Article: Peak times driving commuters to brink

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From the Sydney Morning Herald click here!

Peak times driving commuters to brink

Peak times driving commuters to brink
December 9, 2012

THE O'Farrell government coasted into office without the inconvenience of having to make too many promises, particularly in regard to fixing Sydney's soul-destroying transport system.

But the government's fondness - bordering on fetish - for reviews and plans has cornered it into some targets it must meet.

The NSW 2021 Baseline Report was a plan released in December 2011.

With a fair bit of mystery about whether the Coalition's wheels are in motion on transport - apart from the north-west rail link and WestConnex motorway, which remain lines on a map - the plan is a useful comparison for statistics released last week by the Auditor-General, Peter Achterstraat.

Baseline Report: ''Improve AM and PM peak-hour travel speeds on 100 major road corridors.''

Achterstraat: ''Morning peak-hour speeds have improved on last year but have remained largely unchanged since 2008 - afternoon peak speeds have been slowly declining since 2008.''

He found the average speed on Victoria Road in the morning peak is a crawl at 23km/h - no change from 2008. In the afternoon peak it was 31km/h - slower than in 2008.

In the morning, speeds slowed on the M4 from 28km/h to 27km/h, while on the M5/Eastern Distributor they rose from 34km/h to 38km/h. That is likely to have been slowed by current widening works.

There was no difference in times on the M4 and M5 in the afternoon peak.

Baseline Report: ''Consistently meet public transport reliability targets of 92 per cent of CityRail trains run on time across the network.''

Achterstraat: ''All lines, except the south coast and eastern lines, experienced a decline in on-time running compared to 2010-11. Nine of the 16 reported lines met the 92 per cent target for the year, compared to 14 lines in 2010-11. The most common causes of peak delays in 2011-12 continue to be civil signal infrastructure failures, track obstructions and flooding caused by heavy rain. Other factors affecting on-time running performance include severe weather conditions, mechanical and electrical failures (such as door, signal, track, overhead wiring and points, and power failures), freight train breakdowns, trespassers in the rail corridor, ill passengers requiring ambulance assistance, and police operations.''

For CountryLink, only 62.1 per cent of services ran on time, against a target of 78 per cent.

Perhaps wisely, the government made no commitment to CountryLink on-time running in the NSW 2021 report.

Baseline Report: ''Improve customer satisfaction with transport services.''

Achterstraat: ''Compliments to RailCorp have increased by 32 per cent, but there are still 10 complaints for every compliment.''

The rise in compliments was about as good as it got for the government in Achterstraat's review, but the Transport Minister, Gladys Berejiklian, will take whatever positives she can.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/peak-times-driving-commuters-to-brink-20121208-2b24f.html#ixzz2EX64Uwwm