Proposal for Free Morning Bus Travel

ask your 4 year old.

you nake three stops ? are the other two also similarly required to have mummy hold their hand while crossing roads ?

kids should walk or ride a bike to school every day. a bus shoudl be the final option.

driving them every day is poor parenting.

Oh, I just realised: “no one is suggesting you try to drop off three kids at different places and then get to work on the bus, or make your 4yo walk across Drakeford Drive.” And I should learn to read?

Nyssa76 – “Defensive about my car my arse.” Defensive about everything, it seems. Ad hominem attacks are a sure sign of mental weakness. It’s ok, we’ll wait while you look it up.

On reflection and after listening to John the Tea Totler’s interview, my stance is that ‘they’ve got nothing’ in the qay of ideas or notions to do something positve with ACTION an dht eradio interview was a plea for someone with more intelligence than they come and fix the problem. When I first moved here 17 years ago, ACTION never seemed to receive anywhere as much criticism as it does now and the buses were well used back then too.

I think the balls have been tossed in the air and someone is hoping that one of them is caught be someone with a lightglobe in their head.

Putting on my Edward de Bono ‘seems like a stupid idea that just might work’ hat: steal the supermarket servo model.

Open small stores in bus exchanges owned and operated by Action – about the size of a small servo.

In the morning, they do breakfast – egg and bacon muffin, tea and coffee, fruit, muesli bars, juice, that sort of thing. All day, they sell convenience groceries – magazines, papers, cigarettes, bread, milk, gum, phone recharges etc.

Make bus tickets redeemable toward your purchase – people duck in for brekkie in the morning and grab a paper. On the way home they grab a few essentials. Alternatively / in addition, sell a package eg a Brekky+Bus deal for $6.

Your customers are still a revenue stream, but not for one costly, inefficient product. The stores make catching the bus more attractive, increasing total revenue.

Swiss studies have shown that public transport running late was the main deterrent to people catching it. So they allowed a bit longer for all their routes, and ensured that the busses arrived at each stop on time. Patronage went way up. I”m sure it would help here too – waiting at the bus stop in the early morning in the middle of a frosty winter is pretty miserable.

I’ve heard that rumour about Sydney train tix costing more to print and distribute than they recoup, but I don’t know if it is true.

I catch the bus probably 50% of work days, and drive the rest, usually out of laziness. Even making ALL buses free wouldn’t be enough incentive for me – it’s not the cost that’s prohibitive (driving is, obviously, more expensive). The things that would get me on the bus on those other days would be if buses were more frequent, reliably showing up, reliably on time, and less crowded during peak times.

Apparently in some cities in the world (help me out here if you know which ones – I can’t remember!) where bus travel is free all the time, the bus companies are actually financially better off, because the fares collected didn’t even cover the cost of collecting them. Interesting thought anyway…

maelinar, admittedly, it does depend on the route.
if you got the 243, for instance, it’s probably alot quicker.. (at the right time)
12 minutes or so to belco, another 13-15 to the city, then through russel and i beleive it goes on to barton after that ?

Thanks to all for the defence of my statement that Holt to Barton will take 2hrs on my behalf.

It’s funny how the ‘experts’ are willing to come out of the woodwork and make assertions about how long the trip will take without actually having any actual experience with that route.

I have a tard brush, and I’m ready to paint.

Action and the ACT Government have been repeatedly asked to provide a service to the airport. One piss-pot government minister has been heard to say he does not give a shit for the airport.

“but of course, action refuse to cotton on to the potential cash cow out at the airport now.”

I don’t believe Action have jurisdiction over the airport – that’s Deane’s domain.

Wouldn’t it be better to make buses free from 7.30am to 9.00am? That’s when the roads are busiest.

even if the busses were free before 7am, i’d still get to russell and be stuck there until 7:40am, which wouldn’t do shit for me, considerin i need to be at work at 7.
but of course, action refuse to cotton on to the potential cash cow out at the airport now.

mrmagoo, yea, but the extra time the 116 takes after it passes through florey to get to holt is amazing.
The 117 is no better..

In actual fact, the 313 leaves belcompton interchange 5 minutes AFTER the 116, but used to get me home closer to 5 minutes sooner.
Of course, this wouldn’t be suitable for everyone

catching a bus from Lanyon to my work at Belconnen would definetly take me over an hour.
Its a 25 min bus ride to Tuggeranong first. hop off bus. wait at least 10 or more minutes for the the next bus and then that takes 40 minutes to get to Belco. so that’s 1 hr 15 minutes. And that is being generous. Why would I do that when I could drive and be at work in 30 minutes..

boney, learn to read. –> make the little darlings walk.

Defensive about my car my arse.

For some period for say 3 months they should pick a day and make it free bus rides all day…
Or make the bus free in the morning to speed all the ticketing up.. then they have to pay anyway to get home or get a lift.. Also why cant they make more of those long buses.. and use them purposly for the 300 routes.. at certains times of the day they are packed for hours..

I don’t know whether a thugget can be snooty, yet vocal?

Nyssa76, no one is suggesting you try to drop off three kids at different places and then get to work on the bus, or make your 4yo walk across Drakeford Drive. Why are you so defensive about your car?

And if you cannot fix the buses then what hope is there for light rail?

