Cost savings of using minibuses?
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by mjja » Sat May 03, 7:19 pm
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Hopefully some of our insiders can help me here.
I'm wondering what the relative costs are of using a minibus (22 seater eg Coaster or Rosa) vs a full size bus.
Obviously the initial purchase cost will be less, but how much less? Fuel similarly.
Also is there a difference in the legalities eg registration cost, driver qualification?
Happy Gunzelling and remember, "Go By Rail!"
Michael Angelico
Re: Cost savings of using minibuses?
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by jb17kx » Sun May 04, 9:23 am
One must not forgot to take into account the cost of making all your passengers hate you for using the little poxboxes...
Selected artistic and gunzel photos from my collection - http://www.flickr.com/photos/jb17kx
Re: Cost savings of using minibuses?
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by CB80 » Sun May 04, 5:02 pm
jb17kx wrote:One must not forgot to take into account the cost of making all your passengers hate you for using the little poxboxes...
You have a clear disdain for minibuses going by your signature. Although Piecarts are enough to turn anyone off them.
I've been in a Coaster before, wasn't great but it wasn't horrible.
Re: Cost savings of using minibuses?
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by jb17kx » Sun May 04, 5:39 pm
CB60 wrote:You have a clear disdain for minibuses going by your signature. Although Piecarts are enough to turn anyone off them.
I've been in a Coaster before, wasn't great but it wasn't horrible.
I'll freely admit that. Every experience I've ever had on a mini-bus has been either completely boring or downright horrible. I can certainly accept that there are uses for the things, but as an enthusiast I will go out of my way to avoid utilising them.
Selected artistic and gunzel photos from my collection - http://www.flickr.com/photos/jb17kx
Re: Cost savings of using minibuses?
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by kitkat271 » Sun May 04, 9:04 pm
A fleet manager I once worked with reckoned that there's little difference in terms of costs per km in operating an 8-seat Tarago / 7-seat LandCruiser to a 21/4 seat Rosa or Coaster ... operating cost meaning driver's wages + fuel + actual maintenance costs.
He reckoned that the killer in larger coaches is the financing and the sheer dollar value of the depreciation and the bank / lease repayments to cover them.
Re: Cost savings of using minibuses?
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by mjja » Mon May 05, 8:49 am
Thanks kitkat for that - I guess that would make it a fairly significant cost saving.
However, I do agree that minibuses are a lot less comfortable to ride in. You can't usually stand up inside them, and you have to bend even lower to get through the door - almost like getting out of a car.
The reason for this thread is that it was suggested by a Smart Passengers member that the use of minibuses on routes like 701 might save money which could then be spent elsewhere - and also show the public that the government are prepared to try unusual ideas in an attempt to give a better service.
So far (in the absence of someone saying that the difficulties of having a mixed fleet will cost more than the savings, or something like that), I think I can conclude that the idea has merit but would need to be accepted by the bus company before the government can come down from on high and dictate the use of minibuses.
Happy Gunzelling and remember, "Go By Rail!"
Michael Angelico
Re: Cost savings of using minibuses?
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by 08 XDi » Mon May 05, 10:04 am
mjja wrote:
The reason for this thread is that it was suggested by a Smart Passengers member that the use of minibuses on routes like 701 might save money which could then be spent elsewhere - and also show the public that the government are prepared to try unusual ideas in an attempt to give a better service.
So far (in the absence of someone saying that the difficulties of having a mixed fleet will cost more than the savings, or something like that), I think I can conclude that the idea has merit but would need to be accepted by the bus company before the government can come down from on high and dictate the use of minibuses.
The problem with minibuses is you get what you pay for - mechanically unreliable, underpowered buses which are not capacious enough to be used on a variety of routes. Surfside is the classic example of why minibuses don't work in route service in urban areas - buses that look and feel twice as old as they are given their workload, cannot deal with the terrain of the city and cannot be used except on low patronage services where full length buses would be more appropriate anyway, given the powerplant usually needed for those routes.
