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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 6 Hansard (17 June) . . Page.. 1659 ..
MR KAINE (continuing):
It would have high-frequency feeder and community-based services and routes
that better reflect community needs and travel patterns. It would have
reliable connecting services for passengers who have to change buses. It would
have innovative routes which would, for example, service the airport and
hotels. It would have improved night and weekend services to encourage people
to use buses. It would have improved school bus services. It would have a
holiday and summer network which follows weekday travel patterns. It would
have responsive network and timetable changes to meet the changing requirements
of the community and to accommodate patronage increases.
The review recommends that network services should be better marketed. Some suggestions for that are providing user-friendly signage and information at bus stops and interchanges, providing bus timetables and simplified route numbers that are easier to understand, encouraging driver participation in the planning of services and ensuring that customer-friendly service officers are conspicuous at major patronage-generating locations. The review reports that ACTION's current flat fare structure is inequitable and is a substantial constraint to increasing patronage levels, particularly for those who want to travel short distances or through interchanges. On this matter the Government announced in the budget that an independent body would be appointed to review fare prices and structures.
The report indicated that currently there is a significant amount of unproductive driver time in the weekday shifts. This unproductive time is a result of the lack of split shifts, long sign-on and sign-off times, meal breaks having to be taken at the home depot and rostered time that drivers spend waiting while their bus is refuelled and cleaned. I am confident that the Transport Workers Union will take a responsible attitude to reform and will work with ACTION to negotiate and eliminate these more restrictive practices, thereby helping to build a better, more efficient and more responsive bus service for the people of Canberra.
Mr Speaker, the changes recommended in the report are substantially accepted by the Government. Many of these changes can be implemented relatively quickly to improve existing services. During this year the Government will introduce more frequent services on selected routes during the day between the commuter peak services; trial some additional services later at night from night areas such as Civic and Manuka; introduce better timetabling information; provide customer-friendly service staff at interchanges and, progressively, timetable information at major bus stops; ensure that feeder bus services interconnect at interchanges and that services do not depart before connecting services arrive; continue negotiations with the Transport Workers Union on work reform to allow additional services to be implemented and redesign of the network to be introduced; improve the summer network and public holiday services; ensure that the bus purchasing program meets the needs of the improved network, and we are already introducing midi-buses on selected routes as part of that; and carry out community-wide surveys and consultation to provide an up-to-date information base for network redesign. These measures will be implemented within the current budget. They are things that can be done readily.
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