Buses need a 100% funding boost and more dedicated bus lanes like on Northbourne Avenue.

Even then I bet most people do not want to share a bus with snooty, vocal thuggets and would prefer to travel by car.

bonfire, yes, I’ll get my 4yo to cross Drakeford Drive during peak hour.

Idiot.

make the little darlings walk.

They can make it as free as they want, I still won’t use it.

I have 3 places to drop kids off and then get to work myself. There is no way in hell I am catching up to 5 buses before I start my job.

30 mins in a car does it for me.

A little of topic, but sepi mentioned about how trams come every 3 minutes in Melbourne.
That said, todays Herald Sun reported that there have been 700 incidents (and the recent tram crash) in I believe 12 months, down from 1000 last year. At least ACTION don’t have that many incidents (at least, I hope they don’t?)

I’ve never had a problem with the busses, but it would be better if they ran later on Friday and Saturday nights. If people are going to dish out $30 -$50 for a taxi ride home, people would be more than willing to spend about $5 for a late night bus fare.

You can only please some of the people some of the time.. I think that the reasons people use public transport are too varied for Action to be able to satisfy the majority – it’s probably a good thing that they can at least acknowledge change is needed. I do agree with sepi though – extending their late night services on a Friday/Saturday and maybe even a Thursday night I’m sure would generate some more revenue.

Maelinar, I also catch the bus early sometimes because, like you, it takes about an hour and a half to get me to work (belco to fyshwick).

As to whether offering free rides before 7am would encourage me, the answer is no. Currently my trip to work involves 2 bus trips, with the second one being free due to being within an hour of the first. If I was to leave home on a free pre-7am bus, the second trip would still start after 7am so I would have to pay for it instead of the first. Total benefit to me = nil.

First there is no wya it takes an hour and a half from holt to Barton, I travel from Florey to Barton everyday on the bus and its 35 minutes tops. Second the reality is that people want to use their cars either during the day or after work, or so they say, hence why they drive. There still isn’t enough of deterant to drive and catch the bus, high petrol prices and cost of parking don’t seem to worry too many people. I take the bus mostly cause I have no choice, but people need to think more broadly about how best to make the service work.

“And this begs the question – why are busses running at 7am ?

Ample parking for those idiotic enough to be awake at that hour, and open roads all the way into work. Busses are not necessary so early.”

I catch the bus that early sometimes – because I CHOOSE not to drive my car! (cost of parking, petrol and emissions)

Also, some are not lucky enough to have the choice that I do – NOT EVERYONE OWNS A CAR!!!

ps – when I lived in Melbourne the tram came every 3 minutes.

3.00 a ride is not cheap, and in some suburbs Action is not available – eg Chifley.

I live close to a bus route, which is great, but services drop back to nothing after about 6.00.

One area ACTion really needs to improve is the late night services on Friday and Saturday nights. Young people can’t afford 50.00 taxi fares, and should be able to bus to their interchange and taxi from there.

I think all the people who say Action buses aren’t convenient are a bit confused about public transport. Canberra is really well serviced by public transport, it is hard to walk more than a kilometre in most suburbs and not find a bus route to take you into town. It is cheaper and more available than in Sydney or Melbourne. I find it really hard to believe than anyone would think it takes 2 hrs to get from Holt to Barton, thats just what people tell themselves to justify their commute.

And this begs the question – why are busses running at 7am ?

Ample parking for those idiotic enough to be awake at that hour, and open roads all the way into work. Busses are not necessary so early.

There is definitely a peak hour here on the busses – you don’t get a seat on the bus I used to catch, at either 8.15, or 5.30 coming home.

Obviously the only fair way to do it would be to pay people who rode at those times with monthly/weekly passes 🙂

They just introduced a similar thing in Melbourne. I’m rarely awake before 7am, let alone arriving at work by 7am. Insane.

If you were only paying for one journey/day, then you wouldn’t buy a weekly or monthly; you’d buy a Faresaver 10 ticket instead.

deano,
am I missing something. Your not paying the same, your saving half because you only pay one way, as opposed to paying for the bus both ways.

But if I get free travel in the morning, I still have to pay to get home; which means I have to buy weekly or monthly tickets I can only use one way. The net result is that it costs the same and there is no saving to be had. I can see how that will work.

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22442692-661,00.html

The Melbourne proposal is being put up to lessen the rush-hour crush rather than encourage greater use of public transport.

The problem we have in the ACT is that the bus service simply doesn’t perform well. Even if you made the service free 24/7 I doubt that there would be serious adoption of buses.

7am in Holt means I will get to work by 8:30 – 9am in Barton. The problem is not the cost, it’s the hour and a half to do a trip that takes 15mins by car.

Nice idea, but too early. And if they make it later, too many people will make use of it and that means loss of revenue.
This is a bit silly now. First they cut and change service because ACTION can’t make back the money it costs, then they re implement them, now they want to give us free travel.
Aside from people in certain professions, who leaves for work at 7am?

Agree with you Mr Evil – Action would have to run more services before 7am for this to be viable.

7am is too early – make it 8am.

There’s only one route per day that goes anywhere near my house at that time of day. What about people who buy monthly passes? This proposal would do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to encourage regular commuters.