The ACT’s Labor Government says Canberra’s new public transport system has broken patronage records in its first days, despite Opposition claims the numbers are fudged.
Transport minister Meegan Fitzharris on May 2 said the new public transport network, launched soon after the opening of the Canberra Light Rail and at the start of a new school term, resulted in 90,854 on Tuesday, April 30 – the first time boardings have exceeded 90,000 on a single day in the nation’s capital.
The figure included more than 16,500 boardings on the new light rail line.
The Canberra Liberals rubbished the figures, jumping on sentiment from some members of the public who have been inconvenienced by the new network.
“The data that the Government has put out today is fabricated,” Liberals spokesperson Candice Burch was quoted by ABC. “They’re counting the number of boardings and not the number of passengers or the number of journeys. Under the old network, if you had a direct bus service, that would be counted as one trip. Now it might be that you have to get two buses to work, you might have to get a bus, light rail and then another bus, or you might have to get three buses … they’re now counting those as individual trips.”
Fitzharris, responding to the ABC, reportedly said the official figures had also counted record journey numbers – over 65,000 on both April 30 and May 1, the two highest days so far on record.
A Transport Canberra spokesperson also reportedly told ABC there had been a 10 per cent uplift in the use of MyWay cards – the ACT’s contactless ticketing system.
“These record breaking early figures show that a high frequency network is the right network for Canberra. There’s also no doubt Canberrans love light rail,” Minister Fitzharris said.
“Transport Canberra is keeping a close eye on the network, recognising that this has been a change for a number of existing users. There may be isolated issues, and if so, Transport Canberra is working with customers to resolve those. Transport Canberra will look at putting on larger buses and increasing light rail frequency to cater for demand.”