Wednesday 4 April 2012

TransLink's public transport report card showed steady growth in patronage and on-time running for the last three months of 2011.

TransLink CEO Neil Scales said the latest snapshot of TransLink's performance showed overall patronage for the three months was 43.3 million which is an increase of 1.6 per cent compared with the same quarter the previous year.

"The biggest increase was train patronage, up by nearly 700,000 trips or 5.7 per cent, while bus patronage rose slightly, up 20,000 trips or 0.1 per cent, and ferry patronage dropped by 7,000 trips or 0.5 per cent.

"On-time running for trains also continued to improve for the quarter, with the figure exceeding 94.5 per cent.

"Other significant results achieved during the quarter included go card hitting the 300 million trip milestone and a cohort of 13 new Senior Network Officers graduating in December."

Mr Scales said customer satisfaction levels were being watched closely.

"There were statistically significant increases across four categories, including reliability and frequency, comfort of ride, information and accessibility," he said.

"With the introduction of two new high frequency bus routes to Forest Lake and Garden City which started service during this period (in October 2011), we'd expect this to reflect well in our customer's experience of comfort of ride and also frequency.

"We also recorded decreases in three categories of ease of use, efficiency, and affordability; while the remaining three categories remained relatively steady.

"The government has made a point wanting to see improvements in affordability for customers and we will be working closely with them to achieve that."

Other key public transport indicators for the October-to-December quarter show:

  • the percentage of go card trips has increased to 80.0 per cent for the quarter
  • the average fare per trip paid by customers in the quarter was $1.94
  • customer enquiries for the quarter were 9.7 million - up 57 per cent compared with the same quarter the previous year
  • the number of fixed fares fell to a record low of 2.2 per cent following the May 2011 fixed fares increase.

TransLink Tracker is available online at translink.com.au. The next Tracker will be available mid-June 2012.