User:EamonM25/Brisbane Transport

Volgren bodied MAN 18.310
Parent	Brisbane City Council
Founded	1925
Service area	Brisbane
Service type	Bus services
Depots	7
Fleet	1,228 (July 2019)

Transport for Brisbane (TfB) is a business unit of Brisbane City Council, operating bus services under the TransLink integrated public transport scheme in Brisbane.

History

Double deck horse tram at the northern end of the first permanent Victoria Bridge c.1890

The origins of Brisbane Transport can be traced to August 1885 where the Metropolitan Tramways & Investment Company established a service in Brisbane under franchise from the Queensland Government with 18 horse trams. The tram system remained in private hands until January 1923 when the Queensland government established the Brisbane Tramways Trust, compulsorily acquiring the tram network and supporting infrastructure, then in 1925 creating the Brisbane City Council and transferring responsibility for the tram network to the council. Before the council withdrew support in 1961, the council supported the tram network by expanding it to a peak of 175 kilometres (109 mi) with over 400 trams.

Bus services commenced in 1925 by the Brisbane City Council. Brisbane City Council shut down bus services due to financial loss in November 1927. Bus services recommenced 13 years later, in July 1940 with 12 Albion Valkyries. In 1948 the Brisbane City Council acquired 20 operators with 67 buses.

The first Rocket services began on the morning of 18 April 1977 between Garden City and the Brisbane CBD. These services were based on the idea that bus travel time could be reduced to less than the travel time by car by the removal of most embarkation stops.

In the 1990s, Brisbane City Council corporatised its transport services to form Brisbane Transport, a council-owned commercial businesses managed at arm's length from the council and providing consultancy services back to it.

Infrastructure

Main article: Busways in Brisbane

Brisbane Transport operates services along dedicated busway infrastructure to avoid peak hour traffic congestion on roads closest to the Brisbane CBD.

Services

Bus upgrade zone

Main article: Bus upgrade zone

BUZ sign at a bus stop

Bus upgrade zones (BUZ) are high-frequency bus routes mostly running direct to the Cultural Centre. All BUZ services run at least every fifteen minutes from around 06:00 to 23:00 seven days a week and at least every ten minutes during peak hours from Monday to Friday.

CityGlider

Main article: CityGlider

T2825 to West End

CityGlider is a high frequency pre-paid bus service around the Brisbane CBD, operating every five minutes during peak and every 10 to 15 minutes during off-peak. This is the first service in Brisbane to operate 24 hours on Friday and Saturday and 18 hours every other day. Bus stops serviced by the CityGlider are identified with signs and painted kerb.

Clem7

Clem7 (Route 77) is a bus route using the Clem Jones Tunnel (Clem7) which links the suburbs of Eight Mile Plains and Chermside, the route runs every 15 minutes at peak times and 30 minutes at off-peak, Monday to Friday.

The route commenced on 22 March 2010 at a cost of $1.6 million per annum. The route has decreased the journey time between Eight Mile Plains and Chermside, removing the need to transfer buses at Cultural Centre. The route completes the 30 kilometres (19 mi) cross-city journey in 39 minutes instead of up to 55 minutes via the Brisbane CBD.

Fleet

Former Brisbane Transport Volgren bodied Scania L94UB.

As at February 2018, the fleet consisted of 1,240 buses.

T2840 Volvo B8RLE leaving Cultural Centre for Chermside on 333

Two-axle buses

Almost a third of the total fleet are MAN 18.310s, delivered from 2005 to 2010, mostly with CNG engines. The rest of the regular rigid fleet consists of diesel-powered Volvo B7RLEs (delivered from 2009 on), and smaller numbers of older CNG-powered Scania L94UBs (2000–2005), all low-floor, accessible and air-conditioned.

Three-axle buses

BT operates two models of three-axle "tag" buses, the Scania K310UB (2008) and the Volvo B12BLE, both diesel-powered and delivered from 2008 on. These larger buses are used on high-demand trunk routes, mostly on the South East Busway.

Articulated buses

Custom Coaches MAN NG313F CNG

Articulated buses currently used by Brisbane Transport are the CNG-powered MAN NG313s, delivered from 2007 to 2008 and the diesel-powered Volvo B8RLEAs, delivered from 2018 on.

Historic

Main articles: Trolleybuses in Brisbane and Trams in Brisbane

Until the mid-1970s, heavy-duty AEC and Leyland buses were purchased. Later purchases were from European suppliers, Volvo B59s being purchased from 1976, MAN SL200s in 1982 and Volvo B10Ms from 1987.

