BIC National e-Bulletin – March 2022

Time is flying by – and from what we hear, many of us bussies are now flying around Australia and abroad. It is great to see a return to face to face engagement.

QBIC is kicking off industry’s first en masse conference at the Sofitel Brisbane April 8 and 9. Full details on their “Driving a Cleaner Future” conference is available on the QBIC website. An Australian and international interactive calendar of ‘what’s on’ is loaded on the BIC’s moving people website. Mark you diaries!
In this update, find out what people really want; the results are in on our industry survey on ZEBs. Find out more on the latest tech specs to come out of TfNSW and Commonwealth ADRs and the government plan to increase the RUC and registration charges.

On 16 Feb 2022, the BIC asked our operator and supplier members to “Have your Say on Zero”. The survey received more than 60 responses (about 45% of our members have provided a response thus far).

The survey asked for feedback on a proposed suite of technical advisories and operator guidelines that would see a national set of minimum standards on ZEBs; standards relating to vehicle specification, maintenance, safety management and infrastructure/integration. 
All respondents were enthusiastic for the BIC to develop national guidelines in those 4 key areas. The highest and immediate concerns, from both operators and suppliers, was the need for a vehicle specification standard. This was followed by vehicle maintenance guidelines and safety management systems. 

There were a number of shared concerns across the majority of respondents and can be summarised as follows:

• Minimum qualifications and certified training required for driving the bus, service and maintenance 
• Safety instructions and care when other bus componentry maintenance is undertaken (such as doors,
  tyres and air-con).
• Standardisation of charging infrastructure and minimum qualifications for maintaining charging infrastructure
• Depot conversion and ensuring safe-housing of a mixed fleet of diesel, CNG, battery/electric and hydrogen fuel cell
• Fire mitigation and what to do if battery or electrical componentry catches fire
• Vehicle range and charging requirements
• Total operational costs throughout expected life
• Mass increase to the vehicle.

The BIC will keep
the survey running for a short time and we encourage Industry to provide feedback for our consideration. The BIC has commenced a review of both electric and hydrogen international vehicle standards to determine what may be adopted and translated for Australian operations. The BIC is also working closely with the Commonwealth on how we might accelerate ADR / EU harmonisation for ZEBs.

Driver training on mitigating bus rollaway

Technical update on TS160, ADR97/00 and ADR35/07
TS146 and TS155 is now replaced with TS160 for Bus Door Safety Systems.
A number of years ago, TfNSW (originally RMS), tasked the BIC with the re-write of a technical specification for a bus door safety system to include small buses. After extensive consultation with bus door manufacturers and close collaboration with TfNSW, we are pleased to announce that TS160 has now been released. 

TS160 is not retrospective. For existing buses, TS 146 and TS 155 will continue to apply.
TS160 will apply to all applicable buses first registered in NSW on or after 1 January 2023. Important to note that previous TS155 only applied to vehicles seating 25 or more (incl driver). The new TS160 now applies to vehicles seating over 12 persons (incl driver). 
Download the full spec from the TfNSW website.

On 4 March 2022, the Commonwealth released new ADR 97/00 – Advanced Emergency Braking for Omnibuses, and Medium and Heavy Goods Vehicles and replaced ADR35/06 with 35/07, expanding the applicability of the mandatory requirements for vehicle stability.

The BIC worked with the Commonwealth to include a clause in the new ADR97/00 that would ensure that buses specifically designed with spaces for standing
passengers were not required to comply. It is important to note that this clause does not preclude a supplier from fitting AEB to a bus with standing spaces (such as a school bus with ADR 68 seating), but does allow a supplier not to fit AEB to a route bus. 

Both ADRs will be mandatory for new models from 1 November 2023, all new buses from 1 November 2024, and all new goods vehicles over 3.5 tonnes GVM from 1 February 2025.
Both ADRs include appropriate wording to ‘exclude’ omnibuses designed for standees.

Download the new ADR97/00 here.
Download the updated ADR35/07 here.