…The relatively small difference between Victoria, where public transport was free, and NSW – where fares remained unchanged – suggests price is not the main constraint on mode shift. Access, travel time, service reliability and the ability to make specific trips appear to matter more.
Though not an awful article on its own merits (clickbait title notwithstanding), this is not an exception to Bettetidge’s Law
The limited impact of free transit has been well known for decades though making it equal to or more expensive than driving should be considered nothing short of a “let them eat cake”-level national embarrassment
Agree.
Yeah cost is only one consideration, for me there are a lot of reasons that I generally choose not to take PT. It works ok for certain scenarios, but is usually the worse option by a significant margin. Even being free isn’t enough to tip the scales the vast majority of the time, particularly when non-cost considerations are included.
My motorcycle gets me to work in less than half the time, leaves on my schedule, I know I’ll get a seat, I can use the one vehicle for the whole trip, it’s far more reliable, I get sick less often (thanks, people who take PT when they are clearly unwell), not to mention that I enjoy riding anyway which is in itself a decent incentive. Taking the car still ticks these boxes - it takes longer than the bike but is still far quicker than PT, plus I can take bulky/heavy things that simply aren’t feasible to take on PT, and it’s a negligible additional cost to take others with me. That said I’m lucky to have parking at work, if that wasn’t the case it would be far less feasible.
And that’s for the city-and-back trips that I assume PT has been optimised for. For any other trips, PT rarely makes sense, though PT being free does address the issue of paying separately for each passenger (eg 4 people going to the city and back costs ~$45 on PT, ~$10 in the car).
If I’m to actively choose PT over bike/car it needs to be the better choice. And it needs to do that by improving, not by simply adding barriers to alternatives.
Car vs PT is pretty regularly going to be decided in favor of the car. The point of PT is to enable people to not need a car in the first place.
I abandoned my car several years ago, at the benefit of around $300-$400/month (once you add up car payment, insurance, gas, maintenance, parking, etc). Nowadays, it would probably be significantly more. I was able to replace that with a $65/month bus pass. My spouse still has their car, so we use that if needed. It’s been a real lifechanger.
I don’t know that PT is ever going to out-convenience a private car trip, barring things like car-free districts. It doesn’t have to - it just has to be useful enough for daily commuting that you can downsize your private vehicles (and save a bunch of money). If you aren’t looking to do that…welp.
And it needs to do that by improving, not by simply adding barriers to alternatives.
What improvements would you recommend? This is important. More ideas need to be discussed.
What improvements would you recommend? This is important. More ideas need to be discussed.
Not the OP
PT in Australia is an afterthought shoe horned in around car stupidity and it needs citizens to think about it all if they want to make use of it eg living near a train station deliberately etc. been there, done that.
Good PT takes decades of planning and has last mile issues (solved with quality separate infrastructure for hire ebikes and personal escooters).
A good example of this travesty I bring up is near where I used to live on the Gold Coast, Helenesvale Station; has a heavy rail stop, is the terminus for the light rail down to the beach at Broadwater, Southport and soon Burleigh etc and for a bus line. It has a massive shopping centre (supermarket, specialty, medical, fruit and veg, banks etc) and is surrounded by … a huge fucking car park.
What it should have is nearly no car park and 10 x 15 story apartment blocks on site. (that’s 1500 homes right there and zero koala habitat needs clearing, zero roads built etc and workforce right near 1000s of jobs). You wouldn’t even have to think, walk down stairs for shopping, medical etc and a train to Brisbane, or Tram to the beach, or to work for many, many people.
Instead, 100s of workers drive there and park in the car park, as do commuters, a fucking mess.
As an aside, I now live in rural Tassie (climate change saw me move) and there is 1 bus a day where i live. It used to be $6 each way, it’s now free to Launceston. I am sure there are many who don’t dive as much but with the free PT I catch that bus in once a week to the “big smoke” for a day out, rather than drive my ecar every other month for just chores.
A few things come to mind, with the caveat of course this is all from a layman’s perspective and may be misinformed, dumb, or otherwise not feasible.
Basic stuff:
- More frequent services. Aside from the sardine tins they can become during peak times, lengthy waits, particularly in bad weather, aren’t great. It also softens the blow if there’s a service fault (only a few minutes until the next one comes by).
- Disincentivise service cancellations, a late service is better than one that doesn’t run at all. It won’t always be possible to avoid cancelling, but I’m told the cancellation penalty can be less severe than the punctuality one.
- Chain/rework service SLAs with an “overall service” goal. It’s frustrating when your service has been delayed, and the connecting service you would have caught leaves empty but on time to meet their own timeliness metrics.
- Perhaps linked to that, I have to wonder how wise it is to contract these things out. Not sure what the answer is as having it all be govt-run doesn’t fill me with optimism either, maybe rethinking how contracts are written and awarded needs a rethink - but moving the focus from serving the public need to minimising cost/maximising profit cannot possibly be in the best interests of the commuter.
