Public transport patronage tracking up

Public transport patronage increased by 3.1 percent between July and September 2015 compared with the same period last year, with more than 47 million trips recorded on South East Queensland’s public transport network.

The data was released today by the Minister for Transport Stirling Hinchliffe in the TransLink Tracker, a quarterly report of the performance of South East Queensland’s public transport network that was scrapped by the former LNP Government.

“The Palaszczuk Government’s decision to release the TransLink Tracker is about restoring accountability and transparency in our public transport network and overturns the former LNP government’s decision to withhold this data from the community,” Mr Hinchliffe said.

“It’s fantastic to see that after three years of stagnating under the former government’s watch, patronage on our public transport network is growing and is up by 3.1 per cent.

“The last TransLink Tracker report was released more than three years ago, and under the former LNP government key performance data about our public transport network was not published in full drawing criticism from public transport advocates and national organisations.

“The decision to publish the full report honours our commitment to the people of Queensland to lead an open and transparent government and provide people with an easy to access document that informs then how we are working to make their public transport journey better.

“The full report provides a snapshot of South East Queensland’s public transport network performance and ensures full transparency about patronage, on-time running, customer enquiries, go card use, customer satisfaction, passenger safety, fare evasion and service kilometres.

“Through the TransLink Tracker, the community can measure how we are progressing towards our goal of providing a safe, integrated, reliable and efficient transport system.”

The first TransLink Tracker to be delivered under the Palaszczuk Government for the 1 July to 30 September quarter shows patronage increased across all public transport modes.

Key highlights in the Q1 2015-16 report compared with the same period last year include: 

• More than 47.09 million trips on the South East Queensland network - an increase of approximately 1.42 million trips
• A 430,000 increase in bus trips, 305,000 increase in train trips and 40,000 increase in ferry trips
• An increase of than 640,000 trips on Gold Coast Light Rail from 1.24 million to 1.88 million

Mr Hinchliffe said the TransLink Tracker confirmed that affordability remains the weakest performing category.

“These results show that affordability continues to be a barrier to growing patronage on our public transport network,” Mr Hinchliffe said.

“The Palaszczuk Government is addressing this issue and has appointed an expert-led taskforce to conduct a comprehensive review of TransLink’s fares to improve affordability and meet the government's objectives of promoting fairness, affordability and patronage growth.

“Today the government also announced a fare freeze until 1 July, 2016 while the Taskforce Review is underway to ensure commuters will not be impacted while the current fare structure in South East Queensland is being considered.”

Mr Hinchliffe said that from today Queensland Rail would also proactively publish a suite of performance data on its website every month about punctuality, reliability, safety, security and customer satisfaction.

The TransLink Tracker is available online https://publications.qld.gov.au/dataset/translink-division-quarterly-reports

For public transport information, download the My TransLink app, visit www.translink.com.au or contact the TransLink call centre on 13 12 30, anytime.

Media Contact:  0475 950 772