News

From 5pm, Friday 9 July, masks must be worn within indoor areas of work sites such as site offices and any temporary site buildings e.g. tents. Masks are not required to be worn in outdoor areas of work sites, except where those sites are within public transport waiting areas e.g. station precincts or bus stops.

Talk to your manager to find out how to access masks. For tips on how to wear a mask and information about when you can remove your mask, including for safety reasons, please read the Mask FAQs and go to our Health Advice & Information page.

The NSW Government strongly recommends that essential workers get a COVID test prior to travelling to regional NSW from Greater Sydney. While it is a strong recommendation, it is not mandatory and NSW Health has advised that if it affects the operation of our services, it is not necessary.

If a test is feasible, then a test should be taken, especially if you are regularly going to and from Greater Sydney or travelling from Greater Sydney and staying overnight in regional NSW. If you are well and have no symptoms, you do not have to isolate after this test and can come to work.

We are working through what this means for our people as an ongoing measure and will provide more information when it is available.

Given the growing number of infectious cases in the community and unlinked cases of community transmission, COVID-19 restrictions will be tightened across Greater Sydney including the Central Coast, Blue Mountains, Wollongong and Shellharbour. This is in addition to restrictions being extended for 1 week until 11:59pm Friday 16 July which was announced yesterday.

From 5pm today (Friday, 9 July) the following additional restrictions will be in place:

• Outdoor public gatherings limited to two people (excluding members of the same household)
• People must stay in their Local Government Area or within 10kms of home for exercise and outdoor recreation, with no carpooling between non-household members
• Browsing in shops is prohibited, plus only one person per household, per day may leave the home for shopping
• Funerals limited to ten people in total (this will take effect from Sunday, 11 July).

The four reasons to leave your home remain in place:

• Shopping for food or other essential goods and services (one person only)
• Medical care or compassionate needs (only one visitor can enter another residence to fulfil carers’ responsibilities or provide care o assistance, or for compassionate reasons)
• Exercise with no more than 2 (unless members of the same household)
• Essential work, or education, where you cannot work or study from home.

Restrictions in regional NSW will remain unchanged.

It is our number one priority to keep our people and our customers safe. Here are just some of the measures we have in place to do that:

• Green dots guiding our customers on where to sit and stand
• Driver exclusion zones and taped off opal readers on our buses
• Enhanced cleaning across the network, including our fleet and at all workplaces etc
• Deployment of NSW Health COVID updates direct to all Transport mobile phones and iPads – instructions here for bring-your-own device set up
• Rapid response cleaning teams and mask handouts deployed at busy interchanges
• Marshals at stations and stops to guide customers in a COVIDSafe way
• Freight pop up testing sites
• Vehicle sanitation stations running across the state to keep P2P moving
• No cash handling
• COVIDSafe workplace measures implemented including extra cleaning
• QR Codes across all workplaces and worksites
• Extra customer communications and COVIDSafe measures we need them to take
• Translating customer communications into a range of languages to support non-English and English as a second language communities
• Dedicated Transport Contact Tracing team working in partnership with NSW Health
• Promoting alternative travel options including cycling and walking
• Working in partnership with Police who have presence at our major stations such as Central to target customers who are travelling without a ‘reasonable excuse’ under the Public Health Order. In addition to targeting those not wearing masks and apprehending anyone breaching the coughing and spitting crimes act.

With the onset of the highly transmissible delta variant and a huge number of frontline team members and parents with school aged children we know the current situation is causing stress and concern for our people. Here are some important links that cover what support we have available:

• Visit our looking after yourself and each other page including a link to our Staywell hub for a complete list of tools and resources
• Information for our people with school children
• Information for our people considered ‘at risk’
• We have a well-trained team of Mental Health First Aiders across the state
• COVID related concerns can be raised through our TSS hotline on 133 877 (8am-5pm, Mon-Fri) or fill in the form.