TransLink Tracker Q3 2011/12 (and QR load survey)

Too expensive!

The release of the TransLink Tracker appears to get later each quarter. TransLink have finally released the Tracker for Q3 2011/2012 (January to March). Due to last year's Q3 2010/11 Tracker being affected by patronage changes due to the floods, the statistics are difficult to compare to last year.   BrizCommuter would like to congratulate TransLink and QR for releasing the Q3 passenger load survey which has been kept secret from the public from the last few years. Sadly, the results, as expected are not good reading.

TransLink Tracker Q3 2011/2012

Page 4 - Overall patronage was up 11% compared to flood riddled 2011, but only up 1.8% since non-flood riddled 2010. This is less than population growth, so technically public transport patronage has not grown at all in 2 years due to excessive fares. 

Page 5 - Subsidy per trip has increased, with 76% of public transport costs coming from subsidy. This shows that the previous government's fare increase policy has miserably failed in reducing subsidy percentage.

Page 6 - Train on-time running has fallen to a pathetic 90%, well below the benchmark of 93.77%.

Bus on time running figures are 95.52%, which does not seem to resemble reality. BrizCommuter would like to know how TransLink calculate this dubious figure?

Page 7 - Complaints have increased. Funnily enough, BrizCommuter is still awaiting a reply to a complaint made in April!

Page 8 - Go card use has increased by 8%, but a scary 18% of passengers are still wasting money on paper tickets. 

Page 9 - A whopping 2.3% of journey still end up with a fixed fare, but only 0.11% of journeys end up with an adjustment for the fixed fare. A very concerning discrepancy!

Page 13 - Affordability rating has continued to free fall. Even with the 9 journey cap, and free CityHopper ferries, Brisbane is still one of the 5 most expensive public transport systems in the world, and light years away from being in the top 5 best public transport systems. 

Page 15 - Train service kilometres have increased by 0%, and bus kilometres have increased by little more than 1%. This is extremely disappointing given that fares have increased 15% in the same period. 

Non-existent - Full bus statistics, missing again!

Q3 2011/12 QR Passenger load survey

BrizCommuter will go into more detail about the effects of excessive fare discouraging the use of public transport in a future blog post. In brief, the figures show that the fare increases, combined with the lack of service improvements (notably the ongoing delay of the Stage 2 timetables) is continuing to stunt patronage growth. Overall AM peak patronage has decreased by 1.5%, and even the previously high growth Gold Coast Line has lost 5.5% of passengers in the last year. Overall PM peak patronage has marginally increased by 1.2%, less than population growth. The only notable positive news from the passenger load survey is that overcrowding has decreased on the Caboolture and Ipswich Lines after the stage 1 timetable changes.