10 Aug 2013: SEQ: High Fares a 'Segway' to Oblivion

[ozbob]

Media release 10th August 2013



SEQ: High Fares a 'Segway' to Oblivion

RAIL Back On Track (http://backontrack.org) a web based community support group for rail and public transport and an advocate for public transport passengers has said the future of urban rail and public transport hangs in the balance in south-east Queensland.

Robert Dow, Spokesman for RAIL Back On Track said:

"The proposal to increase fares further by yet another 7.5% in January 2014 will be extraordinarily unpopular with the electorate. The very poor standard all day frequencies offered by most of the train and much of the bus network do not justify such a cost impost."

"The inability to reign costs in is a direct result of failing to get the bus review right. This failure has caused inefficient internal competition for passengers between buses and trains when buses should be feeding trains. The politically driven failure to reign in waste and duplication, particularly within the Brisbane Transport area just compounds the costs and drives people off public transport."

"Melbourne and even Perth are offering more train services more often to their people than we are. Embarrassingly they also charge much less too - take a look at the latest ad from Public Transport Victoria for instance - trains every 10 minutes on weekends on major lines (1) !"

"Further increases to fares will only reduce the number of paying passengers with no reductions in costs to maintain or operate the network further worsening the death spiral the network is now in (2)."

"Road congestion is worsening by the day in south-east Queensland with more road crashes.  No doubt this is partly related to the fact that many people have been forced off public transport due to the high cost fares."

"It is time the committment made by the Premier in the January 2013 Six month plan to achieve a new fare structure for south-east Queensland is actually kept!"

References:

1. Weekend frequency

2. SEQ Public Transport Affordability 'Death Spiral' http://backontrack.org/images/tl/farespiral.jpgSAEQ

Robert Dow
Administration
admin@backontrack.org
RAIL Back On Track http://backontrack.org

[ozbob]

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[techblitz]

time to start up the segBOT forum