In this bulletin, we announce the new 2022 BIC Council Elect, give you access to the essential guide for safely managing bus breakdowns on the road and announce the great news from the Australian government on the extension to the RVSA implementation timeframe to June 2023. We welcome new fabulous members who have recently joined BIC including ARCC, EnergyAustralia, Hyzon, JET Charge, McNaughtans and Mobileye (what a line up!).

A quick wrap on events. 

• QBIC are
  holding their Queensland Conference – Driving a Cleaner Future on April 8 and 9 and we wish them all the best for a great turn-up and an engaging plenary for all delegates.
• The national and international events calendar has been updated with the change in location of the upcoming 17th Thredbo conference. The conference has moved from Kobe Japan to Sydney.
• Don’t forget to book your ticket for the upcoming Australasia Bus Expo in Sydney, hosted by BusNSW. Over 100 exhibitors already booked! Beat the rush – book now.
• Finally – Make sure you have your diary secured for the upcoming Summit in Canberra June 28 and 29. New program out now!

New 2022 BIC Council Elect

On 28 February 2022, the BIC held its Annual General Meeting at which the BIC Council was elected, appointing a new Chair and Vice Chair. We are certain that the bus industry shares our appreciation and gratitude towards immediate Past Chair Wayne Patch and immediate Past Vice Chair Steve Heanes who have been at the helm since 2011. For those that have been around long enough in the industry, both Wayne and Steve were elected at the 2011 National BIC Conference in Fiji (see photo). Both Wayne and Steve will continue to serve as Councillors for the 2022 council year.
The BIC secretariat has already commenced new projects with the 2022 Council and are keeping the new Chair Tony Hopkins and new Vice Chair Julian Gurney very busy! To view the full council elect for 2022, visit moving people.com.au.

Extension to the RVSA legislation transitional period

On April 4, the Australian government passed a new bill into Parliament to extend the Road Vehicle Standards (RVS) legislation transitional period by 12 months. This means the end of the RVS transitional period has been extended to 30 June 2023. Any previous transitional period deadlines that occurred before 30 June 2022 have also been extended by 12 months. Please note that this does not include any deadlines that had already expired, for example, opt-ins. The BIC has updated our transitional guidelines and this can be downloaded here.

The extension facilitates an uninterrupted supply of vehicles to the market by allowing the provision of buses approved under the Motor Vehicle Standards Act 1989 that would otherwise not be able to be provided to the market past 30 June 2022. 

It is important that businesses continue to make arrangements to transition to the RVS legislation so that they are able to continue providing buses after 1 July 2023. If you have already transitioned to the RVS legislation you can continue providing road vehicles using approvals granted to you under the new legislation.

Bus Breakdown Guide

On 30 March, BusNSW in partnership with the Bus Industry Confederation, launched an essential guide for bus operations on how to manage a bus breakdown on the road. BusNSW were able to produce this guide with funding assistance of the Commonwealth through their Heavy Vehicle Safety Initiative scheme administered via the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator. Both BusNSW and BIC are very grateful that through this funding, we are able to address this heavy vehicle safety issue where evidence shows that the majority of serious injuries and fatalities occur not within the bus but rather on the road where passengers alighting from a bus can be hit by other vehicles. BusNSW assembled a core group of representatives from Industry to provide the ‘intellect’ and ‘best practice’
guidance content for the production of the operator guideline and accompanying training video. All materials are relevant to operational staff, workshop and mechanical staff, drivers and their passengers.

A dedicated webpage has been setup on the national movingpeople website and includes a comprehensive guideline, training video, useful workplace templates that operators can incorporate into existing systems and a suite of campaign materials that operators can use in their communities to increase pedestrian and road-user awareness around a bus that has broken down.

Don’t delay. Go online today to start making your business breakdown smarter. 

BIC welcomes new members to our team of National Industry Navigators

The BIC warmly welcomes new members to our team! Full details of our new members can be viewed online here. We urge you to take a moment to visit – you might just find a hand-to-glove solution for your bus business or perhaps learn something new that you
can share with your bus friends or associates. Our full list of members is always in our care at movingpeople.com.au. If you need to find someone or something specifically, maybe we can help! – just reach out to us by using our online enquiry form.

• ARCC – providing Australian designed and built lightweight bolted aluminium
  chassis. 
• EnergyAustralia – depot electrification implementation.
• Hyzon – supplier of zero-emissions hydrogen fuel cell powered commercial vehicles.
• JET Charge – integrate EV charging into the electricity grid.
• McNaughtans – Australian distributor of Tarabus (bus specific floor covering) and Tru Vision wiper solutions.
• Mobileye – provider of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), autonomous driving and anti-collision solutions.

Latest View from Canberra – where are all the buses?

In the April edition of the View from Canberra, we discuss the economic vibrancy of Australia and take a look at some of the stats of industry, comparing where we were in 2019 and where we landed in 2021.

We are currently assembling a stack of data on Australia’s bus fleet and what the fleet replacement schedule will be for industry in the next 5 years.

A detailed update will be provided on this at the Summit in Canberra June 28 and 29. You will need to be there to find out the results of our analysis on bus types, fleet numbers, age profiles and various future fleet replacement models, based on maximum and average age requirements, and details of historic and future fleet growth options. 

Visit the movingpeople website for all of our news and to read the latest View.

Latest news from APTIA

On 23 March 2022, a National IR Seminar was held online to hear from government, the Fair Work Commission and industry stalwarts on ‘where to next?’.  With the federal election on the horizon, industry were able to receive a comprehensive overview of government, opposition and the state of play on a number of critical issues in the lead up to the federal election.

Read the summary of what happened. Presentations and videos are
also available on the APTIA website.

Catch up on the latest Everybody Out covering:

• The Budget – what does it mean for employers in our industry?
• Paid Leave for casuals
• Minimum wage increases by 6% across the ditch
• Trends in Federal Enterprise bargaining
• Reinstated after sexual harassment complaint
• FWC suspends protected action.

NSW Government Innovation Challenge

TfNSW has requested that the BIC alert industry to their Innovation Challenge which is essentially a call-out to ‘doing better business’. RegStar is TfNSW’s business-led, digital project charged with transforming the regulatory end-to-end customer lifecycle to deliver a five-star customer experience, every time. Over the next 12 months, the Program will be defining a future state model to improve how TfNSW manages Vehicle Registration and Driver Licensing, how TfNSW interacts with other agencies and third-party operators and, in turn, how TfNSW can enhance the end-customer’s experience. If you have the time (5 to 10 mins) and you wish to provide the NSW government with feedback, please go online to complete the survey. Survey closes 10 April 2022.