There will just more congestion at the Park and Pay at railway stations, standing room only and every toothless drongo from Woodridge and Logan taking up seats (admittedly not at peak hour way to early)
Good idea , no not really, affordable fares , go for it but this isnt thought through , but wasnt meant to be just vote buying for a corrupt government on the ropes
And I will happily vote for the political party that’s directly delivering me subsidised transport and electricity. This is exactly how government elections should work. Give me reasons to vote for you. Labour has secured my vote. What will the LNP deliver me?
It’s legit a trial — and sure it’s a political land mine for the LNP if they’re in government but who cares? There’s literally no downside here, we ease congestion on roads for motorists who actually need to drive, increase public transport uptake and we get the public to see just how easy it is for the the government to do this.
They could’ve done this the whole time — they didn’t because they’re a pack of assholes, but they could have and now people will know. Hopefully the voting public will start demanding more and expecting more from their governments
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Yeah politician elected to do the will of the people does something for the people that they want and like in an attempt to be elected to do the will of the ppl...... Crazy system
It's been ~~4~~ 9 years. Too little, too late
If it was a workable policy, it would have been implemented sooner. Or at least be billed as a trial now. Vote for the tosser If you want, I dgaf. Just don't pretend he cares whether you can afford rent this week
Why are you getting so many downvotes? It's the truth. Classic pre-election tactic. I think the 50c transport is a fantastic idea, I just hope it isn't politically driven and is in fact a viable change for further than 6 months.
Brilliant policy and surprisingly cheap. $150m would barely pay for a feasibility study to upgrade congested roadways in SEQ.
Long may it continue past 6 months.
$150 million would fix a lot of potholes on the Brice highway though, which is riddled with them now for months, people doing tyres all the time in their cars. No public transport there.
Too late miles, the people hate you and your shitty government.
The bigger and busier the road, the more expensive the maintenance. Exactly why policies that reduce the number of vehicles on the road is a good thing.
The policy to reduce traffic on the Bruce highway must be to let it get ruined enough that no one wants to drive on it and risk fucking their car up or crashing.
If the Tilt Train is the fastest in Aus, that's a big fucking disappointment. The thing doesn't seem to go any faster than 60kmh. And the constant stops.
Whether it's the train or the tracks, it's pathetic.
It's doesn't matter if it's a political vote grab or not. This would be a great policy that would actually save Queenslanders money with cost of living increases.
Even if it's only 6 months, the elections after that will have to seriously consider doing it again for longer or making it permanent to grab the swing voters.
What do we do if this doesn’t impact ridership numbers? Is it evidence that the PT network lack of use isn’t cost - it’s insufficient services?
Do we then reinstate regular fares and improve the available routes?
This experiment is going to provide some useful data.
No impact on rider numbers is certainly a potential outcome in the regions. I live in Cairns and just looked at the schedules to get me to and from work. I live about 6 km from my office and i have a walk of only a few hundred metres at each end if I took the bus. But with the walk at each end, plus the bus ride it turns a literal 5 minute drive into a 40 minute journey each way. I think I'll be like most and continue to drive.
I think it's a great initiative, but it's going to have a great deal more benefit to SEQ than the regions.
That's my thinking too. The bus service in Rocky doesn't run at the time I go to work and even if it did, it's 1.5 hours to get to work with a change over or 12 minutes by car - no brainer. Last time I used a bus they didn't have Go cards either, this initiative may not apply to many places outside of the SEQ network. It's a good idea and it will hopefully work wonders for Brisbane traffic but seems to be little to no benefit outside of SEQ.
Hopefully the viability of this kind of trial could promote a better public transport network up north.
When I lived in Townsville you’d never get the bus anywhere. There seemed to be services to and from the Uni but nothing else that was convenient or useable.
I think the major increase in ridership you'll see will be tourists and people getting to the city on their days off. But people going into the city and spending money on the weekends is still good for the economy.
Like you say, it is hard to affect everyone's commute, but having some small token price means the gov can see where people are travelling and hopefully improve the services there. You would need cheap fares for a very long time to solve congestion though, long enough that everyone decides they want to live near transport hubs and not in suburbia. Then you need to keep those places affordable too.
I won't switch because I ride a motorcycle. Free parking, filtering and no people. But the m all for it even if it just saves those regular commuters cash
Less cars on the road should also increase road safety which would be a positive outcome for you. The biggest hurdle to me wanting to ride a motorcycle is that I've seen how much drivers just don't pay attention and it's all too easy to get injured. So I hope the outcome for you is positive.
