New late night trips and stop for routes 600 and 616
Starting Friday 18 July, you’ll be able to catch late night route 600 and 616 buses on Friday and Saturday nights from a new dedicated stop on Maroochydore Road at Beach Road (just outside Guzman y Gomez). This stop is a short two-minute walk (about 180 metres) from Ocean Street.
These late night buses will run from 10:09pm to 3:09am on Friday and Saturday nights, giving you more options get home safely after a night out.
We’re also adding 10 new route 616 trips after 10pm every Friday and Saturday night.
Both routes will continue to stop at Maroochydore station, with two extra stops in Mooloolaba on Walan Street and River Esplanade.
For your peace of mind, there’ll be security guards onboard all late night trips.
This initiative is running as a 12-month trial, fully funded by Sunshine Coast Council’s Transport Levy, to improve late night bus services on the Sunshine Coast.
All areas outside of Gold Coast and Brisbane need better public transport at night. It’s a thing i’ve personally been trying for, for ages and it’s something that needs to be changed.
Gold Coast remains the only place in SEQ with 24/7 service, with services outside of Brisbane, GC and now Sunshine Coast even having spotty friday night servicing.
Queensland doesnt have much of an overnight scene atm which makes it hard to justify 24/7 services (especially throughtout the rest of the week). It’s a chicken and egg scenario to a certain extent, but I dont see it changing so long as we continue to have very strict regulations on business trading hours.
That might be true, but it still doesn’t explain why most Logan and Ipswich buses finish before 8 pm.
Definitely! Late night services past 11pm is a lower priority, but there should definitely be busses 'till late at the very least.
At least for the Gold Coast the marginal cost of some extra late night services wouldn’t be huge. I would be focusing on:
- All high frequency routes running at least half-hourly from 5-6am to 10-11pm (outside their high frequency period, generally 7am-7pm 7 days), and with some a bit earlier or later where connecting to trains.
- 24/7 services beyond the current footprint, comprising at least the following overnight trips 7 days a week:
- 700 - extend from GCUH to Helensvale (excluding days G:link runs overnight).
- 704 - Southport to Helensvale leg only, timetabled to meet 700 at Southport
- 750 - timetabled to meet 700 at Broadbeach South
For the Sunshine Coast I think the 610 and 620 would have to be in the mix at some stage.
I do find extremely annoying that the 705 runs every 15 minutes until last service every day when in reality demand doesn’t justify it after 7-8pm.
Those resources could be better spent on the 750 being more frequent between 7-10pm.
/end OT
I have similar reservations about the 777 later at night. Much rather than spending go somewhere else. The 741 is currently the busiest hourly only route by pax, for instance.
741 definitely needs to go half hourly, with the 738 also being a good candidate for late night running and maybe a frequency boost alongside the 747.
Wow that was quick, it was announced in the Sunshine Coast Council’s budget but I was under the impression that it would still be a few months away. Glad to see things moving quickly. That first stop on Maroochydore Road is an excellent idea too, there is already an existing single bay layover spot just around the corner where drivers take breaks however sometimes there are multiple buses that need to use it, so it looks like they’ll get some extra storag capacity with that new stop at GyG (currently it is for on-street vehicle parking, yuck).
+1 for this, I would also be interested to see what would happen if they merge 620 and 622 into one service. They follow almost the same route except 622 goes via the airport and Peregian Springs while the 620 goes via Mudjimba and Yaroomba. Having a Maroochydore → Airport → Mudjumba → Peregian Springs → Sunrise Beach service that then loops to Noosa Heads via Noosaville would add maybe 10 minutes to the Maroochydore → Noosa trip but allow a proper high capacity Sunshine Coast to Noosa service with the frequency and hours that are needed.
@rowangray would you be able to merge my Kinetic Sunshine Coast - Bus Operations into this thread? I think it would be best to have everything under Sunshine Coast Bus Services, they basically serve the same purpose 
General thread for Kinetic operated services on the Sunshine Coast.
Ground has recently broken on Kinetic’s third depot, which will be located in Noosa.
A tourist hotspot is gearing up for a new bus depot, which would improve bus running times and reduce CO2 emissions in the congested area.
The first sod has been turned on the construction of a purpose-built facility on Production Street in Noosaville. It’s scheduled to commence operations by the end of the year, according to local bus operator and investor Kinetic.
The new depot promises to improve on-time running performance, particularly in the heavily congested Noosa area where high traffic volumes around Hastings Street and surrounding arterial roads often cause delays.
When operational, it will house 28 buses and more than 80 staff. It promises to deliver substantial operational improvements to the Sunshine Coast bus network by reducing “dead running” (non-service travel) by over 400,000km annually.
