Page 855 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 6 April 2022

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Omit all text after “That this Assembly:”, substitute:

“(1) notes:

(a) rising fuel prices have placed considerable cost of living pressures on Canberrans;

(b) access to effective public transport is essential for our community;

(d) Tasmania has made bus travel free until the end of April to help with rising fuel prices and to ease congestion but has since faced reliability issues with delivering services in the context of COVID-related driver shortages;

(e) making public transport free would cost Transport Canberra approximately $1.23 million per month, or around $1.85 million for a six week period. This comes on top of significant revenue reductions for public transport anticipated to be in the order of $20 million this year alone due to reduced public transport patronage due to COVID; and

(f) the Public Transport Association of Canberra has noted that making public transport free is not the right approach for improving patronage, with Chair Ryan Hemsley stating: “If there is money in the budget to make public transport free, there’s money available to make public transport better.”;

(2) further notes:

(a) the interim bus timetable was implemented following the start of the lockdown in August in response to decreased demand and driver availability;

(b) the interim bus timetable continues to provide a high level of frequency—most Rapid routes are running at least every 15 minutes during the day and around every hour after 8 pm during the week, while the Rapid 10 and all local services are running at least every 30 minutes;

(c) post-lockdown patronage numbers are increasing on public transport in Canberra but, in the week ending 20 March, were still 34 per cent below pre-COVID levels;

(d) reliability of services is extremely important to users as service cancellations and dropped services can be very disruptive to travel plans; and

(e) like many employers, Transport Canberra is facing COVID-related workforce availability challenges, with an average of approximately 35 drivers unavailable for work per day in recent times and unpredictable absences affecting workforce scheduling; and

(3) calls on the ACT Government to:

(a) consider the strategic and time-limited use of free public transport when there is network capacity to accommodate a potential increase in passengers and this is most likely to drive behaviour change, such as during the upcoming disruption associated with raising London Circuit and light rail; and

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