Over four million journeys have been made in the first year of operations of Canberra Light Rail.
Celebrating the first 12 month of service, ACT Minister for Transport Chris Steel said that the network has changed the way people move around Canberra.
“Light rail has changed the way people view and use public transport with very high satisfaction levels and more people than ever using public transport in Canberra.”
Recent customer satisfaction surveys reported that 94 per cent of customers were satisfied with the ease of use of light rail and 20 per cent of all public transport journeys are made on the light rail.
Peak months so far were May, when 460,000 passengers travelled and the free travel period continued for the network’s first month of operations, and October which had over 411,000 boardings. The most popular stop was Alinga Street in the Canberra CBD. 40 per cent of trips began at this station.
Prior to the coronavirus (COVID-19) restrictions, extra services were in place during February to cater for increased demand. Lockdown measures in the ACT however, have led to a drop in trips.
“Obviously COVID-19 has had a temporary impact on passenger numbers in the last few weeks, however, before the pandemic we were seeing, on average, 15,047 passenger boardings each day, numbers that we didn’t expect until 2021,” said Steel.
A further increase in services has been delayed due to COVID-19 measures, as has an update to the wider public transport network’s schedule in Canberra.
Work to extend the light rail line to Woden via the Parliamentary circle is still scheduled to continue. General manager of Canberra Metro Operations Tilo Franz said that he expects the light rail to continue to be popular.
“From day one we exceeded passenger and ridership expectations. We’re excited to celebrate one year of operation and look forward to many more years of success.”