Pre-pay all the way on the 137

A new bus route 137 will be trialled as a pre-paid-only service to provide a faster trip between Sunnybank Hills and the City, Minister for Transport, Trade, Employment and Industrial Relations John Mickel announced today.

The 137, being introduced from February 18 as part of $4.6 million worth of new services for Brisbane, will operate in the busy Mains Road corridor.

"We had fantastic success with our recent pre-paid platform trial at the Cultural Centre Busway Station," Mr Mickel said.

"Efficiency increased dramatically, which in turn led to a reduction in the amount of time each bus waited at the platform.

"Now we are moving to trial the pre-paid-only concept onboard bus services.

"We are very hopeful the same sort of results we saw during the Cultural Centre trial will be seen again in the 137 pre-paid-only trial.

"The average time taken when paying a fare onboard a bus is 11 seconds, while validating a ticket takes just three seconds.

"On a full articulated bus carrying 87 passengers, this potentially saves almost 12 minutes on each trip," Mr Mickel said.

"By making the new 137 route a pre-paid, all-the-way service, up to 1310 hours of travel time can be saved in a year."

Passengers using the 137 service must have a valid TransLink ticket before boarding the bus – they will not be available from the bus driver.

Passengers without pre-purchased tickets may continue to buy tickets onboard all other bus routes in the Mains Road corridor.

Route 137 will operate every 10 minutes on weekdays between 6.20am and 8.30am and between 4.04pm and 6.04pm.

The service will use ‘’banana’’ buses with a capacity for 87 passengers and will run non-stop between the QEII park 'n' ride and Brisbane CBD via the Southeast Busway and Captain Cook Bridge.

The 137, which will provide capacity to carry an additional 2349 passengers a day, is expected to take pressure off other popular services in the Mains Road corridor, such as the 129 ,130 and 131 routes.

Customers can pre-purchase tickets from local ticket agents or any QR Citytrain station including:

Suburb Agent Address

Calamvale Calamvale News Shop 12, Kamaruka Street, corner Beaudesert Road

Calamvale Nottingham Road News Shop 8, Calamvale Market Place, Beaudesert Road, corner Nothingham Road

Macgregor Macgregor News Shop 14, 15 Sunnypark Shopping Centre, Mains Road

Runcorn News Unlimited Shop 7, 168 Gowan Road

Runcorn Runcorn Plaza Pharmacy Runcorn Plaza Shopping Centre, Warrigal Road, corner Daw Road

Runcorn Fruit Grove QR Citytrain station Beenleigh Road

Sunnybank Market Square News Corner Mains Road and McCullough Street

Sunnybank Sunnybank Plaza News And Casket Shop 22, Sunnybank Plaza, Mains Road, corner McCullough Street

Sunnybank Oasis News 132 Station Road

Sunnybank Altandi QR Citytrain station 125 Mains Road

Sunnybank Sunnybank QR Citytrain station Dixon Street

Sunnybank Hills Jackson Road News Shop 19, 344 Jackson Road

Sunnybank Hills Pinelands Plaza News Pinelands Plaza, Pinelands Road

Sunnybank Hills Sunnybank Hills News Sunnybank Hills Shopping Town, Calamvale Road, corner Compton Road

Brisbane CBD Rankin's on the Mall Queen Street Mall, opposite Hungary Jacks

Brisbane CBD Exchange Newsagency 360 Queen Street

Brisbane CBD Post Office Square News 280 Queen Street

Brisbane CBD Lucky Golden Goose Newsagency 140 Adelaide Street

Brisbane CBD Central QR Citytrain station Corner Edward and Ann St

Brisbane CBD Roma Street QR Citytrain station 171 Roma Street

For a full list of ticket agents, please refer to the TransLink website, www.translink.com.au


Ministerial contacts: Shannon Mackay 3237 1125 or Chris Brown 3237 1944