Andrew Conlon, the Mayor of Manningham in Melbourne’s north-east, where the only form of public transport is the bus said traffic on Thursday would be "mayhem". Students may struggle to get to school and workers will find it hard to get to work, he said. Public Transport Victoria's chief executive Jereon Weimar said schools affected by the strike had been contacted. Staff will be on site at key bus stops to help passengers and PTV was looking into whether extra services could be added to the tram and train network.

‘‘It’s disappointing that our passengers have to face widespread disruptions on Thursday," Mr Weimar said. ‘‘We’re urging passengers to reconsider any non-essential travel and to use our website to stay up to date with the latest information." The looming strike comes weeks after CDC drivers walked out for 24 hours, and could mark the start of a wave of industrial action rippling over the industry, as the union fights to improve wages at every bus company. The wait for a bus will be longer on Thursday. Credit:Daniel Pockett The Transport Workers Union is pushing for an industry-wide fixed annual 4 per cent wage increase plus 1 per cent for superannuation, over three years.

Transdev is offering a much lower 2.5 per cent fixed annual increase. The union is also pushing for a 15 per cent afternoon shift loading and double time for rail replacement services and Saturday shifts at Transdev. It is understood that negotiations between the union and the bus operators broke down on Friday. Branch secretary John Berger said drivers were under more pressure with the growth of the city, rail replacement services and worsening congestion. "The expansion of suburbs between Williamstown and Geelong means more services need to go in there ... and that means our guys need to work a lot harder to get the job done," he said.

"These companies are making record profits ... and the people who make that money for them need to be remunerated." Transdev’s general manager of operations George Konstantopoulos has asked workers to reconsider the strike. "We are encouraging our people to turn up at work on Thursday so they can get paid – we’ll provide them with alternative duties for the day," Mr Konstantopoulos said. "We urge the TWU to reconsider the proposed industrial action and to continue negotiations for a fair and sustainable pay increase for our drivers." The action follows a 24-hour strike at CDC a few weeks ago, with three four-hour stoppages over three weeks.

The operator’s 74 routes in Melbourne, Geelong and Ballarat make up 13 per cent of the state's network. CDC’s chief executive Nicholas Yap said he was "disappointed", as the company and union were making “good progress” in recent weeks. Transdev, which runs a combination of buses, light rail and ferries in Sydney, Brisbane and Perth, won a $1.7 billion franchise agreement to run Melbourne's bus services for up to 10 years in 2013. The contract was unique for Melbourne because it included performance targets for punctuality, reliability and passenger growth, and was hailed by then-PTV chief Ian Dobbs as the beginning of a transformation of the city’s bus networks.

But many of the French-based multinational company’s plans have failed to materialise. Transdev gained agreement from the previous Coalition government to radically rewrite its bus routes and timetables to attract more passengers, but Labor blocked its plans in 2015. Last year, it rejected the company’s unsolicited $500 million proposal to build a dedicated busway in the median of the Eastern Freeway. Transdev inherited an ageing fleet and maintenance problems have dogged the company, with Transport Safety Victoria ordering it to take a dozen of its buses off the road last year due to serious defects that endangered passengers. The company runs Melbourne's orbital bus routes that are among the Transdev's longest routes internationally, which has made their performance targets difficult to meet.