Page 189 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 14 February 2018
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network. Of course, this network is much broader than just light rail and buses. Our vision is for an integrated system, including better active travel links to high frequency services, frequent local bus services that connect people to the rapid network and a range of complementary or tailored services for those in our community who require further assistance with accessing our transport system, particularly vulnerable Canberrans.
The government made an election commitment to expand the rapid bus network, which we began in October last year with the extension of the blue rapid to Lanyon, the introduction of the green rapid from Woden to the city via Manuka and Barton, and the black rapid from Belconnen to Gungahlin. We are delivering what we promised: more services more often, seven days a week.
The government then delivered on another election promise, providing free travel on the new rapid services for the first two months. Over this period almost 28,000 passengers travelled on the black rapid and 100,000 on the green. As of 9 February, the black rapid has recorded over 50,000 boardings and the green rapid over 185,000 boardings. Following the introduction of the new services on 9 October, the black rapid recorded an average of 638 passenger boardings per day and in the first week of February this increased to 877 passengers per day. Upon introduction of the green rapid the service recorded an average of 2,231 passenger boardings per day, which has now increased to 2,712 boardings per day for the first week of February.
Passenger boardings on public transport are increasing year on year, with 17.6 million boardings recorded in 2014-15, rising to 18.2 million boardings in 2016-17. Transport Canberra is on track to meet the target of 18.4 million passenger boardings for the current financial year, with 10.9 million boardings recorded up to 10 February.
We know that when a new network or timetable is introduced it is often common to see an initial drop in patronage. However, in the long term, patronage starts to increase as the public get used to changes and start to take advantage of the benefits. Making reactive changes to our transport network can be detrimental to the overall efficiency and the benefit of our integrated services.
It is worth noting that this initial drop in patronage did not occur after the October timetable change. In fact, patronage across the network has increased by two per cent on each weekday and 10 per cent on each weekend day since its implementation compared to the same period last year. Public notification of changes to services occurred five weeks prior to the changes being introduced. As with previous timetable updates of this nature, there was not targeted public consultation. The last major redesign of the public transport network in Canberra was delivered in September 2014, following an intensive public consultation process. Several timetable updates have been delivered since then, including in May 2015, August 2016 and last year’s October update.
Transport Canberra continually receives feedback through the customer experience area, and I would like to take the opportunity to reassure members that this feedback is used in the design of the new timetables where practicable and where it aligns with the objectives of the overall transport network. In addition, as noted in the amendment
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