Page 2882 - Week 10 - Thursday, 7 October 2021
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school facilities to make sure they are great places to work and learn. These investments help ensure that every child has a place at their local public school.
Transport Canberra—ticketing system
MR PARTON: My question is to the Minister for Transport and City Services. Minister, there have been significant delays in delivering a new public transport ticketing system for Canberra. This was first promised in 2017, and this year the delivery date has gone from 2023 to 2024. Minister, how can you expect the public to have any confidence in your ability to deliver a new ticketing system when it will take more than seven years from the initial response to deliver something that already exists and is working in other states?
MR STEEL: I thank the member for his question regarding a new ticketing system for the ACT. It is more than just a ticketing system; it includes a passenger information capability. It will assist our transport planners at the back end of the system, as well, to connect with a range of other different systems.
This is a large and complex procurement. It has been going for some years, but we are currently in the procurement process with a market sounding that is being undertaken. That is being assessed at the moment, before we move to the next stage. It is looking very promising at the moment. We are very confident that it will deliver a ticketing system that will provide a nation-leading capability, not just by providing tap-on, tap-off with a credit card, like Sydney, but going well beyond that with an account-based ticketing system with a whole variety of different ways that will enable access to public transport.
Ticketing is potentially a barrier for people to use public transport. We hope that by providing a more flexible and user-centred system that we can achieve even higher patronage levels on our public transport system in the future We are also, as part of that work, consulting with our new TCCS accessibility reference group, which is made up of organisations and people representing people with disability, older Canberrans, young people, families, and those from our multicultural community as well, to make sure that, as we progress with projects like this, they have input into the design and we can make sure that they are as accessible as possible.
Once we have got a delivery partner on board then we will be working closely with them to make sure the ticketing system is designed in a way that is user-centred, to make sure that we can encourage even more people to use public transport in Canberra.
MADAM SPEAKER: Mr Parton, a supplementary.
MR PARTON: Minister, why have you consistently failed to deliver this project? Can you actually guarantee that it will be delivered, or will it go the way of the courts database upgrade, the ED wait times promises, the land release targets and the rebuild of the Canberra theatre?
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