Helping transport professionals fast track their success
Public transport fare policy is complex and fraught with compromises.
Some call for free public transport.
Others suggest the cost of car travel in peak periods should be have a congestion charge to provide a more level playing field (like London and Singapore).
At the same time, governments are trying to balance budgets, with less revenue and increasing demands for services.
Traffic congestion is the dominant challenge in cities across Australia. In the recently released Australian Infrastructure Audit 2015 it was forecast that:
The passenger transport task (both road and public transport) across our six largest capital cities is projected to increase by 58 per cent, from 622 million km per day in 2011 to 982 million km per day in 2031.
In most major urban areas across Australia the priority is to increase the mode share of public transport and ensure value for money for taxpayers.
A major challenge facing public transport professionals is identifying ongoing opportunities for the development of their knowledge and skills, and obtaining a recognised qualification.
Most professionals currently learn ‘on the job’, being mentored by more experienced professionals and gaining experience over time. Related qualifications in engineering, planning, technology and the sciences are the usual areas that public transport professionals come from.
So how do professionals develop their capability further?
Why is understanding the linkages between land use and transport so important for transport and planning professionals?
Transport is a primarily a derived demand, we travel in order to get to a destination, to undertake an activity and to carry goods. Land use is a key determinant of the need, when, how, and where to travel.
So learning how to influence land use and develop integrated transport plans means you will become one of the critical few transport and planning professionals who have this knowledge and know what an be done.
Margaret Thatcher, former British Prime Minister, is attributed with the statement: Any man who rides a bus to work after the age of 30 can count himself a failure in life!
In early 2014 governments were jacking up public transport fares yet again. Sydney increased rail fares by 3.5% and bus fares by 2.4%, Melbourne increased fares across the board by 2.4% and Brisbane by 7.5% (three times annual inflation). “FARE-mageddon” quoted the Brisbane media.
Fare increases in Brisbane were reduced to 7.5% in 2013 (following the change of government), after 15% annual fare increases for a two years. Public transport patronage appears to have dropped significantly as a result.
The subsidy of the public transport farebox in Brisbane is about 73% (ie for every dollar fare that is paid by a user, the government has to kick in another 3 dollars), and this is just for operating costs.
So how do Australian public transport fares compare?
Successful urban public transport has to consider all aspects of the journey from origin to destination, from door to door. One component that has been largely neglected is access to, and egress from, rail and bus stations.
Access to mass passenger transport services at bus or rail stations (including bus rapid transit and light rail) is an important component in the overall traveller experience and key to improved patronage and sustained growth into the future.
We are in fiscally challenging times with demands for increasing public transport mode share and seriously constrained budgets.
It is evident that users perceptions are their reality.
So what is important to public transport users? And what are the low cost ways we can address concerns and improve the quality of service provided?
Land Transport New Zealand has released a report that explores methods of measuring the value placed on public transport reliability in different contexts in New Zealand.
Reliability relates to an uncertainty in the time taken to travel from the start to the end of a person’s journey. For a public transport journey, reliability can affect users in one of two ways: as a delay when picking up the passenger and as a delay when the passenger is on the service. One or both of these sources of unreliability causes passengers to arrive at their destination at a different time than scheduled.