I would only bother with minis for regional areas and even now there are plenty of suitable alternatives to full length rigids, such as Bustech's MDi and a variety of short wheelbase Custom or Volgren bodied buses. The only wheelchair accesible minis on offer are themselves cramped and do not offer much in the way of comfort. Image is everything too - poorly built, cramped buses don't attract passengers.
As State Governments now all fund public transport more or less directly and in increasingly larger volumes, the cost for operators of urban routes can't be massive - it is smaller operators that might be worried about those long-term overheads.
The rider for the above is of course this is the PT perspective - for charter and tours operators the differences are going to be much more marked and minibuses will be a lot more viable depending on the particular application.
Elvis has left the building!
Re: Cost savings of using minibuses?
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by railex » Tue May 06, 12:56 am
Well I think there must be some merit in operating smaller buses. As lot of operators around the world do use smaller vehicles on marginal or new routes they are unsure of.
Ill give an example of what i mean:
A few days ago i was with a friend in a car while driving on bang khunthian road. In front of us was the route truck bus. There would have been about 30 people on this truck - bus it was full. My point is that the truck bus itself is nothing more than a V6 1.5 tonne ute.
Assume the truck-bus's fuel consumption is around 1 litre of fuel per 8 km travelled So for the 30 people riding it. it would equal 0.033 litres of fuel per person for each 8km section travelled. The figures for an Expressway van would be around 0.066 litres of fuel per person for each 8km section travelled. This is due to a VAN only holding 15 people.
A metro bus would be much higher as the engine is 3 times the size and the vehicle around 8 times heavier.
I know an air conditioned intercity bus will run for around 12 hours on a full tank of fuel and it cost about baht to fill at 32 baht per litre.
The tank would have held about 156 litres. The round trip distance was about 700km including stops and traffic delays.
The fuel consumption was about 4.4 km travelled per litre.
The bus could seat 48 people.
Therefore the buses per person fuel consumption per 8km would be about 0.041 litres.
For a metro bus it would be even better consumption as the number of people would be much greater. A standard 12 meter metro bus can hold 100 people. assuming similar fuel consumption to the intercity bus.
The Metro bus per person fuel consumption per 8km would be about 0.02 litres.
There are other factors that come into this such as vehicle purchase costs. a truck bus or Expressway VAN would not cost more than AUD$ to buy.
Where as a metro bus would cost between AUD$ and $ brand new.
The driver costs would be similar for all modes as they still have to be paid to drive the vehicles.
The metro bus would have higher cost of servicing and repairs compared to a truck bus or VAN. This also needs to be taken into account.
If the vehicles are on some kind of finance the monthly loan repayments would also need to be factored in.
The last thing to consider is the road suitability some roads maybe too narrow for a large bus to use or the road is of poor quality and a large bus would often get stuck or get damaged.
Therefore it tends to depend a lot on the expected loading of the bus service and how long this loading would occur for each day. If its a busy route you would want to use a large metro bus. But if its a quite route then a truck bus or Van may do better.
I hope this helps
Thai Mass Transport Systems http://thaitransit.blogspot.com/ Check it out now.
Re: Cost savings of using minibuses?
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by Windy » Tue May 06, 8:34 am
It would be cheaper to buy a Hiace van which is actually equipped to safely carry 10-15 people, and not 30 in a ute like some backward country, which due to you banging on constantly, has no doubt turned alot of people off the great kingdom you live in.
Re: Cost savings of using minibuses?
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by VQ » Tue May 06, 5:29 pm
I'd rather be in a Sprinter bus, which is the successer to the pie carts that are still at National, but working on them is twice as hard because of the semi bonneted design, compared with a full size bus which has more space in general.
Re: Cost savings of using minibuses?