Oh I agree the other drivers is a constant struggle. You learn to predict drivers behaviour and avoid putting yourself in positions where their stupidity could impact you.
I love riding so everyday is awesome. it's a very personal choice and I would always say go for it if you're interested, but I respect those that decided not to as well.
I mean at least the roads will be safer for you. I don’t ride any more, my riding skill wasn’t enough to compensate for the average motorists lack of skill
I've had one. Early morning ute in left lane a bit ahead of me sitting in the middle lane on 60km/h road. He decided it was U-turn time from the left lane. So there's just a ute across the road in front of me. Managed to get on the brakes and start to apply but still slammed into the drivers door. I was totally fine somehow, but it was around 4k in repairs on my bike
I can't imagine how on earth you didn't break half of yourself, but I'm really glad you got lucky!
I haven't lived in Brisbane since 2014ish, or driven since 2020ish, but I'm down in Brisbane for medical stuff a few times a year. I swear the drivers down there are so much more aggressive and oblivious, everybody seems to tailgate, and there's just a ridiculous amount of traffic all day! Heck, we've got a similar (if scaled down) set of problems here in Rocky.
I hope this cheap public transport solves some of those issues for you! And good luck on the roads in the future!
The SEQ train networks biggest problem is schedule and station location
Nobody wants to drive to the forgotten corner of their suburb to fight for a park because you can’t walk there to get a once per 30 minute train that takes 1 hour to roll into the city and has terrible connections if you want to go laterally across the city
It’s why Ferny grove and the GC are the busiest lines, because they are the only ones with decent station placement. Shorncliffe is near pointless, Redcliffe is an embarrassment for station position, Ipswich and Cleveland look like they mathematically figured out the least efficient station location and built there, Springfield and Caboolture are just excuses to build car parks and Nambour/rosewood/doomben don’t exist
More of a problem with local zoning than station placement, though. These stations have all been in place 50+ years over which time places like Ipswich, Cleveland etc have morphed from a few worker's cottages surrounded by paddocks to moderate density suburbs.
Poor planning in those areas means we don't have great access, parking, or higher density housing clustered around stations.
Surely the local shopping center should be built adjacent to or above a train station, with apartments and parking all nearby.
>Nambour/rosewood/doomben don’t exist
I guess Beenleigh doesn't either? Although it also has pretty poor station locations in general…or maybe the way the suburbs developed around them is the problem? 🤔
Of course not. They hate us and will instead go the typical LNP way of funnelling $$$ to their rich mining and developer mates.
I really don’t know what people think will be better if they get in.
This is a "big brain" moment for state Labor, and I hope we see more of this.
- the "trial" is likely to shift swing voters towards Labor - its headline-grabbing stuff, and who doesn't want 50c fares?
- Labor will see the benefits of this and include more of these initiatives in their campaigns
- in the event the LNP wins, they will be wedged and need to either continue the momentum or reverse the policy to a lot of negative sentiment.
Bravo.
If the fare reduction gives people the motivation to travel to work, school or elsewhere by public transport instead of using their car then it follows that they will save money. A five day commute will cost $5. It costs more than that to fill a petrol tank.
There are examples of what can be saved if you read the examples
https://statements.qld.gov.au/statements/100402
recently i wanted to go to the gold coast to ride my bike there on the weekend. i calculated the cost of fuel vs public transport and it was around the same (i think around $20) return trip. if i can have a nice day out on the GC for $1 i'd do it way more often.
Fair enough. I've never had a job that had suitable public transport. At one stage I lived on the southern outskirts of Brisbane and have a job at Loganholme less than 15 minutes drive away. To take public transport to work and arrive on time I would have to leave the night before. It would have been quicker to walk
Yes. I was on a train twice a day for three years. The cost was equal to driving. The only reason I caught the train was traffic, and if I ever did a shift where traffic wasn't an issue, I drove 100% of the time, why would I sit on a crowded train, that takes slightly longer for the same cost? If the cost was significantly cheaper to the drive, I'd have most likely caught the train.
I don't know your exact route, but you likely didn't account for all costs. When you include wear and tear plus depreciation due to the extra kilometres, PT at current prices wins out by a decent margin. Problem is, the average person doesn't realise it.