In a boon for sustainability, it would reduce CO2 emissions by 502 tonnes annually and save more than 176,000 litres of diesel fuel each year.
Kinetic manages a fleet of more than 100 buses across 30 routes across its Sunshine Coast operations. The Noosaville announcement marks its latest investment in the area, following upgrades to the Caloundra facility in 2022 to support the introduction of 11 zero-emission buses.
Kinetic executive general manager Martin Hall said this latest investment demonstrated the company’s commitment to improving public transport reliability and efficiency for Sunshine Coast commuters.
“The Noosa depot represents a significant milestone in our ongoing partnership with Translink to enhance the region’s transport infrastructure,” Mr Hall said.
Many of Kinetic’s Sunshine Coast team members live near the proposed Noosa depot, which will reduce emissions from staff commuting while improving work-life balance for employees.
The depot’s central location will allow Kinetic to respond more quickly to network issues in the Noosa area, providing better service reliability for passengers throughout the northern Sunshine Coast.
Seemingly more buses to follow with the introduction of the new depot? The member for Noosa previously promoted it as an all-electric depot to support the introduction of more BEV buses on the Sunshine Coast however I note that none of the marketing of late has specifically mentioned that anymore.
I’d suspect the Electrics will be kept to the Caloundra and Noosa depots. The Marcoola depot is too small to fit Electric operations.
Caloundra will be a mix of diesels and electrics, Marcoola being a diesel-only depot and Noosa also being a diesel / electric mix, but the majority of new electric deliveries allocated to the Sunshine Coast eventually going to Noosa.
I heard kinetic Sunshine Coast won’t be getting any new buses for a while and will be getting more of the old Gold Coast Volvo buses from the early 2000’s.
I really hope they get some new deliveries soon, even if they are more Yutongs
That’s how they get around the laws by moving inventory around depots to avoid buying new buses. As the tram comes online next year they are likely to transfer more buses from the GC to the Sunny coast.
Considering most operators in SE Qld withdraw buses from service by 21 years old, the oldest buses I would assume have to be of the mid 00s if they’re moving up from Coomera/Ernest/Tweed spending the last few years at Caloundra and/or Marcoola.
Looking at the Fleet Lists (Bus Australia), the oldest are the pre-VST Bustech Volvos of 2002 build scattered across Ernest and Coomera and I’m assuming they don’t have long before they are withdrawn due to the 25 year requirement.
The next oldest (after the 2002 pre-VST Volvo Bustechs at Ernest) are the batch of 2004/2005 Volvo B12 Bustech VSTs currently based at Coomera, I’d assume some of that batch will be moved up to Caloundra and/or Marcoola if that is the case.
Well no - there won’t be any fewer bus service km once GCLR 3 opens, they will be reinvested.
I went to Caloundra yesterday and the bus transfer to was an electric and the return was an old GC front door only. Although I think it had an reconditioned diesel engine in it. The smart ticketing equipment were also offline on the way back. Maybe it still had to be configured .
Lucky, I never seem to get one of the Yutongs when I have to do the occasional Landsborough → Maroochydore trip. They are such a nice quiet ride compared compared to the ~20 year old diesels.
The smart ticketing not working is an almost daily occurrence, I have no idea if it’s just bad integration with the antique buses or industrial action but I’d estimate every 3rd trip on Kinetic SC the readers are showing as not in service or switched off completely.
Sunshine Coast Council’s lackluster budget (which saw a decrease in the transport levy to ‘save money for ratepayers’) has mostly erased any hope on my end of any significant bus network improvements this financial year, but did hint at some work being done with Translink to introduce a new ‘turn up and go’ (their words, not mine) route between Sunshine Cove, Maroochydore and Alexandra Headlands which is great news for those living in that estate who currently have very limited PT access.
They also suggested planning is underway into more late night services in Maroochydore and Nambour however it sounds like still very early discussions so I won’t celebrate that just yet.
The question is are council just trying to be frugal by cutting public transport spend? Or are they trying to get the state government to cough up all the money instead? I know we have SCMT and The Wave coming in the next 7 years but some bus upgrades in the meantime would be nice. The public transport investment this FY isn’t even enough to warrant a mention on the aptly titled Road and Transport Projects webpage on the budget site. It’s all roads and pathways 
Lol @ “turn up and go” into one of the recent developed estates. That would be an hourly coverage route at the minimum, half-hourly if lucky.
I’d agree Nambour could do with some late night Friday and Saturday originating/terminating from Mooloolaba at the mimimum. Selected (though not all) late Friday/Saturday night 600s divert into The Wharf to pick up party goers.