More ambitious:
- There need to be trains that go between the existing lines, concentric circles around the city essentially. To visit a friend who lives only about 15km from me, using PT the train-only option involves travelling into the city, swapping trains, then travelling out of the city on his line. It’s over 2 hours of travel. Adding buses brings that down to about 75-80 mins. Driving there takes me 20.
- Smarter express services that make a meaningful difference to trip times. Eg buses where the pickup/dropoff stops are preset (bookable?), maybe even dynamic routes based on the stops required? Dunno, this is a tough one but on my commute the current “express” option saves only 3 minutes lol.
- More separated roadways for buses, so they are less at the mercy of other traffic. That has the added benefit of reducing the volume of that other traffic, so things get better for both PT and private vehicles.
- More 3+ line rails, to allow for passing. That would reduce the flow-on impacts of delays to a service, and would allow for more express services that don’t have to accommodate catching an all-stops one.
- Better start-of-trip options. Park and ride sounds good but they are always packed, and are basically just a shopping centre for car thieves who know the owners will likely not be back until 5pm or so. We’ve already lost one car this way, insured but it was a massive headache. Airport-style shuttle buses perhaps? Something that might allow a pushbike to be transported too, as that might help with the last-km issues.
- More of a societal thing than being PT-specific, but move away from the “one big CBD” model. Everybody wanting to converge on more or less the same point puts a huge amount of concentrated pressure on a system. That system has to be designed and funded to accommodate these enormous peaks, but will be massive overkill at other times. Distributing the destinations reduces that concentration, but also helps to justify better services in areas that everyone currently leaves because they have to go to the city instead.
There are no doubt tons of others but that’s a start.
Wow, pretty impressive! With the petrol situation not going to improve any time soon and climate action desperately needed this is an opportune time for governments to get input from commuters such as yourself throughout Australia and start transforming our PT systems according to the needs of different population centres.
I think your last point about the faulty one CBD model was already recognised long ago. Sydney has 3 major business/admin centres: city centre, North Sydney and Parramatta. I haven’t lived in Sydney for a while so there may be more for all I know. There’s probably similar set ups in other cities but I don’t personally know.
I can speak somewhat of the SE Qld situation, having 50c fares in place for a while now but it’s not the same as Victoria or Melbourne.
My knowledge comes mainly from friends and relatives. There’s been a sharp uptake locally because my rural city is at the end of the Brisbane metro train line. It’s a massive saving. 20 or so dollars, dependent on your fare category.
Brisbane, from my couple of sources, is the same. They’re leaving their cars home more often and catching the train into work and town recreationally, so are their colleagues. I understand the takeup in Brisbane has been pretty significant.
I’ve taken advantage of it twice on the local buses, I like it.
I’m also in Qld in a rural area and have also heard the 50c fares have been taken up well in Brisbane.
Not surprising. The problem is not the cost, it is the quality of the service/experience. If governments aren’t willing to spend large amounts of money on improving the service/experience, then the public will continue to avoid using public transport. But if the public avoids using public transport, there is no incentive for political parties to take major public transport infrastructure improvements to an election. Basically you need a progressive and proactive government with the political security to take risks and a financial climate that allows for that. With those requirements, you can see why it doesn’t happen.
I’m from Canada, but I’ve never seen an article like this include costs of roads. Ie, other transportation.
I live in a public transport black hole with extra shit late night pt home. Free is useless if there isn’t a service running for me to catch.
I reckon that happens to a lot of people. Australia has always been really car-centric unless you are in the city and even there outer suburbs often don’t have much choice.
Fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you free transit good fuck you fuck you fuck you
You can f*** me as much as you like but I can’t bring free transit to NSW and you are displaying a great deal of ignorance.
I think they were sarcastically paraphrasing the article.
Having read the article now I am mistaken and remain clueless about the comment.
I think it’s supposed to be a reference to this:
Might be time to finally watch this.
It still reads more like a response to the article, not to OP.
You’re already getting fucked by your bus fare mate
Fleur, I don’t know if you’re talking to me again or not, but just in case you are, I live in a rural area where buses are few and far between and I’d have to drive to get to a bus if I wanted one, so I have to use a car. Luckily I don’t have to do much driving.
Thank you for your invaluable input on a service you don’t use
Why the sarcasm? Just because I don’t use a service does not mean I’m a not interested in discussing what is happening in society. I don’t drive trucks but I’ve also put up a post about electric trucks and other similar posts. If we were all just interested in what affects us personally our society would be even more selfish and dysfunctional than capitalism encourages it to be. Mate, you seem to have a hate problem. Hate is bad for mental and physical health.
Just block these weirdos that create social media accounts to behave anti-socially. Nothing of value will be lost; you cannot communicate with them because they are not looking for communication in the first place.
I know right that guy is being so weird lol
I am never sarcastic
Ok, now I understand what meme you might be referring to (if that’s what’s happening) but please understand that not all people know about all the memes that are bandied about. Let’s be civil to each other. I could be your grandmother and I am sure she would not know about the meme.
