The transport worker's union lashed Keolis Downer for bungling its "sole job" when it allowed the registration of half of its Newcastle bus fleet to lapse on Monday, leaving around 90 drivers operating unregistered vehicles on Tuesday before they were ordered back to the depots and taken offline.
The Rail Tram and Bus Union said on Wednesday night that while "innocent mistakes happen ... they seem to happen at an alarming rate at Keolis Downer" and that "a bus company forgetting to register its buses would be laughable if it wasn't so serious."
Keolis Downer blamed an administrative error for the incident, which meant that the registration of around half of its fleet expired at midnight on Monday, September 30, forcing the city's buses offline on Tuesday.
A spokesperson for the operator, which runs just shy of 200 buses in Newcastle, apologised to travellers on the network on Wednesday afternoon, insisting that the fleet had recently passed all required safety checks and, as of October 2, the entire fleet was back online and operating as normal.
"All vehicles are now registered. We have reviewed our processes to ensure this will not happen again," the spokesperson said in a brief statement. "We are very sorry for the impact this issue caused our customers."
Still, the union, which has been calling for the privatised network to be returned to public hands since July, has labelled the incident as a "classic example of incompetence".
"When your sole job is to manage a fleet of buses, you would think that making sure they are registered would be a priority," David Babineau, the RTBU's NSW bus division sectary, said.
"This is not an innocent, one-off mistake. Keolis Downer is making mistake after mistake, at the expense of drivers and commuters - from pay issues to scheduling issues and now registration issues."
"The commuters of Newcastle deserve better than this, and so do the bus drivers."
One driver told NBN News that he was directed to return to the Hamilton depot but was not informed of the reason behind the change. He said he would have pulled over had he realised the issue.
Driving or parking an unregistered vehicle on a road or road-related area carries a $1728 penalty for heavy vehicles in NSW, as well as four demerit points. Driving or parking an unregistered vehicle attracts an $818 fine.
The error, meanwhile, reached the state's leader, Premier Chris Minss, who said it had worried passengers and administrators.
"That's a concern," he said when asked about it at a press conference this week. "We have to turn that around as soon as possible."
Keolis Downer won a 10-year contract with the Baird state government in 2016 to run the city's buses, the Stockton ferry, and the Newcastle light rail. Earlier this year, the RTBU pushed the state government to return the public transport network to "public hands", citing a decline in bus service quality since privatisation.
"Privatising Newcastle's bus network has been a complete disaster. Commuters have had to deal with inferior services while drivers have had to fight for decent pay and conditions from Keolis Downer," RTBU NSW secretary Toby Warnes told the Herald in July.
Since it took over in 2017, Keolis Downer has changed routes and timetables, which has sparked complaints from some passengers, and a petition bearing 10,000 signatures was tabled in Parliament in 2018.
The Minns government established a bus industry task force last year to examine the effects of privatisation and recommend improvements.
A report by the task force published in February identified four Hunter routes as "short-term" priorities - Charlestown to Newcastle via Jesmond and Newcastle University; Cameron Park to Newcastle via New Lambton; Cessnock to East Maitland; and Mimmi to Newcastle via Wallsend.
