Page 3122 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 24 September 2014
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MR COE: Minister, regarding network 14, why was a decision made to not run direct services from Crace to the city during peak hours?
MR RATTENBURY: As members know, there was a full analysis undertaken of the network by the scheduling team at ACTION, looking at MyWay data, and a whole series of decisions were taken across the network to realign some services and to put additional new services in—for example, the Gungahlin to Belconnen direct service. I do not have the specifics on that, but, Mr Coe, I am happy to seek further information about the specific reason around that service into Crace.
MRS JONES: Minister, regarding network 14, why was the decision made to reduce bus services past 7 pm?
MR RATTENBURY: Mrs Jones has made a very general observation in her question so it is hard to know exactly what information she is seeking. What I can say—
Mr Coe interjecting—
MR RATTENBURY: What I can say, for those members who care to listen, is that ACTION has removed some services late at night. Again, the analysis of the data showed that some of the particularly late-night services—services at 9.30 or 10 o’clock at night in particular—had incredibly low patronage. Over a period of some months, the average patronage for some of these services was literally zero, one or two passengers. I think that, in seeking to use the resources available to the bus network, it is difficult to justify the maintenance of such a service when it essentially is not being used.
What has been maintained is that the trunk services through all of the major interchanges continue until quite late at night, as they did in the previous network. What this means is that people can get to the key town centres, right through, but some of the services running out into the suburbs where, literally, there were fewer than one handful of passengers, were rationalised.
MADAM SPEAKER: A supplementary question, Mrs Jones.
MRS JONES: Minister, what future changes do you believe ACTION will make to network 14?
MR RATTENBURY: I think there are two answers to that question. The first is that, with respect to network 14 specifically, there may be minor tweaks, as has been flagged, in that, as the practical roll-out of the network continues and drivers provide some feedback on the timing of runs, ACTION has committed to improving the on-time running of the service, using particularly the GPS MyWay data. Where a service is not meeting its advertised schedule, we will correct that where we can, so that passengers can know that the timetable is as accurate as it possibly can be. I do not have any confirmation of this; I am simply flagging ACTION’s willingness to continue to refine that to get the timetable as accurate as possible, in order to meet and improve the customer experience and expectations.
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