BUS PASSENGERS SAY DODGY ACCOUNTING USED TO RAISE FARES

Bus passengers say new bus fares to be introduced on 3 January are unfair, and that they have been determined using poorly-informed accounting.

Action for Public Transport says the new bus fares have been set by cost accountants who only study balance sheets and have neither the will nor the power to set fares to satisfy the broader interests of the community. As a consequence, the new fares are focussed on recovering the cost of providing bus services, rather than improving the efficiency of the whole transport network.

APT has suggested to the government that the Independent Pricing & Regulatory Tribunal (IPART), which currently sets maximum charges for public transport and a number of other utilities, should engage transport planning expertise rather than be focussed on cost accounting, as is currently required by section 28J of the Passenger Transport Act 1990 (IPART Final Report, p. 19, 141).

APT Convener Kevin Eadie said many submissions to IPART's October 2009 draft fares review suggested that fares should not be increased because service quality had actually deteriorated, or because IPART's accounting was faulty. "IPART failed to take some fare-reduction arguments seriously, even though it admitted that there was 'little evidence to indicate that service quality had improved'" Mr Eadie said (p.28, Final Report).

"IPART has actively sought out reasons for increasing fares, but has failed to properly consider falling bus service levels, which would justify lower fares", Mr Eadie said.

"IPART wrongly assumed that Roads & Traffic Authority expenditure on bus infrastructure resulted in improved bus services", Mr Eadie said. "IPART has mistakenly passed-on that expenditure to fare-paying passengers", he said. "In fact, much of the new bus infrastructure was aimed at getting buses out of the traffic stream to facilitate the flow of general traffic", he said. "Bus bays are a classic example. They are built with RTA funds, but they only benefit motorists, not bus passengers", Mr Eadie said. Yet IPART insists that bus passengers should contribute to the cost.

"There are many sites where bus lanes and bus-priority "B" signals increase the capacity of roads by speeding up high capacity vehicles like buses", Mr Eadie said, "but everybody benefits from moving more people along a road, not just the bus passengers". IPART's accountants seemed to be unaware of these traffic realities, and had closed ranks to defend their clouded views on transport in their December 2009 Final Report on fares, he said.

APT said many so-called bus priority works in Sydney did not facilitate bus services at all, and that some of them actively discriminated against buses. Included in that list were

• Warringah Rd / Forest Way, Frenchs Forest
• Light-controlled intersections on the Liverpool - Parramatta Transitway
• Darcy Rd Westmead
• Anzac Pde / Moore Park Rd, Paddington
• Longueville Rd / Pacific Highway, Lane Cove
• Smith St / Macquarie St Parramatta
• Fitzwilliam Rd Toongabbie
• Eastern Valley Way, Middle Cove, at Greenfield Ave
• Most bus bays at bus stops, throughout Sydney.

References:

• IPART's "Draft report on Metropolitan and Outer Metropolitan Bus Fares from January 2010" of October 2009 http://www.ipart.nsw.gov.au/transport/metropolitan-and-outer-metropolitan-buses.asp
• APT submission to above http://www.aptnsw.org.au/documents/ipart2009c.html
• Other submissions - on IPART website, as above.
• IPART Final Report, December 2009 - on IPART website.
• Passenger Transport Act 1990 (IPART Final Report, pp. 19, 141)