8 minute read
THE MILLER’S TALE
A disagreement with a former employer over safety standards led Harry Miller to start his own bus service and now 16 years later the former operations manager and mechanic heads up a prosperous family run bus service in the NSW Riverina.
It is kind of ironic that safety was at the heart of bus operator Harry Miller taking one of the biggest risks of his life and has resulted in building and maintaining a 16 bus fleet in a little over five years.
Based at the picturesque town and quaintly named town, The Rock, about 40 kilometres south of Wagga Wagga, Harry
Miller and his wife, Petra operate a thriving bus service which has grown around school bus runs and is now branching out into charter operations.
Back in 2005 Harry was the operations manager for a large bus service but differing views on safety and procedures saw him resign and rather than just going back to his trade as a mechanic, he and Petra Decided to take a chance and bought a small school bus run in The Rock.
“Safety is important, definitely, we’re very, very safety conscious here, we operate our own workshop with two mechanics. I’m a mechanic myself, but I’ve stepped away from that area and my son is now doing his apprenticeship in the business under the mechanic and he’s now just finishing his third year. So we service all our buses here at the main workshop and safety is a priority,” said Harry Miller.
“As far as I am concerned, safety is an issue for the students we transport, for the drivers and all of our staff,” Harry explained. “Where I worked with the bus company in Wagga I sort of had a conflict with the owners and I didn’t see eye to eye on some safety issues, and when I bought them up they didn’t like it, so I decided to leave,” he adds.
That move saw Harry enter negotiations with a chap he knew in The Rock who had three school bus runs and it resulted in purchasing one of the runs with the option of buying the other two. That was 2005 and Harry and his wife haven’t looked back.
“We bought the first school bus run and initially I went out driving trucks for a couple of years and my wife ran the first school bus run,” Harry explained.
“During year two we bought the second school run, and in the third year we bought the other one, and from then it wasn’t long ‘til we bought two school bus runs based in Narrandera, then about a year after that, around 2009, we bought two more runs based down the road in Henty.
In fact by the end of 2010, Harry and …. had built the fleet to 16 buses servicing the 11 school bus runs they still operate today. Like any business it was a learning process and while some of the buses were inherited and some choices didn’t prove to be the best Harry reckons he has now knows the
right choice for his bigger buses.
They were humble beginnings for the Millers, with a single Toyota Coaster bus but today the pride of the 16 bus fleet company are three of the latest Scanias.
“I think buying the Scanias underlines just how important safety is for us, they are the latest and safest buses we could source,” said Harry.
“The Scanias replaced three King Long buses, which weren’t all that good, but we are very happy with the Scanias, they’re very good vehicles.
“The Scanias have three different bodies on them, unfortunately, but it’s a bit of a test on the bodies to see which one suits our business the best, so we’ve got a Volgren bodied Scania, an Irizar bodied version and our newest one is a Scania Touring, with the Scania body built in China,” he added.
Amongst the fleet of CAT 4 larger buses including the three newer Scanias, Millers still has a 2008 Iveco Delta, a 2009 Daewoo and an MAN 18.280 also from 2009. The remainder
Harry confesses that with 11 school contracts they grew really fast but got themselves fairly well placed, and that he often pinches himself and wishes he’d done it earlier.
Millers now employs a total staff of 20 with 16 drivers and four based in the depot at Rock, two in the office and two in the workshop.
The 16 buses fleet is spread out around the neighbouring areas of the Riverina in total, with three buses at The Rock, two down in Henty, two across in Narrandera, three bus runs over at Ladysmith and one at Cookardinia.
“All of our runs are within an hour’s reach of the main depot here in The Rock, which means the logistics operation stay manageable.”
“That way it’s easy for maintenance and if we do have a breakdown, we have two breakdown vehicles based here, which are fully stocked with equipment and they can just get up and go.”
While the business is still based around its daily school bus runs Harry says the charter business is now playing a greater role.
“We now have some permanent charters with a major boarding school in Wagga, which sees us transport the weekly boarders home on Fridays and we bring them back on Sunday, and, we’ve now got three buses running on that job,” said Harry.
“We actually started doing that work about 15 years ago, starting with a run from Wagga to Lake Cargellico and now we also do runs to Griffith and Tumut,” he added.
Harry’s background as a diesel mechanic means he has a strong insight into what works with buses and what doesn’t and also made him even more of a fan of the Scania buses he has added to the fleet in recent times.
“The Scania’s are very well engineered and handle the conditions out here extremely well, particularly all the dirt roads that we have to travel on,” said Harry.
“Mate we haven’t looking back with Scania, it’s the best move I ever made to go to Scania. Previously we had King Longs, which I was pretty disappointed in. But yeah look, the Scanias as far as I’m concerned are great buses, the maintenance on them is minimal and the after-sale service and the local dealer in Wagga is fantastic.”
Harry says his driver’s also love the Scanias and that the added bonus for him has been the driver training Scania provides.
“Well if they have been driving the Scania’s then you just about have to prise them out of the buses every afternoon, everyone loves them,” he reckons.
“The other good thing with Scania is they have driver training, so with all the buses that we have bought, we’ve had a driver trainer come to us and take all the drivers out and explain all the features of the buses to them and teach them how to get the most out of driving them, so that is another big plus for Scania on that side of it,” said Harry.
Harry reckons that as the other nonScania Cat 4 buses in the fleet come due for replacement they will be traded for new Scanias.
“Yeah definitely going to buy more Scania’s for the Cat four runs, but we’re still not sure what we’re going to do with the smaller Cat two buses, because Scania doesn’t make the smaller buses and there’s no one really out there at the moment, apart from Fuso Rosa, and Higer.
Harry says he hasn’t been happy with the Rosas mainly because they struggle to cope with the often rough gravel roads that are part of many of the country school runs.
“As soon as I can get rid of them the better, I just get they’re a very low end vehicle and the suspension in them is not up to the task and parts are very expensive for them as well,” he said.
“We’re on dirt roads with all of our smaller buses, sure some of the bigger ones go on dirt as well, but the Rosas just tend to get pounded on the dirt roads,” he added.
Harry is very pleased his son is doing his apprenticeship in the business and is interested very interested in the business as well.
“So we’ve got a bit of a plan for if and when I ever retire,” Harry said with a chuckle.
In terms of future growth for the business, Millers have been happy to consolidate in recent years but with the recent flow of Sydney siders moving out of the city for a country tree change during Covid there has been strong growth that may lead to expansion in the near future.
“There’s definitely growth, particularly out on Ladysmith runs we’ve had that fairly quick growth out there and I can see there’s other small bus runs around this area that I’m interested in,” said Harry. “So we’re not sitting still with what we’ve got, we are looking at expanding a bit further.
“Problem is there is no real alternative to them at the moment in the 24 seater realm, Toyota Coaster, I suppose, but they don’t sell the 24 seater here, they do have them in Japan, but they won’t bring them over here.”
Harry says he is looking further afield, to things like the Isuzu I-BUS and the Higers are not a bad vehicle although we do have a lot of dust problems with them, but with the Cummins and the Allison drive line in them, they have been a good option, but I am not sure they’re bringing the small Higer here anymore.
