SA: Patronage improves

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ABC News --> Liberals says improved public transport figures 'cherry picked' after years of disruptions

Improved public transport figures in Adelaide announced yesterday by the South Australian Government were "cherry picked", the Opposition says.

The Government reported a 2013-14 financial year increase on patronage numbers compared to recent years when partial upgrades took place on the metropolitan rail network.

It included lengthy and multiple disruptions to Gawler, Outer Harbor, Noarlunga and Belair rail lines due to the replacement of sleepers, some electrification, signal work and rail station improvements.

Transport Minister Stephen Mullighan said public transport patronage had nearly returned to levels that existed before the disruptions, rising by about 2.6 per cent in the past year to reach about 63.3 million journeys.

Opposition transport spokesman Corey Wingard said the Government was "cherry picking" figures and said the rail upgrades were not complete.

"There are still wooden sleepers on major sections of this railway network on the Seaford line," he said.

"The Government spruik things up way over the top and the projects are not complete."

Mr Mullighan said the Government spent $2.2 billion to upgrade parts of the public transport network.

He said new electric trains and more buses were going into service, new trams were using the extended tramline, and there had been more parking added near public transport interchanges.

"First of all we'd want to get back to where we were before the rail closures started putting people off from using public transport," Mr Mullighan said.

"Now that we've got a lot of improvements done and services are returning to normal, we want to get back to those high levels and continue building them into the future."

"We're also pleased to see better on-time running across the network."

In 2009-10, there were 66.5 million journeys across the Adelaide network.