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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 10 Hansard (Tuesday, 24 August 2004) . . Page.. 4094 ..

transport system in the region. I understand also that, unfortunately, there has been some difficulty communicating this vision to the government.

As a Green, I see taxi services as the least desirable option—only one step up from the private car—of the full range of public transport options available to the community. That said, it is desirable that the taxi service we have is as effective as possible in terms of community access and equity. My preference, clearly, is for a well functioning public transport system that provides cheap and reliable services in the places and at the times that people need them. Ideally. Canberra’s taxi and hire car service would fit into this integrated public transport model.

I am very interested in the possibilities for the ACT offered by a demand responsive transport model, known as the DRT system. For example, services would be provided by taxis or hire cars, minibuses and shuttles, rather than the standard empty ACTION buses, and would be available on demand. The DRT vehicles would stop at prerequested points or at nominated points along a standard public transport route. They would transport passengers to larger transport hubs around the existing interchanges and would ideally offer greater flexibility through access to bike racks on buses and taxis and bike lockers at interchanges.

DRT models have already been tried and found to be effective in Europe, the USA and other areas of Australia, but on a small scale. DRT systems are particularly useful in areas where high volume services are least effective—that is, in low-density metropolitan regions that have previously been dominated by the private car. I have been advised that Canberra would be the perfect location for a DRT system.

It is possible that the buyback of the hire car licences will give the government greater flexibility to explore options for a DRT model for the ACT, in the first instance perhaps focusing on a community focus system as envisaged by the Greens—that is, using the WATs and other vehicles to provide demand responsive services for mobility impaired passengers, young people who participate in school transport runs and aged persons. Of course, it would be desirable that any such model would be developed with input from ACTION, Canberra Cabs and the hire car industry.

Canberra Cabs has already expressed an interest in working with the ANU and CSIRO in developing a trial DRT project, but I have been informed that it has been hard to get anyone from government on board. Instead, the government has commissioned its own DRT study, which I understand will be released later this week. It is perplexing that the government will be proceeding with the idea of the release of more taxi plates in advance of the results of this study.

I know that this is the last week of sitting, but it would seem a strange time to be revisiting this issue with the imminent release of what should be a relevant report. Indeed, it is a strange time to be revisiting this issue for a range of reasons: the imminent release of the DRT study, the dramatic drop in demand for taxis in the ACT, experiences in other states and territories after the release of more plates, the impact of the entry of Queanbeyan cabs into the ACT market and the Productivity Commission’s current review of the National Competition Council and its future role, to name but a few.

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