47 million trips were recorded on South East Queensland’s public transport network in the first quarter of the 2015/16 financial year, up 3.1% on the first quarter of 2014/15.
Queensland transport minister Stirling Hinchliffe said the data released by the state government in December was proof the Palaszczuk Government is getting the job done.
“It’s fantastic to see that after three years of stagnating under the former government’s watch, patronage on our public transport network is growing and is up by 3.1 per cent,” Hinchlif said.
“The decision to publish the full report honours our commitment to the people of Queensland to lead an open and transparent government and provide people with an easy to access document that informs then how we are working to make their public transport journey better.”
The total figure of 47.1 million trips across all modes was 1.42 million more trips than the same quarter last financial year.
The increase was made up of a 430,000 trip increase in bus trips, 305,000 trip increase in train trips and 40,000 trip increase in ferry trips.
An increase of than 640,000 trips on Gold Coast Light Rail from 1.24 million to 1.88 million was also a major contributor to the growth.
The government’s data reflects affordability as the weakest performing category, Hinchliffe conceded, however.
“These results show that affordability continues to be a barrier to growing patronage on our public transport network,” Hinchliffe said.
“The Palaszczuk Government is addressing this issue and has appointed an expert-led taskforce to conduct a comprehensive review of TransLink’s fares to improve affordability and meet the government’s objectives of promoting fairness, affordability and patronage growth.”
The government has frozen fares until at least July 1 this year, while the review is underway.