New fare strategy - articles and discussion

[SurfRail]

Well just one question if I may. Does the current fare structure reflect the increased running costs for the city cats? Sure there would be greater numbers using them but costs are still higher aren't they? I'm just thinking if they don't (which considering only two zones in total on city cats) then it is not reasonable to have island ferries reflecting the cost. Perhaps making it zone 10 or 11 instead?

I'd have to see the numbers, but I'm not convinced the CityCats are actually that expensive considering there are only 19 of them and they carry several million passengers between them each year.  My rough estimate is that per vehicle, they probably carry around 4-5 times per year what each bus in the BT fleet carries.

[somebody]

Well just one question if I may. Does the current fare structure reflect the increased running costs for the city cats? Sure there would be greater numbers using them but costs are still higher aren't they? I'm just thinking if they don't (which considering only two zones in total on city cats) then it is not reasonable to have island ferries reflecting the cost. Perhaps making it zone 10 or 11 instead?

I'd have to see the numbers, but I'm not convinced the CityCats are actually that expensive considering there are only 19 of them and they carry several million passengers between them each year.  My rough estimate is that per vehicle, they probably carry around 4-5 times per year what each bus in the BT fleet carries.

The Ian Wallis report reckons that the "Working Expenses recovery ratio" in BNE is 36.2% for bus and 55.9% for ferry!

[triplethree]

Well just one question if I may. Does the current fare structure reflect the increased running costs for the city cats? Sure there would be greater numbers using them but costs are still higher aren't they? I'm just thinking if they don't (which considering only two zones in total on city cats) then it is not reasonable to have island ferries reflecting the cost. Perhaps making it zone 10 or 11 instead?

I'd love to see fleet service kilometres or service hours, passengers per service hour, fare revenue, operating expenses per service hour, etc. for Brisbane City Council ferries, but Brisbane City Council's budget papers don't give any clues, and TransLink and Brisbane Transport are unnecessarily secretive about their financial and operating statistics (almost puts the 1930s Soviet Union to shame!)

Compared to CityRail and State Transit and Sydney Ferries in NSW, where you can find usuallly these things in their annual reports, these statistics for Brisbane are an enigma wrapped inside a riddle wrapped inside a mystery.

One thing I will add though (which SurfRail alluded to): the CityCats have many more boardings, and many people ride very short trips (e.g. one or two stops); at major wharves you have a high passenger turnover with people getting both on and off, so you have total operating expenses divided among a much larger number of passengers. With the BITS ferries people ride the whole route from the mainland to the islands over a much longer distance because there are no destinations along the way. I mean, I suppose you could jump overboard and swim to Pannikin Island to hunt for yabbies, but that's not a very popular travel choice! And only a small number of people ride between the islands (typically school children attending the primary school on the two main islands, or recreational trips visiting friends).

BTW the total population of the islands was 4,231 at the 2006 Census. Even if half the population did a round trip to the mainland every weekday (a VERY big if), that's only 1.1 million boardings per annum - less than what BCC ferries get every quarter.

[SurfRail]

The Ian Wallis report reckons that the "Working Expenses recovery ratio" in BNE is 36.2% for bus and 55.9% for ferry!

There are probably some factors which militate against fantastic cost recovery:
- 3 crew per vehicle when arguably only 2 would be enough
- highest possible fare is 2 zones, and I expect there would be a lot of continuation travel too
- fuel bill
- high fleet utilisation

Getting the staffing down would have a reasonable impact on that.

[somebody]

I would have said that 56% farebox recovery is pretty good.

[SurfRail]

I would have said that 56% farebox recovery is pretty good.

It is, but it isn't significantly higher than the busiest bus routes.  It could start approaching cost neutral with some tweaks.

Point being that to have the Bay Islands/Coochiemudlo/NSI ferries on a normal fare scale, it would need to be higher rather than lower, because they don't move anywhere near the same volume as the river ferries and are more expensive to run.

[somebody]

I wonder how much things such as depreciation reduce the farebox recovery ratio.  I can' t imagine those city cats are very cheap to buy.

[ozbob]

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Robert Dow ‏@Robert_Dow

@TransLinkSEQ http://translink.com.au/tickets-and-fares/fares/planned-fares still showing 15% fare increases for 2013 and 2014 @scottemersonmp