You’re not wrong, but something’s gotta give. The gate entry is only a part of the equation. Look at the RMB income, part of it is from gate entry but a huge part of it is from site fees from lease holders. There are very few businesses that are being advantaged by this tipping of the numbers towards sightseers and the resulting poor experience by skiers & boarders as a result. The amount of privately funded infrastructure on the hill is nearly entirely geared towards catering for skiers and boarders, and if I was a major stakeholder I would be absolutely filthy and demanding answers. As I’ve mentioned a few times before this is the tail wagging the dog and it’s going to reach a tipping point.
ahh so they did....i missed this year's update by the looks..I will take a read.... @JuLe I would take a guess the main reason they are on Bourke Street is because there is no/limted other snow elsewhere...and also limted other areas to congregate.... Mt Buller does not have a big area for mass day snow sightseers regardless of how they get to the village.
100% agree with you on this. Regularly see clueless folk and even families with toddlers etc wandering around in the middle of the slope with out of control skiers and boarders flying inches past. Happens every day. Breathtaking lack of common sense all round.
I certainly acknowledge the problem. Just can't see it being a viable answer to discriminate on the basis of what activity people are doing in the resort. Offering a discount for people to avoid peak times might possibly be viable. Possibly a cheaper gate entry where you leave by 2, and maybe arrive after 9:30?
Maybe Buller could just send the mobile snow factory to the You Yangs each year and set up a toboggan slope there for sightseers. Imagine the petrol savings.
Couldn’t agree more, No resort can retain a charming alpine environment with thousands of tobogganers standing around waiting up to 2hrs for a bus to take them to a car park.
Sorry if this question sounds simple but is it literally just a need for 3 or 4 more buses doing loops during peak times? How hard can it be? Surely it’s in the contract. Why isn’t the RMB pulling the operator up on it?
The resort had 12 buses running on both days, the car parks hit capacity on Saturday, both up top and at Mirimbah. At some point you can't handle more buses in the village. Both Lake Mountain and Baw Baw are having similar issues will dealing with growing numbers, only those two get over $7million between them a year to help out with running costs, Buller gets ZERO. Melbourne keeps growing, the number of Alpine area is not growing. The only way to help all resorts is for the government to give some money back, the flow on effect from this industry is huge, but the downstream funds don't support the source, Snow. Yet we now pay to make it, it's not just falling from the sky for free, like it did 30+ years ago.
The conspiracy theorist inside me, and I hasten to add that this is completely my theory and not based on anything I’ve seen or heard etc, is that the rubber band could be being stretched deliberately, so when the move to shift snowplayers to Mt Stirling the case is unquestionable due to the overcrowding and clear public demand. VNPA is perhaps girding their loins for such a move with campaigns such as this: https://vnpa.org.au/mt-stirling/
Been happening since the 70's, there used to be a sign up there warning people to not walk on the ski run. Just there are a lot more people sight seeing now.
I’d hazard a guess that Buller’s relatively impactful marketing leaves many naively thinking it’s the closest/best snowplay option. CM raises an interesting point above. Why would Buller not plow ahead towards a visitation ‘crisis point’ purely as a means to an end...
I cannot understand how they say " the carparks were full. " in previous years they have parked day trippers in Walkers and Chalet Carpark , Rocky cutting . Caravan corner. Roadside. Andrews Carpark and also the Plough shed. ... then they park cars at Mirimbah
can they tweak the cost of park&ride compared to normal entry so that sightseers will be more likely to leave cars at the base?
Not especially - it's around 75% of the cost, but the (unsold) benefit is that there are no chains required for hire.
I'm not sure what the arrangement for the buses is, but separating them out to have one dedicated to the full run down to the entry, rather than going to the regular day park, dropping off people, then continuing on down the hill would be great.
I went up to pick up my daughter on Saturday afternoon. Drove past Mirimbah at 345pm and there was a queue of several hundred people with kids and toboggans still waiting for buses to come and pick them up and take them up the mountain. No idea how long they'd been waiting but they weren't realistically getting into the village until 415pm at absolute best. Not trying to have a pop at the RMB here, just pointing out how desperate this situation has become and that Mirimbah is not always a great option due to the logisitics of it all. I dare say some of them arrived way too late, but at the end of the day Joe Public doesn't expect or know you need to be at the car park by 11am (or whatever) on a weekend. Mirimbah is a great idea in theory but it seems on weekends that even that has become overloaded. The demand for day parking is truly incredible.