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by howlerbus » Tue May 06, 5:34 pm
I have been in a Sprinter a few times on the Dial A Ride town service in Murray Bridge operated by Highway Hiker, and they are a good, comfortable mini bus, better than a Rosa in my opinion.
You got a real flash bus, but my one's flash one, eh
And I believe that my one's faster than yours, Mr Bond
'Cause mine's a
red one'
Re: Cost savings of using minibuses?
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by Member » Sun May 11, 11:07 pm
One problem which would work against the use of mini buses on low patronage routes would be the Accessability issue. With the government and operators aiming towards making all bus services accessible to wheelchair bound people and people who are physically incapacitated, this virtually rules out any standard mini bus from being able to operate on public bus services. This then makes a "midi" vehicle the next available option, of which the bodies would of course be built by your standard bus building entities. With this in mind, I doubt there is any significant cost saving at the end of the day to motivate operators to go ordering smaller buses.
Plus, with the way things are rostered these days, to use an example, a vehicle may only do one or two trips on 701 (low patronage route) and then go on to another busier route afterwards which may suffer with the use of a smaller bus.
There are simply too many variables which make this idea difficult to work in a real life scenario.
Re: Cost savings of using minibuses?
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by Daniel » Mon May 12, 3:59 pm
Eratik,
What about the Bustech designed (but now built by Custom) CB20? That is wheelchair accessbile and there are numerous exmaples of such working well right along the QLD coastline.
Re: Cost savings of using minibuses?
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by leccy » Tue May 13, 9:07 am
Three things have worked against minibuses in the past:
(1) Most operators have traditionally made their money from school runs and charters, with route service being the icing on the cake. For school runs in particular, max capacity is essential, so minibuses are useless.
(2) Minibuses can run low capacity routes only. They can't be used in the peak where high capacity might be needed. Similarly, their crush load is only ever so slightly higher than their seated load. (Ever tried standing on a minibus in route service? I have and it's not fun!)
(3) They are not seen as 'proper' buses by potential passengers and might have difficulty attracting passengers. Their comfort levels are often much lower too.
On the other hand, I do seem to recall that there was a cost saving in that drivers wages were lower for driving <21 seat buses.
An enthusiast can be professional too, but any comment here is a personal comment only.
Re: Cost savings of using minibuses?
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by Ben O » Tue May 13, 11:48 am
leccy wrote:Three things have worked against minibuses in the past:
(1) Most operators have traditionally made their money from school runs and charters, with route service being the icing on the cake. For school runs in particular, max capacity is essential, so minibuses are useless.
(2) Minibuses can run low capacity routes only. They can't be used in the peak where high capacity might be needed. Similarly, their crush load is only ever so slightly higher than their seated load. (Ever tried standing on a minibus in route service? I have and it's not fun!)
(3) They are not seen as 'proper' buses by potential passengers and might have difficulty attracting passengers. Their comfort levels are often much lower too.
On the other hand, I do seem to recall that there was a cost saving in that drivers wages were lower for driving <21 seat buses.
Your arguments seem to ignore the whole objective of the minibus - That is, a small capacity option specialised to low patronage route, school, charter, tour and quite often to disabled transport services. I can think of few urban operators who use minibuses on route service. There are hundreds of rural school runs which use minibuses (known in NSW as category 1 and 2 school runs) as their primary vehicles. In the past many rural operators used minibuses on school runs and then operated them on the mandatory (due to the PTA ) public town run during the day. Of course now that a certain level of service must be DDA, most minibuses are no longer used.
I very much doubt that operators purchase minibuses as a method of saving on money & fuel consumption - I believe it is more to do with the capacity requirements. Still, some operators do buy Toyota Coasters and Mitsubishi Rosas and convert them to bench seats to boost capacity anywhere between 25 and 32 seats. Still, these purchases are in lieu of 30 2x2 seaters, which have been somewhat underrepresented in the marketplace for the past 10 or so years after the demise of the Mercedes LO814.
Re: Cost savings of using minibuses?