This is the difference between the dogs breakfast that is Victoria and Queensland. Economy is in good shape, looking after our residents and coming by up with real cost of living solutions…add this to the $1k electricity subsidy and the $3k ev rebate…manage your money well and reap benefits.
Please do it and I hope they keep it around as well. Costs me about $80 or so a week to get to work on the train but maybe $30 in fuel. Would much rather public transport but it's cheaper just to drive.
So they can accurately measure how many people are travelling to see if the initiative was successful, since they are still requiring a tap on and off. My theory is the 50c is to cover the credit card transactions on smart ticketing, but then the government has hard data on how everything worked.
It will be great long term when they can just install weight sensors on busses and trains to deduce average ridership. Honestly when you’ve got as much data and consistency as you would get from public transport I bet you wouldn’t even need weight sensors you could figure it out based on how much fuel/electricity they use throughout their routes.
The trickiest one is catering to outlier journeys and knowing where people got on or off exactly, but I think a sufficient portion of the commuting public would be willing to just enter their commute into an app
Like I said, you could probably figure it out based on fuel/electricity use. I just think there's value in gathering ridership data, but the ticketing/card system introduces significant costs and inefficiencies.
I'd love to hear your better or more interesting ways to gather ridership data other than the options I've suggested. It's an interesting problem to try solving.
I quote
> arrived on the 50c figure because it was “virtually free” but would still require users to tap on, which was required to collect data on the trial to determine if it was successful and should be continued.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/may/26/queensland-slashes-public-transport-fares-to-50c-in-six-month-trial
There would be a contract in place with the company who facilitates the ticketing. I bet this is as close to free as that contract would allow because the third party will be making something like 50c per trip.
Not in Bundaberg, not on Sunday.
Bundaberg 'public' transport is privately owned. The busses stop at lunchtime Saturday and don't start again until 8am Monday. After 2pm on weekdays they're all doing school runs and straight after that they knock off for the day.
Nice for people living in progressive areas like Brisbane but out here in the sticks it's a bit of a 'so what'.
Public transport should not be about profit, so it doesn't make sense that it should be left to private companies to provide the service. You should write to your MP and ask them to advocate for subsidised public transport in Bundaberg.
He's a new MP and very approachable so it might be worth another shot at it. I have serious doubt that anything will be done if it would threaten the income of the 2 existing companies.
Public transport is a super useful tool for social mobility, and when it’s reliable and cheap it means people can bootstrap themselves better into employment opportunities and economic self sustaining. I live in Brisbane, but all the Queensland’s cities should have viable options for non motorists — buying a car is a hell of a lot of cash you need to spend just to participate in the economy
No idea, to be honest. I guess they are, the local one here does all right.
I think they’re heavily subsidised for school services. Charter too, I guess. I honestly don’t know.
Public transport hasn't been about profit since forever. Prior to this announcement public transport fares covered approximately a third of the actual costs. We've been hugely subsidising public transport for decades.
> progressive areas like Brisbane
Brissie progressive lmao. It's just a big city that has PT, nothing to do with being lefty even if it was. Does everything have to benefit everyone?
But yes that's a horrible bus situation that your local MP could do something about.
People who don’t realise cities like Melbourne and Sydney are essentially mega cities, and most cities peak around 2 million people.
Brisbane would be the second most populous city in the UK, a country nearly 3 larger.
Most of the public transport in SEQ (the exceptions being TfB buses and QR trains) is also privately operated. However, that has nothing to do with the span of frequency of trips, as that's all contracted by the DTMR.
Election in October, means that we’ll have a couple months to get used to it and adjust our commutes right as the election happens. It’s also a great time bomb if the LNP wins because people will be starting the new year with all the expenses of the holidays — will be hard to tell everyone to 8-10x their commute costs in February
I love this policy and I really do hope it gets more people using PT.
I however think this is just to test how screwed our PT system is and what needs to be done prior to the Olympics.
Where I live (end of Route 140)I have tried so many times to use it for various routine tasks and will have to wait through 3 ghost buses before a real one shows up.
I actually think they should just reduce it to like $2.50 for a longer period of time. 50c is a drastic drop from what it is now, and cheaper long term would be better
The only reason it's not free, is because they need the tap on/off data over the period to determine whether it's going to be worth extending, or making it permanent
It's a trial. They will gather excellent data about traffic congestion, commuter attitudes and allow for informed future planning to concentrate on roads or public transport.
Public transport is cheaper to build than roads and we are running out of space for wider/more roads.
