Article: Treating passengers with contempt

[ozbob]

From Quest City News click here!

Treating passengers with contempt

Treating passengers with contempt

BRISBANE, April 17: Queensland Rail knows the full extent of overcrowding on its trains, but won?t tell its passengers.
The organisation has just finished its annual detailed passenger count on all peak-hour train services, involving more than 100 workers at any one time and taking one month to complete.

QR has refused to publicly release the results. A spokeswoman said the information was for use ?internally? to allocate resources.

?It (the count) is designed to provide an in-depth snapshot of patronage for the entire urban rail network,? she said.

Requests for less recent passenger counts have also been refused, along with data reported to QR?s Bowen Hills control centre by station guards showing the number of trains observed to be arriving full at stations.

Asked for passenger numbers, QR provided an overall figure showing a 30 per cent rise in the past five years.

The refusals have led to calls for QR to show the full extent of the peak-hour commuter crush by releasing the data.

Brisbane City Council Lord Mayor Campbell Newman said he believed it should be reported is much the same way the council releases a monthly log of buses that have arrived too overloaded to pick up passengers.

?It is appropriate that people know how the public transport system is performing,? Cr Newman said.

Rail Back on Track spokesman Robert Dow argued there was no reason why the counts should not be released.

The group has done its own counts to come up with a congestion rating system that ranks the Caboolture and Ipswich lines the most congested on the network.

Mr Dow said it was not unusual for trains on the line to arrive in the CBD carrying more than 1000 passengers.

The comfortable carrying capacity by Queensland Rail?s standards is 750 passengers.

A spokeswoman for Transport Minister John Mickel said the release of the information was QR?s responsibility.

An image of the article may be found here!  jpg

[stephenk]

Even if QR know how busy each train is, they appeared to take no notice of their own figures when writing their new timetable!

Again, many other operators release their passenger numbers and overcrowding figures. Some even release figures on a daily basis!