Page 3132 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 20 August 2019
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from sitting down with the bus drivers and saying, “How will we solve this problem?” If the Assembly sees fit to pass my motion, this will strongly urge the government to get on with it and solve this.
Part (3) of my motion is about ways to solve this problem. I thought some more about what we had last week. I thought, “What else can we think of that the government appears not to be looking at?” I thought, “How about we urgently examine innovative options such as demand-responsive services that can deliver the promised level of service with a lower number of drivers?”
Members may remember—I am trying to remember exactly when it was—that for about six months we had a trial of a demand-responsive service for evenings, using ACTION buses. You would ring up ACTION and ask for a bus to pick you up. It would come to where you were. Or you could catch a bus from the Civic bus interchange; you would have the inner north bus and the Belco bus. It would hang around until it got half a dozen people and then it would go to where the people were. That is an—
Mr Coe: It was the Nightrider.
MS LE COUTEUR: Thank you, Mr Coe. A useful interjection.
Mr Coe: They cancelled that as well.
MS LE COUTEUR: I know they cancelled it.
MADAM SPEAKER: Members!
MS LE COUTEUR: I am well aware they cancelled that, but these—
Mrs Jones: The Nightrider.
MS LE COUTEUR: No; there is the Nightrider and the Smartrider.
MADAM SPEAKER: I discourage you from responding to the interjections, Ms Le Couteur.
MS LE COUTEUR: The Nightrider is another one which we still have going, but only over the Christmas period. This again could be a short-term solution. If we only have enough bus drivers to do the rapids, what we could do with the Nightrider is have the rapids run, and offer a subsidy to people to get a taxi or an Uber after they have got off their bus. We have not got the resources, it seems, to run the weekend buses.
I urge the Assembly to pass my motion. I urge the government to do the calls in it and the calls of the motion of last week and establish a frequent, reliable weekend bus service which will serve the people of Canberra well.
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