Complient BT buses

As some of you may be aware from my other online presences I am a bit of a transport geek, and one of the things that interests me slightly (but nowhere near as much as aviation) is public transport here in Brisbane, both buses and trains.  So here's an article on some musings related to a story on the Brisbane Times website today (HERE).

It appears that a storm in a tea cup has broken out between Brisbane Transport the department who run the Brisbane City Council buses, and Queensland Advocacy Incorporated Chairman Ken Wade, & of course council opposition leader Cr Milton Dick has weighed in with his opinion.

Brisbane Transport has apparently written to the Australian Human Rights Commission seeking a five-year exemption from disability compliance for non compliant buses, due to their imminent retirement (before 2019) and the unfair financial penalty it would be for BT to repair them before retirement.

According to Brisbane Transport's application, hand rails and grab rails on 361 of Brisbane Transport's 1225 buses do not comply with sections of the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 and the Disability Standards for Accessible Public Transport 2002; the hand rails are either too thick or too thin, or inappropriately placed.
Cr Matic said 50 of those buses were due to be retired by mid-2013. A schedule in Brisbane Transport's exemption application shows the rest of the non-compliant buses are to be removed from the roads by 2019.
“All council's buses currently comply with the DDA and council is well ahead of the game when it comes to disability access," he said.
"At present, 86 per cent of the Brisbane Transport fleet is wheelchair friendly – significantly ahead of the 55 per cent end of year target specified under DDA legislation.”

Now this interests me as to which buses the report relates to it suggests that 361 will be retired by 2019 now below is a copy of the current fleet lists (thanks to btbuses.info for the information)

Now I assume the MAN 18.310 both Diesel & CNG are safe, as are the MAN NG313 Artic's, and the Scania L94UBs, and with the B12BLE & B7RLE fleets being brand new they too will be safe.

Obviously the B10M mk3 & B10M mk4 fleets being high floor are scheduled to go as they are non-compliant, but that only equates to 155 buses, so the question is which of the other fleets will go to make up the 361 needed?

There are another 206 buses that dont meet the compliancy, if you withdraw the B10L fleets that's only another 59 buses, even knocking out the other 'orphan' fleets the Mercedes O500LE's, MAN NG313 Artic's Scania K310UB6x2 tag's it still doesnt add up.

So if there are any Bus enthusiasts or gunzel's reading this I would be interested to here your opinions on this article and what effect it will have on the BT fleet in the coming years.