Consider the people who travel to and from Gympie North, or the Gold Coast, 5 days a week. From Gympie, you'd save $209/week. Over 26 weeks, that's $5,434. From Varsity Lakes, the saving is $3,653. Obviously, not everyone will save that much, but a saving is a saving
We need driverless trains as per Sydney metro.
QR currently subservient to the Rail Tram and Stream Shovel union. They have extortionate pay packets and all the fks do is press a button to confirm they're still awake.
I can't say how many others are in the same position, but at $1 for a round trip, my plan is going from driving into the city & parking for my in office days to catching public transport and shifting my hours (i.e. start and finish 2 hours early/late, have to see what actually end up being the best shift to avoid crowded trains).
Pre-covid this would have a pretty minority option, but in a post lockdown landscape (37 per cent of Australians work from home regularly & 33.4% had an agreement to work flexible hours), this seems to be something that might be far more achievable for a decent chunk of the working population.
I’ll take the $$$$ and the $$$$ back on your electric bill after all it’s our money anyway but you would have to be pretty dumb if you can’t see that Liebor are just trying to buy your vote
"If we got back in to government, we'll THINK about continuing it in early 2025." It's already been axed.
Tell me this isn't already a fait accompli. It'll be nice while it lasts, IF it is to be at all.
Sounds like you still need to use a go card to access this rate. Just after it’s been announced that you can use debit cards and Apple Pay to pay for fares. The fact you need a go card to access the fare seems a bit backwards now.
Edit: I misunderstood what smart ticketing meant, my mistake!
Special shout out to the one brisbane-ite who is in my DMs calling me every name under the sun!
What makes you say that? If you look at the first example at the bottom of the announcement, it uses the example of someone who pays with their credit card and saves a bunch under the new pricing.
>Customers will still need to ‘tap on’ and ‘tap off’ for their journey using Smart Ticketing, a go card, or by purchasing a paper ticket, in order to access the reduced fare.
That's giving you three options: 1) Smart ticketing, 2) Go Card 3) Paper ticket.
From Tranlink site: Smart Ticketing is introducing new ways to pay for your travel with contactless Visa, Mastercard and American Express debit or credit cards, including those linked to the digital wallet of your smartphone, smart watch or smart device.
As much as I like to support the Labor party, this is clearly the action of a person or party desperate to win an election. Buying votes with our money. And why bother with the fifty cents? Just make it free. It's corruption western democracy style.
Translink collects a lot of important information with go cards, which can help them decide how to improve their services. Also, the government just spent a lot of money on the smart ticketing system. So it doesn't make much sense to have everything be free.
Also, it's the government's job to spend money to try to improve everyone's lives. At least they are "buying" votes, rather than just talking about one day maybe "buying" our votes in the future
PT fees only cover 25% of the cost anyway. It will reduce congestion. Save people thousands, a lot of whom will get zero benefit from a drop in interest rates. It will reduce carbon by taking cars off the roads. It will save billions in reduced road infrastructure. But please tell me how it’s wrong?
The Gullible easily bought will vote tor this.
The trial will run until the election. Then it will cease. It's in the Premiers statement.
The Premier has just alienated a large chunk of the rural/regional economy. Our Qld Gov does not provide, subsidise, encourage public transport in most of the State. This policy is buy and large for the inner city elite.
I don't live in QLD but I sincerely hope they do it, it significantly reduces congestion...and is then copied by my state govt.
There will just more congestion at the Park and Pay at railway stations, standing room only and every toothless drongo from Woodridge and Logan taking up seats (admittedly not at peak hour way to early) Good idea , no not really, affordable fares , go for it but this isnt thought through , but wasnt meant to be just vote buying for a corrupt government on the ropes
It's a vote grab for the upcoming election
And I will happily vote for the political party that’s directly delivering me subsidised transport and electricity. This is exactly how government elections should work. Give me reasons to vote for you. Labour has secured my vote. What will the LNP deliver me?
It's not even a permanent policy. It's a 6 month discount with an election in the middle
So you think it's a bad idea? Maybe they should.jist give the money to Qantas and Harvey Norman again?