This, honestly, is half the reason I have been considering using a bus to get to and from Buller in late August, rather than driving as a group of three. Going up the hill on a Tuesday shouldn't be too bad, I hope (although we are trying to make sure that we get there early to make the most of the potential snowboarding), but leaving on Friday afternoon/evening? That has the potential to be an expletive fight. Even worse is that I would have the option of catching the Northside Express down to the carpark, but at least one of the folks coming with me is a non-skier who mainly wants to have a nice relaxed snow vacation, and so she would need to go the taxi option, which is still fraught with difficulty.
I posted a review and bad rating (1 star) of Travel Safe Bus Hire on TrustPilot. I would encourage others unhappy about the situation to do the same. Here is the company’s reply: Reply from Travel Safe Bus Hire Pty Ltd 19 hours ago Hi Philip, Our apologies for your experience, we are seeing a record number of visitors to the Mountain this year and yes, we are experiencing early teething problems. But it is also worth noting that the outgoing operator who didn't tender for this season, has for whatever reason made it as difficult as possible for the transition. We have had a number of staff who had agreed to start being offered more money to stay where they are or indeed not to do anything. We have also had other local operators take on work and then for no reason pull off the work to cause maximum disruption. Before taking this contract we were briefed on numerous issues, long waiting lists, calls not being answered, etc. One only has to look at previous reviews on say Facebook to see that these issues have been long running - for years. We were locked out of the transport office for two months due to disputes between the outgoing provider and RMB - this along with mountain being opened early have all contributed to our service being below par. We wholeheartedly agree that the service currently on some days has not met our standards. As a team and with the support of RMB, we are working hard to improve services - we are running additional weekly training courses, we will be running our third Hazard Driving course shortly. We have more and more people booking via the app and tracking the taxis and shuttles. Booking stations are being rolled out to many hotels this week. Our improvements to the service can be measured in days not years and we fully expect that in the very near future you will feel confident to rate us with a 4 or 5 star. Thank you for taking the time to relay your concerns and feedback, which in all cases provides us with the opportunity to further review and improve our service levels. The TravelSafe Management Team
That's... actually a fairly measured and even handed response to a bad review. Owning up to their own failings, explaining some of the behind-the-scenes machinations that are causing an additional impact, and providing clarity on the measures they are taking to remedy the situation.
Yeah, I agree. It does seem like they've been royally screwed over. This doesn't help your average punter unfortunately but is no doubt incredibly frustrating for them. I think it's fair to say they have also made mistakes themselves so maybe it's just been a perfect storm of issues that's played out over the first month or so. They really need to turn this around quickly now though as they have burnt a lot of customers - seems like they are trying their best to remedy this. If the snow eventuates and skiers can start skiing to northside they will get some breathing space for a while. But I think if this thread has shown anything it's that there is more to this issue than the tenderer just solving the poor level of service in the short term. The RMB also needs to get its act together and come up with a credible plan that demonstrates that they can solve the issues present in the bigger picture. Removing the long term plan of linking the car park to the village with something more permanent doesn't fill me with confidence but maybe they have other ideas on how it can be solved.
https://www.mtbuller.com.au/Winter/resort-info/employment No different to all the other business looking for staff.
If you read it they are looking to "employ" any drivers to drive the approved 4WD Taxi fleet up there which requires driver accreditation that Uber driver and Taxi drivers all have by law. "Must have Commerical Passengers Accreditation,$48.50 Per Hour, Can Supply Accommodation. " Id assume they are posting in any forums there would be Commercial Passenger accredited drivers rather then just using general employment listings. At the hourly rate they are paying Id jump on it if I still had my Taxi Licence.
A kitchen hand doesn’t need to drive me to my accom in dangerous conditions, and it’s just a further indication the transition to the new operator has been far from seamless.
Or it shows they are proactive toward resolving the driver shortage and getting people moving rather then sitting in their arse like MMBL / RMB giving zero ****s about patrons line up for 2 hours to get to the carpark.
