A jam-packed 2023 edition of the Bus Industry Summit saw some new points raised to evolve the future of the bus and coach industry, as well as touching on crucial supply chain and skilled worker challenges.
The annual Bus Industry Summit, courtesy of the Bus Industry Confederation (BIC), once again returned to Canberra’s Hotel Realm in March, allowing the industry to discuss a wide range of issues pertaining to its future.
BIC Chair Tony Hopkins opened the Summit before handing to Senator and federal assistant transport and infrastructure minister Carol Brown to give the opening address.
After presenting at last year’s BIC National Conference in November, Brown says the industry has made good use of the months since the conference in Brisbane, but there are more areas that she was pleased to see covered at the 2023 Bus Industry Summit.
“The industry definitely needs to attract more women, so I’m pleased to see the Women in the Bus Industry panel that will run,” Brown says.
“It’s a timely introduction and I warmly welcome it.”
Alongside this diverse perspective, Brown welcomed consultations on training pathways after the federal government announced 480,000 fee-free TAFE places to get people in the industry.
Brown then discussed climate change and the National Electric Vehicle Strategy that the federal government is pushing to encourage the zero-emissions transition.
“We’re also looking at the role that biofuels can play in the decarbonisation of the heavy vehicle industry,” Brown says.
“We’ll continue looking at funding hydrogen hubs, such as the Hydrogen Highway between Melbourne and Sydney proposed by Viva Energy, to reduce the cost of procuring green hydrogen.”
Brown finished by saying she’s escalating the development of two new Australian Design Rules (ADRs) to regulate electric and hydrogen fuel-cell heavy vehicle technology, including for buses and coaches.
In the opening session, consultant Ken Kanofski also presented details and findings on the Heavy Vehicle National Law (HVNL) reform.
After the Infrastructure and Transport Ministerial Meeting (ITMM) first commissioned the report from Kanofski in February 2022, Kanofski has since led a package of propositions to update the HVNL.
He says seven themes were part of the changes, including access and fatigue.
“In some ways, the reforms don’t go as far as I would’ve liked them to,” Kanofski says.
Kanofski says the recently created HVNL Steering Committee will ensure consistent enforcement of these findings and proposals for the future of the bus and coach industry.
Following the opening session, the theme of a green future was quickly put into action on the Future Buses panel, chaired by BIC Councillor Rolf Mitchell.
The panel, containing Rahila David from the Centre for Connected and Automated Transport (CCAT), first looked at the state of automated vehicles and how they fit into the industry.
David says the potential benefits of automated vehicles include increased safety, efficiency, sustainability, access, mobility, reduced carbon emissions and an improved economy and society.
John Anasis from the Commonwealth Bank Australia also discussed how banks such as CBA can help finance and loan zero-emissions buses for owners.
“The total cost of ownership is the biggest driver of the EV transition, more so than the carbon agenda,” Anasis says.
The afternoon panels looked at new social contracts and both recruiting and retaining diverse workers in the industry.
While Keolis Downer’s James Edmiston looked at modern slavery in Australia, Christine Atkins gave tips on how to fulfil local content requirements after her experience in the rail industry as a director at NineSquared.
CDC Australia CEO Nicolas Yap discussed the major operator’s Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) in the past year, while Sharon Stevenson from Transdev Australasia gave insights into the operator’s own RAP journey and respecting all cultures in Australia.
The final session of the day looked at women in the bus industry, with a full panel of women discussing the current challenges facing women in the sector.
But the panel evolved to hold wider talks on how to make the bus industry more attractive for younger generations and other pools of potential workers, as well as strategies to better retain employees.
While the collective of women on the panel agreed that the industry has been welcoming to them, they said that encouraging both men and women to be role models for new workers will help lure and keep more important workers from diverse backgrounds.
“I share all of the sentiments of these women up here with me at the conference,” Volvo Bus Australia’s Sarah Forbes says.
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“The work our industry does is tangible and necessary and it gives me so much pride, we just need to advertise ourselves better to show people what they could do in our sector.”
Following a gala dinner to cap off a busy opening day, the Summit returned the next morning with split focuses in mind to cater to both operators and suppliers.
In the National Technical Seminar, an opening discussion on the upcoming changes to ADRs was followed by the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator’s (NHVR) Peter Austin, who outlined priorities and programs for the regulator.
With the NHVR planning to transition services in Queensland by the end of the year, the NHVR is also working on the future of heavy vehicles and Performance Based Standards (PBS) reforms.
“The Future Heavy Vehicles regulatory process is about the regulator supporting the industry in the future of this technology,” Austin says.
This gave way to one of the highlights of the Summit in a full panel consisting of members from Mondo New Energy, Hitachi Zero Carbon, JetCharge, Optibus, EnergyAustralia, Evenergi and TigerSpider that looked at planning and operating strategies to get the most out of zero-emissions buses.
The majority of questions were directed at EnergyAustralia’s Jack Kotlyar about the availability of energy moving forward to power a zero-emissions bus and coach industry.
“We don’t have an issue with having not enough energy, we have an issue when it becomes zero-emissions that it will cost way too much,” he says.
While the National Technical Seminar closed with a review of 2022, the National Industrial Relations and Workforce Seminar spent the day looking at government IR reforms, sexual harassment in the workplace and improving the image of the bus and coach industry, before finishing with further discussions on recruitment and retention initiatives.
From new topics like women in the bus industry and modern slavery, alongside common themes such as zero-emissions buses and staff retention, the 2023 edition of the BIC Summit forged new ground in tackling industry challenges.