Buses at Northland Shopping Centre - Melbourne Transport

In this video we visit Northland, a major shopping centre situated in the northern suburb of Preston. Opening in 1966 it is the largest shopping centre in Melbourne's northern suburbs with 330 stores on 95,311m2 of retail floor space. It also serves as a major bus interchange in the area; served by 11 different bus routes operated by Dysons, Kinetic, and Ventura.

Filmed on a weekday we see a good variety of buses from all three operators, including Volvo B12BLE's, Volvo B7RLE's, Scania K230UB's, Scania K280UB's, and Scania K310UB's. Of particular interest we see some Kinetic Volvo B7RLE's with the Smartbus livery on route 251, and one of Dysons' Scania K310UB's with a Gemilang body.

However the main purpose of this video was to get footage of Ventura's Iveco Metro's, of which we see several throughout the video. These buses were the preferred bus for Ivanhoe Bus Company, who purchased many Iveco/Irisbus Metro's over the years before they were acquired by Ventura in June 2010. These buses have a shorter wheelbase compared to a conventional bus and are loud thanks to the Cummins ISLe engines; as an enthusiast I quite like these buses.

However the future of the Iveco Metro's along with the rest of Ventura's Ivanhoe fleet is uncertain. As part of the state government's Zero Emissions Bus Trial Ventura has committed to completely electrifying their Ivanhoe depot by 2024, making it the first fully electric bus depot in Victoria. 27 BYD D9RA electric buses have been ordered, with the first 13 already having been built. Infact in the day prior to filming this video I spotted nine of these electric buses hanging out at the Dandenong depot, so I assume these buses will be entering service fairly soon.

The current bus interchange at Northland was constructed in 2014 at the edge of the shopping centre facing Murray Road. The old bus interchange used to be inside the shopping centre; undercover within the car park which was similar to the bus interchange at Southland Shopping Centre (no relation to Northland btw despite being "land's", they have two different owners). However the old interchange was demolished and relocated to enable the expansion of the shopping centre, with an Aldi supermarket now occupying the site. The new interchange is quite basic and was done on the cheap; so cheap infact that I'm fairly certain they reused some of the bus shelters from the old interchange. After opening the interchange drew some criticism from users for its lack of weather protection compared to the old interchange and the long walk to the shopping centre entrance, and even today I have to agree with them; from a passenger amenity point of view I consider the new interchange to be a downgrade compared to the old interchange.

Video of the old interchange:    • Buses at Northland Shopping Centre (2...  

Date: December 2022.

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