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

Allan Miles, spokesman for Action for Public Transport, said that in approving fare increases lower than those sought, the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART) had highlighted service quality issues.

"While the fare increase is small," Mr Miles said, "customers are always irked at paying more for less."

Mr Miles said that IPART had noted a reduction in the number of quality indicators being reported. "State Transit no longer reports on mechanical reliability, traffic reliability, safety incidents, security incidents and the average bus age," Mr Miles said. (See pp 21-23 of IPART Determination.)

Mr Miles said that service standards that were reported showed a decline. "These include on-time running, and percentage of trips cancelled or missed. The number of complaints also increased," he said.

"Action for Public Transport has long been concerned that on-time running only measures when the bus left the depot," Mr Miles said. "And early buses are just as bad as late buses," he said.

"In fact," Mr Miles said, "IPART reported that the service quality measures do not suggest a significant improvement in service standards over the past year."

Mr Miles said that IPART had noted that State Transit is exempt from reporting on "full buses". "These are occasions when the customer could not board a timetabled trip because the bus was full to capacity," he said. "These must be included in the figures," Mr Miles said. "To the waiting passengers it is the same as the bus being cancelled." Mr Miles said that in Brisbane such incidents are recorded as "drive-past".

"State Transit and the private operators must demonstrate that they have earned the fare increases by improving the quality of service provided," Mr Miles said.

Mr Miles said that most private bus users remain second-class passengers because they have no discounted multi-ride tickets such as weeklies or TravelTens. "These had been deferred for years pending the Tcard panacea," Mr Miles said. "But Tcard is still a long way off, and IPART has asked the Ministry of Transport to consider introducing interim measures to ensure that private bus passengers have access to these tickets." (p 26 of IPART Determination)

"The only good news in the IPART bus fares determination," Mr Miles said, "was the harmonisation of outer-metropolitan area fares with those of Sydney. Some very short distance trips in these areas will increase, but most fares will decrease by large amounts."

Mr Miles said that private ferry fares will increase by very small amounts from 2nd January. He said there will be no change in government ferry fares, except for those people using bus/ferry TravelPasses.

Contact: Allan Miles   9516-1906