All Buses in Service

Chassis	Image	Body	Years Delivered	Fleet Numbers	Built	In Service	Notes
Scania L94UB		Volgren CR224L	2000-2005	625-665, 667-842	217	7	Powered by compressed natural gas, currently being withdrawn from service. Currently, 7 remain in service as of March 2020; these are 626 (the oldest bus in Brisbane, 19 years old),627,630,633,646,650,676. They all belong to Garden City Depot and can be seen on South Busway routes.
MAN 18.310 (CNG)		Volgren CR228L	2005-2009	1200-1523	324	307	Powered by compressed natural gas. Originally, 1200-1228 were delivered new to Virginia but moved to Toowong in March 2006. T1203 was withdrawn from service in March 2019 after an accident and T1200 and T1204 to T1206 were the first buses to be withdrawn from service due to old age. Currently a total of 17 buses have been withdrawn from service (1200,1203-1209,1211,1212,1214,1221,1238,1241,1280,1285,1312).
MAN 18.310 (Diesel)		Volgren CR228L	2008-2009	1001-1066	66	66	T1030 to T1049 (former A1030 to A1049) were formerly used for Blue CityGlider route 60 services; they have now been superseded by the B8RLEs in early 2019. 1001-1015 belong to South West Transit, and 1019-1029 belong to Hornibrook Transit Management, serving contracted Translink routes. 1016-1018 and 1030-1066 belong to Toowong depot. T1065 and T1066 are in Free Spring Hill Loop livery and mainly serving the Free Loop service route 30.
Volvo B7RLE		Volgren CR228L	2009-2013	1801-2071	271	270	S1980 was withdrawn from service in 2016 when it was involved in an arson attack that killed the driver. Buses from 1889 onwards feature the TransLink logo on the side of the buses. Some buses may replace tri-axle buses and articulated buses during weekends and public holidays, serving South Busway routes such as 66, 111, 222, etc. Buses 2036 to 2048 belong to Carina depot, they are in Maroon CityGlider livery and mainly use for Maroon CityGlider route 61. 2055 to 2057 (belong to Eagle Farm) were in QUT all over advertisement, serving the free school shuttle route 391 which connects the two QUT campuses till early Feb 2020, and the QUT livery of buses have been removed and replaced by new B8RLEs.
Volvo B7RLE		Volgren Optimus	2013-2018	2072-2353	282	282	Marked the beginning of all Brisbane Transport buses being delivered with the Optimus Body. E2111, E2112 and E2113 are in Red Downtown Loop livery, mainly serving Free Downtown Loop routes 40 and 50. Most buses entered service in 2017 and 2018 are equipped with USB chargers.
Volvo B5RLEH		Volgren Optimus	2015	1595	1 (Demonstration Bus)	1	This is a Hybrid Demonstrator Bus, now located at Eagle Farm Depot. Although this bus has a red downtown loop livery, it seldom operates on these loops (routes 40 and 50), and serving other Eagle Farm routes instead.
Volvo B8RLE		Volgren Optimus	2017-	2801-	94+	94 (more coming soon)	94 currently in service as of Early March 2020. The new buses are only located at the depot's in Toowong (2801 to 2819, 2839 to 2879, 2884 onwards) and Eagle Farm (2820 to 2838, 2880 to 2883). They can be spotted in major trunk routes. Originally, buses 2801-2819 were delivered to Virginia with Toowong receiving buses 2820 onwards but in late 2019, some buses started moving from Virginia to Toowong and by late March 2020, Virginia no longer operate B8RLE's. Buses T2817, T2818, T2848 and T2849 are in Special Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander liveries, named Distinguish, Two Worlds, Connections and Dreaming respectively. Buses 2820-2836 and 2838 are all in the Blue CityGlider livery while 2837 is in a Rainbow CityGlider livery, serving Blue CityGlider route 60 (2820 to 2838 were delivered to Toowong originally and relocated to Eagle Farm in January 2020). E2880 to E2883 are serving QUT shuttle route 391 and can be spotted in other Eagle Farm routes, while E2880 to E2882 have been wrapped in QUT livery in mid-February 2020. Originally, buses 2801 to 2809, 2813, 2814, 2817, 2818 and 2819 were located at the Virginia Bus Depot but during October 2019, they were relocated to Toowong. T2873 has been wrapped in Mount Coot-Tha livery, serving the free shuttle bus service route 480 within Mount Coot-Tha Precinct (a new service entered service in early December 2019). Buses entered service from 2018 onwards are equipped with USB chargers and using a wider exit door.
Scania K310UB		Volgren CR228L	2009	5001-5008	8	8	These buses were originally numbered 1701-1708 but they were renumbered so that more than 100 3 axle buses could be given sequential fleet numbers. They all belong to Garden City Depot, serving South Busway routes such as 66, 111, 120, 130, 140, 150, 160, 174, 222, etc.
Volvo B12BLE		Volgren CR228L	2010-2013	5009-5157	149	149	Buses 5009 to 5030 were originally numbered 1709 to 1730. These buses can be seen easily on Busway routes such as 66, 111, 120, 130, P137, 140, 150, 160, 174, 200, 204, 212, 222, etc.
MAN NG313		Custom Coaches CB60 Evo II	2007-2008	1601-1630	30	30	Only Bus 1601 was in the Brisbane Transport's 'Clean Air' promotional livery which was applied to all of the Scania and MAN Two Axle Buses that were powered by Natural Gas. They all belong to Garden City Depot and can be seen on South Busway routes such as 111, P137, P142, 160, 161 etc. These buses do not operate during weekends and public holidays. Starting from the commencement of new school year of 2020, part of the buses are being allocated to route 66 during weekdays.
Volvo B8RLEA		Volgren Optimus	2018, 2020	1631-	21+ (more being delivered soon)	21 (as above)	1631 to 1650 belong to Sherwood depot, most commonly used only on routes 66 and 111, also serving other South Busway routes such as P119, P137, 160, 175, etc. at peak hours. All of them are equipped with USB chargers. These buses do not operate during Sundays and public holidays. A further batch of 18 buses will be delivered in 2020, and part of them are expected to be delivered to Eagle Farm Depot starting from May 2020 to enhance the service of Route 60 Blue CityGlider.