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by Ben O » Tue May 13, 11:53 am
leccy wrote:Three things have worked against minibuses in the past:
(1) Most operators have traditionally made their money from school runs and charters, with route service being the icing on the cake. For school runs in particular, max capacity is essential, so minibuses are useless.
(2) Minibuses can run low capacity routes only. They can't be used in the peak where high capacity might be needed. Similarly, their crush load is only ever so slightly higher than their seated load. (Ever tried standing on a minibus in route service? I have and it's not fun!)
(3) They are not seen as 'proper' buses by potential passengers and might have difficulty attracting passengers. Their comfort levels are often much lower too.
On the other hand, I do seem to recall that there was a cost saving in that drivers wages were lower for driving <21 seat buses.
Your arguments seem to ignore the whole objective of the minibus - That is, a small capacity option specialised to low patronage route, school, charter, tour and quite often to disabled transport services. I can think of few urban operators who use minibuses on route service. There are hundreds of rural school runs which use minibuses (known in NSW as category 1 and 2 school runs) as their primary vehicles. In the past many rural operators used minibuses on school runs and then operated them on the mandatory (due to the PTA ) public town run during the day. Of course now that a certain level of service must be DDA, most minibuses are no longer used.
I very much doubt that operators purchase minibuses as a method of saving on money & fuel consumption - I believe it is more to do with the capacity requirements. Still, some operators do buy Toyota Coasters and Mitsubishi Rosas and convert them to bench seats to boost capacity anywhere between 25 and 32 seats. Still, these purchases are in lieu of 30 (2x2) seaters, which have been somewhat underrepresented in the marketplace for the past 10 or so years after the demise of the Mercedes LO814.
Re: Cost savings of using minibuses?
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by eddy » Mon Jun 09, 10:49 am
Hi mjja
This may be a little off the thread but if something like a 8 seater Kia Carnival were provided to a couple of volunteers in each suburb for private use on condition they take turns with a mobile picking up people from their homes and taking them to shops, bus stops, doctors, railway stations etc. and returning them so all a person has to do is sms or call that one number. I do not know the economics of it but I believe some councils provide something like this now for a flat fee of $6 per person.
Parrahub, an extra option in the public transport menu http://www.parrahub.org.au/
Re: Cost savings of using minibuses?
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by 1whoknows » Thu Jun 12, 1:09 pm
tenglong contains other products and information you need, so please check it out.
Coming back to mjja's quoted example of route 701 - he's quite correct in saying the patronage over the day doesn't really justify full size buses.
However my Ventura mates inform me that at school times there are a couple of trips which are full to overcrowding. So while the minibus might be Ok the rest of the day, it would have to be hidden somewhere else between 8-9am and 3-4pm for a big bus and second driver to come out and cover those trips - and there is no readily available other place to operate such a bus during those hours.
Combine that with the requirement for DDA compliant buses and it starts to make just as much sense to run the larger bus all day.
The only places that midibuses seem to have genuinely worked are where the route services and school buses have been completely separated - as occurred for a few years at Penrith and is still the case in all of the Sunbus locations barring maybe Toowoomba.
Anyway with my enthusiast hat on - who the hell wants to encourage more Coasters and pie carts anyway? Coasters, Hi Aces and Rosas are fine for shuttle type operations, small school runs and small group tours but lets leave em on that work and away from timetabled route services.
"Inside Every Progressive Is A Totalitarian Screaming To Get Out"
David Horowitz.
Re: Cost savings of using minibuses?
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by jarf » Fri Jun 13, 3:13 pm
Perfect for routes 701 and 704:
inv-36.jpg
Random Gunzel Insanity - http://jarfness.blogspot.com/
Re: Cost savings of using minibuses?
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by 1whoknows » Fri Jun 13, 4:00 pm
No - as stated above it would not cater for the 60 or so student loads.
"Inside Every Progressive Is A Totalitarian Screaming To Get Out"
David Horowitz.
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