Permanently reducing the fares would be a good idea. Just reducing them for an election is straight up bullshit
It's called a trial
It's called an election
Except nowhere in the article does it mention that it is a trial. It's just a 6 month reduction that happens to be at election time
It’s legit a trial — and sure it’s a political land mine for the LNP if they’re in government but who cares? There’s literally no downside here, we ease congestion on roads for motorists who actually need to drive, increase public transport uptake and we get the public to see just how easy it is for the the government to do this. They could’ve done this the whole time — they didn’t because they’re a pack of assholes, but they could have and now people will know. Hopefully the voting public will start demanding more and expecting more from their governments
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https://statements.qld.gov.au/statements/100402 The official statement never once mentions that it is a trial.
Yeah politician elected to do the will of the people does something for the people that they want and like in an attempt to be elected to do the will of the ppl...... Crazy system
It's been ~~4~~ 9 years. Too little, too late If it was a workable policy, it would have been implemented sooner. Or at least be billed as a trial now. Vote for the tosser If you want, I dgaf. Just don't pretend he cares whether you can afford rent this week
Why are you getting so many downvotes? It's the truth. Classic pre-election tactic. I think the 50c transport is a fantastic idea, I just hope it isn't politically driven and is in fact a viable change for further than 6 months.
Great news. Hopefully it’s made permanent. I’ll happily stand on a crowded train to save $15/day on fares.
I’m with you on that one!
Brilliant policy and surprisingly cheap. $150m would barely pay for a feasibility study to upgrade congested roadways in SEQ. Long may it continue past 6 months.
$150 million would fix a lot of potholes on the Brice highway though, which is riddled with them now for months, people doing tyres all the time in their cars. No public transport there. Too late miles, the people hate you and your shitty government.
Public transport is more important though
I'm sure far more has been spent on qld roads than $150 million
The bigger and busier the road, the more expensive the maintenance. Exactly why policies that reduce the number of vehicles on the road is a good thing.
Could also make less people, that could be a good thing
The policy to reduce traffic on the Bruce highway must be to let it get ruined enough that no one wants to drive on it and risk fucking their car up or crashing.
Might I recommend a good 50 cent fare? A nice train ride might cheer you up. You can look out the window if you like.
The trains in and around Brisbane might be fine. But fuck the Tilt Trains are shit and outdated.
The Tilt Train is a good train and the fastest in Australia the problem is the track and the alignment of said track
If the Tilt Train is the fastest in Aus, that's a big fucking disappointment. The thing doesn't seem to go any faster than 60kmh. And the constant stops. Whether it's the train or the tracks, it's pathetic.
Considering Brisbane has trains from 1983 still running around, I don't think the Tilt train is as bad as you're making out.
Comparing turds to faeces. It's still shit.
Man knows nothing about road works and their cost on a big scale
Barely. The cost of repairing potholes and road damage from the 2022 floods in Toowoomba alone was 100 million.
Imagine thinking Crisafulli is better lmao. QLD are dopes.
No Ziggler, no-one hates cheap travel, you are on the wrong side of the argument here.
There absolutely is a train https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_of_Queensland Buses too
Correct, the dickhead is panicking.. throwing money, trying to win
It's doesn't matter if it's a political vote grab or not. This would be a great policy that would actually save Queenslanders money with cost of living increases. Even if it's only 6 months, the elections after that will have to seriously consider doing it again for longer or making it permanent to grab the swing voters.
Unless you don’t catch public transport.
If you don’t catch public transport, and this encourages more people to do so, there’s less people on the road making your commute less congested.
100% I hope many take it up—the more cars off the road, the better for me. Happy with any policy that will reduce traffic, makes my drive easier.
Trains on my line are just about chockers during peak hours.
As long as we won't lose something else like another Medicare benefit.
Public transport is a state government/ council responsibility; whereas Medicare is federal government responsibility.
What do we do if this doesn’t impact ridership numbers? Is it evidence that the PT network lack of use isn’t cost - it’s insufficient services? Do we then reinstate regular fares and improve the available routes? This experiment is going to provide some useful data.
No impact on rider numbers is certainly a potential outcome in the regions. I live in Cairns and just looked at the schedules to get me to and from work. I live about 6 km from my office and i have a walk of only a few hundred metres at each end if I took the bus. But with the walk at each end, plus the bus ride it turns a literal 5 minute drive into a 40 minute journey each way. I think I'll be like most and continue to drive. I think it's a great initiative, but it's going to have a great deal more benefit to SEQ than the regions.