Special Liveries

Mainly during the past 20 years, there have been many special liveries put onto Brisbane Buses with the first one being wrapped in late 2000 and the most recent one done 4 months ago (April 2020).

XXX out of 500th new buses for Brisbane In 2009, Brisbane City Council started making an initiative where 500 new buses would be delivered to Brisbane Transport over the next few years. On the back of the new buses, they had a decal put on them saying, "No. XXX out of 500 new buses for Brisbane." During this period two buses had special liveries applied. The first was G5043 in 2011 as it became the 400th bus out of 500 and they had a special scheme that looked like the one that G1463 received when it came to the 1000th bus for Brisbane. The second livery was on G1952 and that was to mark 500 out of 500 buses and it has a unique livery with the fronts of buses put on the side windows all in blue and then 500 made out of yellow buses and on the back it says "No. 500 of 500 new buses for Brisbane." Ever since then only two buses kept the back lettering (1952, 5120) and unfortunately G5043 lost its livery in October 2018 when it was replaced with the 'INAS Global Games 2019' livery.

90 Years of Brisbane Buses In 2016, Brisbane marked 90 Years of transporting the people of Brisbane on buses and to celebrate this achievement, in September 2016, two new liveries were shown off at Brisbane City Hall with Former Lord Mayor Graham Quirk (retired March 2019) and new Mayor (announced 2019) Adrian Schrinner being there to celebrate. The two liveries were a 1960 Panther Style Chassis livery and the second being a City Xpress livery from the 1980s. Quirk said it was important as it, "reminds bus users about just how much our Brisbane buses have changed over the decades.” There were four buses wrapped in liveries with there being two in each livery. The City Xpress livery is on buses W1520 & V2255 and the Panther-inspired livery is on G1334 and C1858.

NAIDOC Week On July 6th, Brisbane City Council revealed four new liveries for four Volvo B8RLE's and the four liveries are named as Distinguish, Two Worlds, Connections and Dreaming. When they were first wrapped these were distributed with 2817 and 2818 (Distinguish & Two Worlds) were at Virginia while 2848 and 2849 (Connections & Dreaming) were at Toowong. In October 2019, they started the relocation of B8RLE's at Virginia Depot to move to Toowong Bus Depot to replace some MAN 18.310's that were either retired or moved to Garden City to replace the retired Scania L94UB's.

All Buses Since 2000 with Special Liveries

Livery Name	Image	Fleet Number	Delivery Date	Depot Delivered	Current Depot	Livery Status
"Clean Air Promotion"		625,626,627,628	31/10/00,21/12/00,16/01/01,9/02/01	Carina	625,628 Withdrawn/626,627 Garden City	No
"100 CNG Buses in Brisbane"		725	9/5/03	Garden City	Withdrawn (last as Virginia)	No
"1000th Bus for Brisbane"		1463	17/04/09	Garden City	Willawong	Yes
"400 out of 500 new buses for Brisbane"	G5043	5043	18/05/11	Garden City	Willawong	No
"100% Air Conditioned Fleet"		5120	11/01/12	Larapinta	Garden City	Yes
"500 out of 500 New Buses for Brisbane"		1952	22/02/12	Garden City	Sherwood	Yes
"300th New Bus in the Last 4 Years"		2233	February 2016	Virginia	Virginia	Yes
"City Xpress - Brisbane Transport 90 Years"		1520	2/12/09	Toowong	Willawong	Yes
"1960's Panther Style Chassis"	T1344 City Xpress	1334	29/6/07	Toowong	Garden City	Yes
"1960's Panther Style Chassis"		1858	25/05/2010	Carina	Carina	Yes
"City Xpress - Brisbane Transport 90 Years"		2255	September 2016	Virginia	Virginia	Yes
"INAC World Games 2019"	W5043	5043	18/05/11	Garden City	Willawong	Yes
"Distinguish"		2817	December 2018	Virginia	Toowong	Yes
"Two Worlds"		2818	December 2018	Virginia	Toowong	Yes
"Connections"		2848	July 2019	Toowong	Toowong	Yes
"Dreaming"		2849	July 2019	Virginia	Toowong	Yes
"Mt Coot-tha Shuttle"	Mt Coot tha Shuttle	2873	January 2020	Toowong	Toowong	Yes

