Public transport use has risen to its highest level since the pandemic began, but the city is still facing major transport hurdles, one expert says.
New state government figures have revealed a new pandemic high was set on August 9 – the same weekend as the Logan Show holidays, topping the previous record of 521,343 from March 10 last year.
Public transport patronage for the week ending 28 August 2022 was also above 82 per cent compared to pre-pandemic travel across bus and train services in Logan.
Just over 74% was recorded across all modes in South East Queensland on the same day.
“People have returned to public transport as confidence grows in the community to get back to a more usual lifestyle and commute,” says Robert Dow, a Spokesperson for Public Transport Advocacy Group Rail Back On Track.
Mr Dow says one of the major issues Logan still has though, is a reduced service bus timetable.
“We are seeing a lot of bus cancellations of late due to staff unavailability.
“Some of the bus companies don’t have enough drivers to deliver the timetables, so people have become a little bit frustrated with service cancellations happening in a random fashion, which is making it a bit more difficult to plan.
“What TransLink has done is they’ve introduced some reduced service timetables in an attempt to get more reliability.”
Mr Dow said he’d like to see a “fare incentive” to combat this.
“What we’d like to see, particularly for Logan and Ipswich and these regions that have had bus cancellations, is some fare incentive.
“Why not give people a reduced off-peak discount? At the moment, it’s 20% on the go-cards, why not make it 50%? Give them something back for suffering.
“We’d like to see, in time, when bus operators get back into a more stable situation with bus drivers, some more frequency on bus routes.
“Rather than running half hour and hourly, I think they should run every 15 minutes or 30 minutes, because that makes it much more attractive to travel.”
With Logan facing mammoth population growth by 2041, Logan City Council said they welcomed further investment in public transport services in Logan.
“With the city’s population expected to reach almost 600,000 in the next 20 years, it is important that the transport system meets the needs of a growing community,” a Logan City Council Spokesperson said.
“An integrated local transport plan Way2Go: Connecting Logan has been developed to guide local transport growth.
“This plan will help shape the city’s transport future by identifying projects, establishing funding priorities and guiding the way the transport network develops.”
Way2Go plans include a new bus service for Holmview, Greenbank Park n’ Ride upgrade, accessible bus stop infrastructure, bus stop upgrades, footpath rehabilitation and cycle network infrastructure and more.
During the first months of the pandemic, patronage dropped as low as 20 per cent of pre-COVID levels.
Patronage fell that low again this January and February during the Omicron wave.
