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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 1 Hansard (20 February) . . Page.. 312 ..

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY QUESTION

QUESTION NO 358

Mr Whitecross asked the Minister for Urban Services:

1) Will you provide a weekly patronage report for all ACTION services for the period 21 October 1996 to 27 October 1996 (inclusive) including:

(a) all departure times;

(b) passengers carried on individual routes;

(c) the total number of passengers carried each day for each route; and

(d) the total number of passengers carried on each individual services per week.

Mr De Domenico the information in response to the members' request is:

ACTION has provided a full report for the period requested which is attached.

It should be noted that the ACTION patronage data for the week 21 to 27 October 1996 in response to the Member's Question on Notice is presented as obtained from the automated ticketing system and without adjustment of any data deficiencies that arise in the collection of data.

For example, correct attribution of patronage to individual bus services requires that bus operators remember to press the "end of trip" button on each occasion before commencing the next service. Failure to do so results in the passenger boardings from a service being added to the total for the service previously operated. This appears on the patronage reports as an unusually high number on one service and zero on the next. The services operated are commonly on different routes so it is difficult to link and correct these anomalies.

Occasional manual entry of service details by bus operators can also cause apparent anomalies in the data. Unless the operator enters the service details exactly as recorded on the database, the patronage information will appear on reports separately from patronage for other days for that service. Sometimes this is obvious from the reports, such as when 4 days data appears for a particular service and the missing day appears alone on the next line with a slightly different service time or a different

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