Depots

Former Milton bus depot in 1951, prior to modification for trolleybuses

Brisbane Transport operates its services from seven depots for specified areas. Some of these depots service routes shared in overlapping areas with other depots. Generally, each of Brisbane Transport's buses is allocated to a particular depot, displays a letter prefix for that depot before its fleet number, and hence is assigned to specific routes.

Depot	Letter Code	Location	Opened	Closed	CNG Fuelling	Services / Comments
Carina	C	27.490371°S 153.102078°E / -27.490371; 153.102078	1969	-	No	All eastern routes and some south-eastern routes from Garden City to Wynnum and Bulimba, Maroon CityGlider 61.
Eagle Farm	E	27.427984°S 153.086427°E / -27.427984; 153.086427	2013	-	No	Some northern routes; all routes between New Farm and West End, Free Loops 40 and 50, Blue CityGlider 60, QUT Shuttle 391.
Garden City	G	27.56655°S 153.086731°E / -27.56655; 153.086731	1994	-	Yes	South-eastern routes from Browns Plains and Sunnybank to Wishart and Coorparoo. This depot is also the location of Brisbane Transport's head office.
Sherwood	S		2012	-	No	Western, south-western and north-western routes.
Toowong	T	27.479235°S 152.983482°E / -27.479235; 152.983482	1967	–	Yes	South-western and north-western routes from Brookside and The Gap to Inala and Forest Lake, Free Loop route 30.
Virginia	V	27.365889°S 153.060885°E / -27.365889; 153.060885	1998	-	No	Most northern routes from Nudgee Beach and Brighton to Brookside and the Gap.
Willawong	W	27.598531°S 153.004103°E / -27.598531; 153.004103	2009	-	Yes	Primarily southern routes, some shared with other southern depots.
Bowen Hills	A	27.435975°S 153.042313°E / -27.435975; 153.042313	2000	2013	No	Some northern routes; all routes between New Farm and West End. Closed in 2013 with the opening of the new depot at Eagle Farm.
Richlands	R	27.601259°S 152.957395°E / -27.601259; 152.957395	1997	2013	No	A satellite depot of the Toowong depot, it shared services on western routes, and some services to Garden City.
Larapinta	L	27.643171°S 153.007364°E / -27.643171; 153.007364	2007	2012	No	A satellite depot of Carina, Garden City and Willawong depots, it shared southern, western and eastern services. Originally a temporary bus depot until the Willawong depot opened, it remained open as a satellite depot, sharing routes with other southern depots, until 20 February 2012.
Bracken Ridge	B	27.331658°S 153.02982°E / -27.331658; 153.02982	1996	2001	No	Only ever intended as a short-term depot, it was closed in 2001, several years after the Virginia depot had opened.
Cribb Street, Milton	-	27.469226°S 153.007858°E / -27.469226; 153.007858	?	1983	No	Never a formal depot, the site was occasionally used as temporary storage for buses owing to its proximity to the Milton bus and tram workshops. Last used in 1983.
Ipswich Road, Woolloongabba	-	27.489505°S 153.035731°E / -27.489505; 153.035731	1969?	1974	No	Originally shared with trams. Buses parked in the depot forecourt and at the rear (eastern end) of the tram sheds. Between 1969 and 1974, the depot was used solely by buses. The site was subsequently sold by the Brisbane City Council for commercial redevelopment. One bay of the depot building was dismantled and re-erected at the Brisbane Tramway Museum at Ferny Grove.
Light Street, Newstead	L	27.451323°S 153.038617°E / -27.451323; 153.038617	1885	?	No	Closed for commercial redevelopment. First used as a depot in 1885 when it was the main tram depot for Brisbane's horse tram network. Until 1968, buses shared the depot with trams, the buses being parked along the western (Wickham Street) frontage and north of the tram shed. When the tram shed was demolished, buses were parked where the shed once stood.
Milton	-	27.467217°S 153.00958°E / -27.467217; 153.00958	?	1969	No	Shared with trolleybuses and closed when the trolleybus network was abandoned in 1969. The site is now part of the King's Row business park, although the Brisbane City Council still has a parks works depot there.

See also

• Bus transport in Queensland
• Transport in Brisbane

External links

• Brisbane City Council
• Translink timetables
• Showbus gallery