Page 1281 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 11 April 2018
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to two minutes earlier and up to seven minutes later than scheduled arrival time. In Wellington, New Zealand, Metlink measures on-time as up to 10 minutes later than scheduled time.
Transport Canberra also records timeliness more comprehensively across selected timing points along each bus route for the entire network than other public transport authorities, including day, night and weekends. This equates to recording over 6.4 million timing points each year. Timing points are key stops along a bus route that are both important to customers and can be used by planners and drivers to ensure that the timetable can be adhered to. Transport Canberra does not exclude any data due to service disruption, eg on-time running of Transport Canberra buses is not adjusted for any road disruptions or diversions that occur across our city.
In comparison, measurement of on-time running in many other Australian cities is far less rigorous. For example, in Sydney, Transport for NSW measures on-time running only at the beginning, selected mid-point and end of each trip. In Perth, Transperth measures on-time running through a random sample of one per cent of trips in each contract area.
Transport Canberra are currently assessing route timings to be reflected in the new integrated bus network to ensure timely connections across the whole public transport network, including both buses and light rail. Transport Canberra are also investigating introducing new performance measures for the network which are more passenger focused. This may include measuring the performance of planned connections and headway performance, for example, as I mentioned earlier, buses that arrive at regular intervals and not grouped together in a bunch.
As with other bus services, Transport Canberra continually monitors the on-time running performance of dedicated school services. School services are delivered as part of the Transport Canberra network and, as such, they are subject to variability of road conditions whilst in service or from delivering previous services. On-time performance for school services is measured to ensure that the service commences on time and that the arrival time at each school on the route, which can be multiple schools in a number of cases, is within an appropriate time compared to school bell times.
Under longstanding arrangements, Transport Canberra aims to operate school buses where possible to drop off and pick up students between five and 30 minutes before school starting times, and between five and 30 minutes after school finishing times. However, as the same drivers and vehicles are used to provide dedicated school services and regular bus services, this may not always be possible. It is important to acknowledge too that Transport Canberra provides a very extensive school bus service to schools across the ACT and moves school children considerable distances across the city every day.
Historically, some dedicated school services have been long and circuitous, which has resulted in poorer on-time running. As part of the development of a new integrated bus and light rail network, the ACT government is considering how school services work, with the introduction of new rapid and local services and light rail. The
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