can access village for 15 min drop off
2) Bit of snow, all overnight 4WD can access for 15 min drop off
3) Lots of snow, only permit 4WD can access village as per current arrangements.

 

Let’s resurface that Stirling loop already!

 

I don’t think this would work. I think there would be to many cars in the villlage.

My preference would be to allow to allow people with access passes being allowed to pick up and drop off to the car parks.


Nice to see no price rise.

 

Never going to stop the Friday night arrivals and Sunday arvo departures.

Anyone know how MMBL took the news that they lost the contract?

I

 

Interesting they didn’t put in a tender. Wonder why?

 

Made a shit load of money and got out.

 

I am guessing also that after all the previous issues with the old executive the CEO was happy for it to be pushed out for tender. But yes, interesting that MMBL didn't bother with even having a go.

 

They probably knew the writing was on the wall, I heard whispers that the RMB were trying to shake things up prior to last winter but MMBL dragged their feet knowing that Winter would halt any progress.

 

Is there going to be a service from Mansfield to the Mountain ? Buller web site has last years info
I always park in Mansfield and catch the bus up.

 

Yes. There will be a route service like in the past

 

Village permit holders will have complimentary shuttles to the village from lower Tirol this year. Ie overflow car parking is no longer in csir.

Does anyone have any details about the shuttle? Is it a stand alone taxi running loops or do you have to fight it out for regular taxis with everyone else?

I ask because last year when I didn’t have a village permit I parked in lower Tirol every weekend and the wait for a taxi was an hour on Friday nights. It was completely unworkable.

 

This....

 

Be keen to know how the transition to the new provider is coming along - a couple of weeks ago the mail was that things were very much unfinished and the process was becoming quite messy.

 

I heard at Easter that MMBL was challenging the RMB's authority to remove their right to operate the taxis. They are happy to give up the shuttles.

I also heard that the new provider was not guaranteed exclusivity in their contract so there is a possibility there could be 2 taxi services this winter.

 

30 day's to go

 

Some competition would be very good.

 

That all sounds well under control

Can certainly understand MMBL stepping away from the shuttles. They really needed updating, and this was possibly even a mandatory under any new contract? Big outlay.

 

You guys should get some proper "disruption" going. Everyone with a permit should sign up to be an Uber driver!

 

I'm just waiting for people with electric skateboards/scooters to whizz themselves up from the carpark.

 

The proximity of the new Corn Hill Rd carpark extension, particularly to the eastern end of the village, just screams Stealth Bike.

 

the local paper has reported that Bendigo Coach lines are no longer involved

 

What does that mean?

 

You actually read it? I just buy it to get the fire going!

 

ha. we normally dont waste our money buying it

 

Bendigo Coachlines will be Travel Safe Australia’s primary fleet partner, providing new village shuttle buses, new carpark shuttle buses, and new valet taxis. this was cut and pasted from the original post on this thread

 

That doesn’t sound ideal.

 

I know nothing about this deal but in my experience of proposals/deals in other spheres, the solution bid may be quite some way from the solution delivered.

The OP said the contract would be with Travel Safe Australia. They may have painted a plausible scenario based on partnering with a particular company but not been contractually bound to use anyone in particular. They may well have been free to cobble together whatever sub-contracts they wanted to.

 

MMBL might be willing to assist?

 

at easter (the Saturday morning) the new provider was pushing their app and being able to see their realtime location of taxis etc...I tried to download it and login...it doesn't seem to work for me on iOS....

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/travelsafe-supply-partner/id1386741345?mt=8

 

means there was some very quick running around and, I'm led to believe, Travel Safe have it sorted

 

Touché.

Terrible rag, but what can you expect in this day and age.

I remember two years ago when the front page was ‘New CEO for the RMB’ - it was nothing but an advertising feature for the forthcoming season, it made no mention of the reasoning to why there was a new CEO which was the real story.

The journalist wouldn’t have had to do any investigation to tell the real story, the information was that readily available. However with the RMB being a big spender of advertising in the rag, the newspaper knew where it’s interests were and decided to publish a pathetic article instead....I’ll get Paul Barry onto it!

 

As someone who drove up to the day car park almost every day of the season last year I'm most interested in whether they can improve the bus service from the day car park to the village. Was able to just use the horse hill lift a lot of the time last year but our situation this year requires access to the village using the bus every weekday unfortunately. based on last year I'm preparing to be underwhelmed by the frequency of this service most of the time. Was there some talk of real time info or was that just for the taxis? Some indication of how long we might be waiting for a bus in the car park would be a step in the right direction...

 

did you buy this weeks paper,, oh sorry firelighter

 

Now, please correct me if I'm wrong and before the thread goes too off topic. I get a lot of customers who are doing a day trip to Buller. Are you saying that if they park at Mirimbah and catch the bus to the top, it's $46 to park and all the occupants to enter the resort for the day? If so, is there a timetable for the bus? This would be a great scheme to free up parking for the overnighters. Many day trippers are scared of the road, and chains.

 

Yes that's my understanding and yes it's a great idea. NFI on the timetable, I would imagine it's a continuous service on those 8 key weekends.

 

Where are chains normally required from? Before Mirimbah or after? Actually, where do they have to be carried from? Because if it means people don't even need to hire chains - it's a bargain!!

 

Carried from Mirimbah, so yes you're right it's killing many birds with one stone, as well as lessening the impact on the on-mountain carparks and also more unwilling/nervous drivers off the road.

Shame what happened to precipitate the change, but within the constraints of the idiotic alpine resorts act, the new buller rmb management appears to be doing a good job.