Struggling southeast Queensland bus routes are set for a six-month review
July 24, 2012
Struggling southeast Queensland bus routes will face a six-month review in a bid to improve reliability, affordability and frequency.
Transport minister Scott Emerson says the review, announced this morning, was prompted by patronage decline on 13 of southeast Queensland’s 16 bus providers.
“We saw four million fewer trips taken on public transport the last six months of last year compared to the six months in the previous year,” Emerson says.
“We are trying to get more people to use public transport.”
Emerson says on some routes full buses
are forced to leave
passengers behind while buses on other routes carry
two passengers a trip.
He says the 10 worst performing routes cost more than $5 million a year, with less than five per cent of the cost paid for through fares.
“To attract people back to public transport we must improve services, so I’ve told TransLink to work with all operators and passengers for the next six months to start building a better network,” Emerson says.
Emerson says in Brisbane there are roads with more than 25 different bus routes, all stopping at different locations within the CBD, while on the Gold Coast there are some bus routes that haven’t been reviewed since the 1990s.
According to Emerson, the network review will include eliminating service duplication, managing the infrastructure capacity, getting better connectivity between services and modes, redirecting resources to routes where there is overcrowding, and attracting more people on public transport by simplifying the network.
Emerson attended the launch of
Translink’s real-time bus information system, Trip Tracker,
at Logan Hyperdome busway this morning.
He says the system, which provides passengers with real-time bus information on buses, at bus stops and online, is hoped to play a part in attracting more patronage.