New South Wales based operator Busways has announced the appointment of a new Zero-Emissions Bus Transition Manager to the team as it hosted Transport for NSW at three of its depots.
The new appointment, Siddarth Rallapalli, hosted the TfNSW Macquarie Park bus depot delivery team on site visits at three Busways depots.
For the tours, Penrith manager Georgette Golding joined Rallapalli and head of assets and safety Chris Wolf to lead the tour of Busways’ custom-built Penrith depot.
From driver workflows to integrating zero-emissions buses, the tour showed the TfNSW team the ropes, with their feedback labelling it “an invaluable experience to see the inner workings of the different depots, the site constraints and alternative layouts used”.
Following this, the property team brought TfNSW to the Willoughby and Ryde depots that are Busways operated but government owned.
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Since transitioning into the Region 7 contract in 2022, Busways says it has made improvements to safety equipment, driver facilities and training rooms to help with driver attraction and retention, with more renovation plans to come.
“The Transport team were particularly interested in our depot layouts, the reasoning behind our design choices, and how we plan for efficient workflows across admin and operations control offices, driver facilities, workshops, bus washing and fuelling, and bus movement in the depot,” Busways says.
“It had us thinking about how much goes into depot design. We’ve learned over 80 years of building and retrofitting depots that efficiency and sustainability are key. But just as important is creating spaces that people want to work in – spaces that make a difference in attracting and retaining talent in our industry.
“With 20 depots of varying ages and designs, modernising them is never simple, but it’s a challenge Busways takes seriously.
“These visits are part of Busways’ consulting role to Transport’s Public Transport Project team for development of the new all-electric Macquarie Park depot in Region 7.”
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