"History will be kind to us, because we will write it"
The Liberals’ Alistair Coe doesn’t like what he’s seeing act ACTION:
According to the Government’s Half Yearly Performance Report, ACTION costs have soared and on-time performance has fallen to the worst in recent history, said the Shadow Minister for Transport, Alistair Coe.
The cost per passenger boarding has risen to $7.05 (up 10 per cent from the expected
$6.43) and the subsidy has grown to 84 per cent. Despite costs increasing, the percentage of buses operating on-time is now just 67 per cent (down from an expected 85 per cent).“These figures indicate a rocky start for the new Greens Minister and show he has a lot of work to do in bringing about value for money and a bus service that Canberrans expect,” Mr Coe said today.
“At this rate, the ACTION budget will blow-out by a further $3 million bringing the total cost of the annual subsidy to a $107 million.
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Just give us ratepayers the rest of the bill, make it a free-for-all service and be done with it.
pezza said :
+1
I’ve thought this for ages too!
I bet it has something to do with the new articulated doubles…
http://actbus.net/site/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/506_KatyG.jpg
+1 to free busses
pezza said :
I concur.
pezza said :
sorta agreed, but they’ve only just brought in the new ticketing system. I mean ideally we’d see myway being useable for parking as well.
The revenue side is crap obviously and it’d action will never ever break even, no public transport system does – but these cost blowouts don’t really have much to do with it, and making the system free for all wouldn’t stop them, if anything increased use would probably make the performance worse.
67% of buses operating on time really does seem like an appalling result. I could imagine that being the case if we were a city like Sydney with frequent and unpredictable traffic delays, but what is the excuse here?
Well, at least the work experience kid is doing some work in Liberal HQ.
arescarti42 said :
Sure does given how often their supposedly speed limited buses have over taken me on flat roads.
I would suggest that people calling for a free fare bus system wouldn’t catch a bus anyway, mainly because they’ll complain that it takes ages to get to where they want to go, when all they would normally do is jump in their car.
Make buses free and recover the additional cost from paid parking in the triangle.
The better question re my way is how much money did they waste on it, how many years of free bus travel could have been funded by not putting myway in.
Interested in the claim of 67 percent of services operating on time (source?), given that the ACTION Website publishes monthly on-time running figures: https://www.action.act.gov.au/service_reliability.html
That said, the website doesn’t mention what constitutes an “on time” service – how many minutes must pass before a service is deemed late? 10? 15? 30?
The website figures seem unbelievably high, but Coe’s figure of 67 percent seems a bit low. I commute by bus a few days each week when I don’t require the car and I’ve not had the occasional late bus or breakdown.
RB78 said :
The link you provided doesn’t appear to say anything about being on time. “Service reliability records the services that were delivered” From what I see it’s only a measure of if a bus actually completed its route – no mention of being on time or late.
The bus that I usually catch from Belconnen Westfield routinely arrives 4 to 8 minutes late. I have asked drivers why this is so, and its apparently so that the bus will be on time when it arrives in Gungahlin. If they didnt start late, they would have to idle the bus somewhere along the route.
I asked why ACTION didnt just alter the timetable to reflect this, and was told that the drivers have suggested this in the past but its fallen on deaf ears to whoever prepares the timetables (i believe its a software program).
Despite Woden being the first stop on it’s route, the bus to my place can’t even manage to arrive at the interchange until about 10 minutes after it’s meant to. 67% doesn’t sound so improbable to me.
I’ve always been on the free buses bandwagon.
Makes sense.
Free trips would be FANTASTIC especially if park and ride services were boosted all along major corridors. Imagine how many car drivers, rather than burning up their own fuel, would pull over and jump on a five minute free (or even $1 capped) bus service.
I had always hoped that MyWay data would have significantly improved ACTION’s services. It’s a shame that MyWay has only resulted in service tweaking when I would have thought the service needs a complete restructure and redesign.
After this morning’s no show, and trhe next bus being so full by Calwell that passengers could not be accomodated, I couldn’t give a toss about the cost, I’d just settle for a bus.
Holditz said :
Yep, that’s me. Although I wouldn’t complain. I just really enjoy driving (and need to travel between sites over the course of my working day).
What these figures show is that ACTION’s fares are too low. Funny how Alistair has been silent about the recent fare increase – does this mean that he actually agrees with the Government for once?