Action for Public Transport (N.S.W.) Inc.

APT Secretary, Allan Miles, said that despite the recommendations for fare equality in the Parry Report (December 2003) and the Unsworth Report (March 2004), some bus passengers are obviously still more equal than others.

"With very few exceptions," Mr Miles said, "private bus users do not have access to discounted fares such as TravelTens and TravelPasses. They have to pay the expensive single fare each trip".

Mr Miles said that, apart from the waste of time paying the driver twice a day, private bus users are missing out on discounts of 15 to 20% available on State Transit bus services.

"By contrast," Mr Miles said, "The Liverpool - Parramatta T-way, coincidentally opened a few weeks before the 2003 election, offers a range of time and money saving tickets to regular users."

"T-way Tens offer 15% discount from the single fare," he said, "weekly tickets give greater savings for unlimited use, and combined bus/rail tickets called BusPlus are convenient and economical for people who take the bus and the train."

Mr Miles said that these convenient tickets must be made available to all bus users now. "It has already been three years since the recommendations were made in the reports and accepted by the government," he said. "Excuses such as new contract arrangements and ticketing systems are starting to wear thin." He said that contractual and accounting arrangements seemed to take precedence over passengers' requirements.

Mr Miles said that, in the name of equality, the Pensioner Excursion Ticket was extended to cover all private buses two years ago. "It is now time to make all passengers equal by requiring private buses to issue such tickets as TravelTens, Bus Weeklies, Rail/Bus Weeklies and DayTrippers."

Contact: Allan Miles 9516-1906