Bus routes in regional Western Australia will cease to operate next year due to poor patronage
September 17, 2013
Six bus routes in regional
Western Australia will be cancelled next year due to subsidies being as high as $160 per passenger –
in a move to save more than half a million dollars each year.
Public Transport Authority spokesman David Hynes says the last of these services will run on December 27, 2013.
“There simply isn’t the demand to justify the services,” he says.
“In some cases we are subsidising these services to the tune of about $160 per passenger. By cutting these services we will be able to save more than half a million dollars every year.”
These cuts include three regular bus services, and three on demand services – which carried less than three passengers per trip on average.
“These services are operated by charter companies and only operate when passengers make a booking. Each of these services carried less than three passengers on average for each journey,” says Hynes.
Unlike some of the other changes announced to Transwa train services earlier this year recently, these routes will not be replaced or picked-up by another service.
Transwa will soon start to communicate these changes to affected passengers.
THE FIGURES
Boxwood Hill to Bremer Bay: a total of 21 services ran in 2012/13 carrying an average of 1.6 passengers per service.
Hopetoun to Ravensthorpe: a total of 192 services ran with a total of 1.92 passengers per service.
Quairading to Narembeen: a total of 71 services with an average of 2.3 passengers per service.