Adelaide Hills commuters can feel free to ditch the car keys and save fuel this month, with close to 600 extra bus services each week planned to hit the roads.
Taking off from Sunday, August 25, an additional 384 weekly services will commence between the Adelaide Hills and the city. Together with extra services that started earlier this year, this will provide commuters with a total of 104 extra services each weekday, 22 on Saturdays and 48 on Sundays.
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The boost follows a set of improvements made earlier in the year under a $19 million public transport expansion designed to meet the needs of rapidly expanding local communities.
Supporting bustling Hills communities, from Crafers to Mount Barker, the extra services aim to provide commuters greater flexibility, creating more seats on public transport and taking cars off the road.
A new Go Zone from Mount Barker will see express buses running via the freeway at least every 15 minutes from 7am to 7pm on weekdays, including every six minutes in peak periods, and half-hourly at night and on weekends.
Weekend services will also increase, with buses travelling between the new Crafers Park ‘n’ Ride, Glen Osmond Road and the city approximately every 15 minutes between 7.30am and 7pm on weekends.
These service improvements will not only provide additional capacity at peak times, including around school times, but will also run more often both early in the morning and late at night, seven days a week.
To service the new bustling schedule, 24 new drivers have been recruited and a new fleet of hybrid-diesel buses is being progressively rolled out.
Since the beginning of these transport enhancements in January, there has been a significant increase in the community patronage. Sunday services saw bus usage soar by 119 percent, while weekday numbers rose by 24 percent across the three express routes from Mount Barker to the city.
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