More bus services have been added to Canberra’s Saturday timetable. Photo: James Coleman.
Local bus frequencies will be increased on Saturdays around Canberra but public transport advocates say there’s still a way to go to reach promised levels of service.
The new weekend bus timetable will begin on Saturday, 6 April (the first weekend after Easter) and will extend hourly services from the first service in the morning until 6 pm.
Rapid bus services will continue to run every 15 to 30 minutes across the entire weekend.
Transport Canberra and City Services (TCCS) acting director general Ben McHugh said the teams had been working “extensively” to recruit more staff to join the approximately 1000-strong driver workforce so that they could deliver more frequent Saturday services and maintain reliability.
“Driver resources have been an ongoing challenge for all jurisdictions, not only to maintain established driver numbers which naturally reduce over time, but in the years post the COVID pandemic, we have seen a lot of departures through retirement,” he said.
“Driver recruitment efforts, particularly in the past year with more permanent part-time drivers coming on board, have helped Transport Canberra to rebuild staffing numbers.”
Sunday bus frequencies will remain the same.
The new services have been described as a “welcome change” by the Public Transport Association of Canberra.
But deputy chair Damien Haas said we were still a long way from getting minimum hourly services on weekends.
“If you want to visit the War Memorial on Sunday, you deserve better than waiting two hours for a bus,” he said.
“And heaven help you if you want to get to work.”
He also pointed out there wasn’t a guarantee the new services would be “reliably run” and wanted assurances of driver coverage on weekends.
“[Until then] we can’t be confident that Transport Canberra can consistently operate the seven-day bus timetable that was promised in 2019,” Mr Haas said.
A new Weekend Reliability Trial was agreed to in the recent enterprise bargaining agreement between the ACT Government and drivers and workshop staff.
More drivers will be needed as Canberra continues to grow, and it’s hoped that both these initiatives will pave the way to further increase the frequency of weekend bus services.
“We know that the travel habits of Canberrans have changed and there has been a significant increase in the use of weekend public transport services by Canberrans,” Mr McHugh said.
“The Saturday uplift allows us to focus on more frequent bus services to meet the demand for that day and deliver better transport services for the Canberra community.”
Changes to the new weekend bus timetable include:
- Extension of hourly local buses from the first service in the morning until 6 pm on Saturdays
- 57 additional bus services in the Belconnen region
- 48 additional bus services in the Gungahlin region
- 61 additional bus services in the Central Canberra region
- 73 additional bus services in the Woden, Weston Creek and Molonglo regions
- 92 additional bus services in the Tuggeranong region.
No changes will be made to light rail frequencies, which are currently scheduled every 15 minutes on weekends.
Visit the Transport Canberra website for more information on the new weekend bus timetable or call 13 17 10.
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