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

A spokesman for APTNSW, Allan Miles, said that fare increases will provide few benefits for passengers and only serve to irritate them. "The Christie Report recommended upgrades to the rail network costing over $10 billion." Mr Miles said. "Twenty cents here and there is just price tinkering and will never fill that hole." He said that a substantial and sustained public investment program over at least a decade is required.

"The fare increases may not be large, but some people will be hurt," Mr Miles said. "Part-time workers who cannot buy weekly tickets, and other low-wage earners may have to decide whether it is worth going to work or not," he said. "The majority will just soldier on, and make cuts in their budget to pay the fares to get to work."

Mr Miles said that the decision perpetuates our archaic distance-based fare system. "Train tickets are the dinosaurs in Sydney transport's Jurassic Park," he said. "All other Australian capitals have zone-based fares, where one ticket covers trips on all transport - road, rail or rudder. Only in Sydney, with its fossilised fares, can you still buy a train ticket," he said. "Visitors from interstate and overseas are amazed at our primitive fare charging regime."

Mr Miles said that during the fare review, APTNSW asked the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART) to ease the transition to a zone fare system. "We realise that it won't happen this year, or next year," Mr Miles said, "but we expected that IPART would be supportive of a change."

Mr Miles said that keeping separate tickets for rail travel protects the petty fiefdoms of the rail, bus and ferry bureaucrats, but ignores users' needs. "Transit users demand a unified transport system on all levels," he said, "fares, tickets, timetables and connections, information and, most of all, management. Using public transport should be as simple and convenient as using your own car."

"The Ministry needs to be given the facts about what is happening in the rest of the country," Mr Miles said, "and not just what the Treasury bean counters want to hear."

A review of bus fares began while the rail fare review was in progress, and Mr Miles said that a review of ferry fares is expected when the Walker Inquiry is finished. "This can only deepen the divisions in the disjointed jumble that we mistakenly call a transport system," Mr Miles said. "It is absurd to have three separate changes to fares in the course of six months. This issue highlights the disintegrated nature of public transport in Sydney," he said.

Contact: Allan Miles 9516-1906