Article: State government accused of trying to hide commuter anger

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From the Herald Sun click here!

State government accused of trying to hide commuter anger

State government accused of trying to hide commuter anger

    * Ashley Gardiner, Stephen McMahon
    * From: Herald Sun
    * May 12, 2010 12:00AM


THE Government has been accused of wasting taxes by trying to hide commuter anger.

The "customer satisfaction index" has been changed, making comparisons between Connex and Metro difficult.

The scale, from satisfied to dissatisfied, now has more options to choose from.

Is Metro better than Connex? Join the debate in the comments below

After 10 years in a downward spiral to a low of 58, the Government has changed the methodology in the hope it will get a more positive result next year.

Opposition transport spokesman Terry Mulder said it was more evidence the Government doesn't want to hear public anger.

"When the public send a clear message, they don't accept it," Mr Mulder said.

The revelation came as struggling new operator Metro admitted it had failed to meet its punctuality targets for the fifth consecutive month. During April, about 8370 trains were five minutes or more late, 15.5 per cent of all services.

But only about 320 trains were cancelled, the best result since last June.

Last week's Budget papers confirm the Department of Transport has changed the way it measures the customer satisfaction index.

"An improved methodology is used to calculate customer satisfaction index in 2010-11," Budget papers say.

"Therefore the 2010-11 target is not comparable with previous targets and outcome."

Public Transport Users Association president Daniel Bowen said taxpayers deserved more openness given the billions being poured into the train system.

"A new methodology for measuring customer satisfaction is obviously not very helpful for comparing the performance of the new operators against the old," he said.

"Taxpayers deserve some transparency so they can see whether things are really improving, or getting worse."

A spokesman for Public Transport Minister Martin Pakula said the new survey method would give respondents greater opportunity to pass a negative judgment.

Mr Pakula said the troubled $1.35 billion myki smart card system will be rolled out on trams and buses before the election on November 27.

But Premier John Brumby, refused to put a definite date on the roll-out.

Mr Brumby admitted myki's performance was not good enough and more testing was needed.

"We are seeing some improvements and we now have more than 20,000 regular myki users on trains," he told a parliamentary committee.

"But there have been ongoing technical difficulties with the reliability of myki. And myki will not commence operations on trams and buses until we can be certain that its performance will be acceptable to commuters."