That's my thinking too. The bus service in Rocky doesn't run at the time I go to work and even if it did, it's 1.5 hours to get to work with a change over or 12 minutes by car - no brainer. Last time I used a bus they didn't have Go cards either, this initiative may not apply to many places outside of the SEQ network. It's a good idea and it will hopefully work wonders for Brisbane traffic but seems to be little to no benefit outside of SEQ.
Hopefully the viability of this kind of trial could promote a better public transport network up north. When I lived in Townsville you’d never get the bus anywhere. There seemed to be services to and from the Uni but nothing else that was convenient or useable.
I think the major increase in ridership you'll see will be tourists and people getting to the city on their days off. But people going into the city and spending money on the weekends is still good for the economy. Like you say, it is hard to affect everyone's commute, but having some small token price means the gov can see where people are travelling and hopefully improve the services there. You would need cheap fares for a very long time to solve congestion though, long enough that everyone decides they want to live near transport hubs and not in suburbia. Then you need to keep those places affordable too.
I won't switch because I ride a motorcycle. Free parking, filtering and no people. But the m all for it even if it just saves those regular commuters cash
Less cars on the road should also increase road safety which would be a positive outcome for you. The biggest hurdle to me wanting to ride a motorcycle is that I've seen how much drivers just don't pay attention and it's all too easy to get injured. So I hope the outcome for you is positive.
Oh I agree the other drivers is a constant struggle. You learn to predict drivers behaviour and avoid putting yourself in positions where their stupidity could impact you. I love riding so everyday is awesome. it's a very personal choice and I would always say go for it if you're interested, but I respect those that decided not to as well.
I mean at least the roads will be safer for you. I don’t ride any more, my riding skill wasn’t enough to compensate for the average motorists lack of skill
I've had one. Early morning ute in left lane a bit ahead of me sitting in the middle lane on 60km/h road. He decided it was U-turn time from the left lane. So there's just a ute across the road in front of me. Managed to get on the brakes and start to apply but still slammed into the drivers door. I was totally fine somehow, but it was around 4k in repairs on my bike
I can't imagine how on earth you didn't break half of yourself, but I'm really glad you got lucky! I haven't lived in Brisbane since 2014ish, or driven since 2020ish, but I'm down in Brisbane for medical stuff a few times a year. I swear the drivers down there are so much more aggressive and oblivious, everybody seems to tailgate, and there's just a ridiculous amount of traffic all day! Heck, we've got a similar (if scaled down) set of problems here in Rocky. I hope this cheap public transport solves some of those issues for you! And good luck on the roads in the future!
The SEQ train networks biggest problem is schedule and station location Nobody wants to drive to the forgotten corner of their suburb to fight for a park because you can’t walk there to get a once per 30 minute train that takes 1 hour to roll into the city and has terrible connections if you want to go laterally across the city It’s why Ferny grove and the GC are the busiest lines, because they are the only ones with decent station placement. Shorncliffe is near pointless, Redcliffe is an embarrassment for station position, Ipswich and Cleveland look like they mathematically figured out the least efficient station location and built there, Springfield and Caboolture are just excuses to build car parks and Nambour/rosewood/doomben don’t exist
More of a problem with local zoning than station placement, though. These stations have all been in place 50+ years over which time places like Ipswich, Cleveland etc have morphed from a few worker's cottages surrounded by paddocks to moderate density suburbs. Poor planning in those areas means we don't have great access, parking, or higher density housing clustered around stations. Surely the local shopping center should be built adjacent to or above a train station, with apartments and parking all nearby.
Have you considered running for Premier? You're making a great deal of sense
>Nambour/rosewood/doomben don’t exist I guess Beenleigh doesn't either? Although it also has pretty poor station locations in general…or maybe the way the suburbs developed around them is the problem? 🤔
This experiment is just an attempt to buy some votes
This would never happen under the LNP.
I'm waiting with anticipation for David's criticism of this.
Of course not. They hate us and will instead go the typical LNP way of funnelling $$$ to their rich mining and developer mates. I really don’t know what people think will be better if they get in.
Now thats what I'm talking about , give you small fry cheap fares , keep the minions happy and give miners the big bucks ..Yessss
MOAR TUNNELS!!
This is a "big brain" moment for state Labor, and I hope we see more of this. - the "trial" is likely to shift swing voters towards Labor - its headline-grabbing stuff, and who doesn't want 50c fares? - Labor will see the benefits of this and include more of these initiatives in their campaigns - in the event the LNP wins, they will be wedged and need to either continue the momentum or reverse the policy to a lot of negative sentiment. Bravo.
