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Dark silhouettes up ahead outlined by striking neon lights and bouncing laser beams isn’t for the fainthearted at the best of times, but at an unknown band’s music concert it is quite the cool thing. I think… While I love my music I’d never really taken the time to listen to Fat Boy Slim’s albums in full, but I totally loved the name. Why? I’d empathised. Big time. Being ‘a fat boy’ who ‘wanted to be slim’. Too easy… Anyway, in my musical-appreciation spectrum – we all have one – FBS slipped into the category of ‘OMG! Yeah, I know these guys – now’, which invariably comes after hearing the first bits of their most famous track. And you’ve heard it, too! The full eerie, techie synthesizer stuff that builds…
TRANSIT SYSTEMS NSW has maintained its ‘integration level’ certification of International Customer Service Standard, it reports. The repeat ‘integration level’ on the 2021 International Customer Service Standard (ICSS) from the Customer Service Institute of Australia (CSIA) follows a “comprehensive health check”, Transit Systems confirms. This check examined the NSW operator’s financial/governance, operational and learning and growth perspectives – and then rated its progress in terms of “intention, implementation and integration”, it explains. The ICSS uses a ‘balanced scorecard methodology’ to assess the efficiency and effectiveness of an organisation’s strategy, with the standard being recognised and used by the world’s leading organisations, it adds. The process of certification takes a collective organisational approach and challenges an organisation to consider how it embraces and delivers a complete and thorough customer focus in…
TO REDUCE commuting times and help ease congestion, the Tasmanian government – in collaboration with operator Metro Tasmania – is adding more than 40 new express bus services for the southern-Hobart Kingborough area, it’s been announced. The move gives more public transport options for growing number of commuters living in those southern areas with the extra 43 express bus services (not “nearly 90”, as reported elsewhere) between Kingborough and Hobart set to start from 30 January, 2022, the state government confirms. The new routes are part of the Hobart City Deal – Southern Projects initiative and will service the Blackmans Bay, Kingston and Channel areas, it states. The new Metro Tasmania services will run weekdays during the morning and afternoon peak periods, it adds. In total there will be 14…
LAUNCESTON-based family bus operator Sainty’s is now officially part of operator Kinetic, joining its already established Skybus Hobart and Tasmanian Redline shuttle and bus operations, the company confirms. Sainty’s North East Bus Service owners Rob and Fruncine Sainty announced the sale of their family-run business after almost two decades. The much-loved bus company has supported communities in Launceston and the north-east for 18 years, holding two long-term contracts with the Department of State Growth to operate bus services, Kinetic explains. From Tuesday, 1 February, these services are now being delivered by Kinetic with the Sainty’s vehicles and drivers joining Kinetic’s Tasmanian Redline business, the operator confirms. Well known for its iconic Skybus airport express business – which launched in Hobart in 2018 – Kinetic is the largest bus network in…
IN EXCESS OF 1,200 nominations for the belated 2021 Queensland Translink Bus Driver of the Year Awards have been received, sparking high anticipation for the forthcoming finalists’ shortlist and then category winners’ announcement at QBIC’s 2022 Annual Conference, due to take place 8–9 April, organisers confirm. Nominators were actively encouraged to help their favourite bus driver receive recognition, as the awards recognise the important contribution of bus drivers across the state. The Awards will be split into the following three categories: Regional bus drivers (Qconnect and Translink drivers in regional centres outside of South East Queensland); South East Queensland urban bus drivers (covering Brisbane, the Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast, Logan, Ipswich, Moreton and Redlands council areas); and school bus drivers (all school bus drivers in all cities and towns). Acting…
NATIONAL bus operator ComfortDelGro Corporation Australia (CDC) has helped deliver to one of its community partners – sleepbus.org – a potentially life-saving ex-CDC bus for use in the local Maroochydore, Queensland, community, it’s been announced. The sleepbus.org charity – which is focused on providing “…safe, temporary, overnight accommodation to people sleeping rough,” through its volunteer-built, customised retired buses – launched its latest vehicle at an event held at the Maroochy Neighbourhood Centre, recently. The new sleepbus provides refuge for up to 17 guests per night in self-contained, lockable sleeping pods. It also offers clean sheets and pillows, TV, USB phone charging ports, climate control and each pod has its own toilet, CDC explains. The bus will join the Maroochy Neighbourhood Centre’s services for the homeless, which includes hot meals, laundry…