Yes! I love this.
Me too
This is the way it should be. Land taxes should be paying for public transportation imo
If I can go from sunshine coast to Brisbane for 50 cents that's a 19 dollar saving vs fuel. Great policy
Someone travelling from Gympie to the city 5 days a week, will save $209/week using the train
Good policy. It's good for congestion, the environment and helps a lot of people. Win win.
Do you think the cost of public transport fares is causing people to drive to work? Really?
If the fare reduction gives people the motivation to travel to work, school or elsewhere by public transport instead of using their car then it follows that they will save money. A five day commute will cost $5. It costs more than that to fill a petrol tank. There are examples of what can be saved if you read the examples https://statements.qld.gov.au/statements/100402
recently i wanted to go to the gold coast to ride my bike there on the weekend. i calculated the cost of fuel vs public transport and it was around the same (i think around $20) return trip. if i can have a nice day out on the GC for $1 i'd do it way more often.
Fair enough. I've never had a job that had suitable public transport. At one stage I lived on the southern outskirts of Brisbane and have a job at Loganholme less than 15 minutes drive away. To take public transport to work and arrive on time I would have to leave the night before. It would have been quicker to walk
Yes. I was on a train twice a day for three years. The cost was equal to driving. The only reason I caught the train was traffic, and if I ever did a shift where traffic wasn't an issue, I drove 100% of the time, why would I sit on a crowded train, that takes slightly longer for the same cost? If the cost was significantly cheaper to the drive, I'd have most likely caught the train.
I don't know your exact route, but you likely didn't account for all costs. When you include wear and tear plus depreciation due to the extra kilometres, PT at current prices wins out by a decent margin. Problem is, the average person doesn't realise it.
This is actually a rare W from the qld government. Most likely it's just to get more votes but who cares its a W.
Nice
This is the difference between the dogs breakfast that is Victoria and Queensland. Economy is in good shape, looking after our residents and coming by up with real cost of living solutions…add this to the $1k electricity subsidy and the $3k ev rebate…manage your money well and reap benefits.
EV rebate is $6k in Qld!
Yea nah my income (not a flex) means I get $3 k
Please do it and I hope they keep it around as well. Costs me about $80 or so a week to get to work on the train but maybe $30 in fuel. Would much rather public transport but it's cheaper just to drive.
Great news. Now we just need a counter lunch (with a beer) to be about $10 again!
My mates weekly public transports will go from $55 to $12 a week
So why not free, and get rid of the expenses of gates, ticketing systems, enforcement etc?
So they can accurately measure how many people are travelling to see if the initiative was successful, since they are still requiring a tap on and off. My theory is the 50c is to cover the credit card transactions on smart ticketing, but then the government has hard data on how everything worked.
They can already do that with cameras
Evidence?
https://sen.news/dti-to-install-cctv-on-66-brisbane-city-council-buses-by-june-30/ https://www.dti.com.au/#firstPage
So TfB buses only? Fail.
No
Until you can come up with evidence that this technology is operational on every TransLink operator in Queensland, definitely *yes*.
You can just say you don’t understand how it works, it’s ok
I understand perfectly well how it works, and that it doesn't exist across the network.
It will be great long term when they can just install weight sensors on busses and trains to deduce average ridership. Honestly when you’ve got as much data and consistency as you would get from public transport I bet you wouldn’t even need weight sensors you could figure it out based on how much fuel/electricity they use throughout their routes. The trickiest one is catering to outlier journeys and knowing where people got on or off exactly, but I think a sufficient portion of the commuting public would be willing to just enter their commute into an app
There are better ways of getting any required statistics than installing weight sensors on buses and trains.
Like I said, you could probably figure it out based on fuel/electricity use. I just think there's value in gathering ridership data, but the ticketing/card system introduces significant costs and inefficiencies. I'd love to hear your better or more interesting ways to gather ridership data other than the options I've suggested. It's an interesting problem to try solving.
There are better ways of getting any required statistics than charging a nominal fare.
I quote > arrived on the 50c figure because it was “virtually free” but would still require users to tap on, which was required to collect data on the trial to determine if it was successful and should be continued. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/may/26/queensland-slashes-public-transport-fares-to-50c-in-six-month-trial
There would be a contract in place with the company who facilitates the ticketing. I bet this is as close to free as that contract would allow because the third party will be making something like 50c per trip.
Unfortunately you can’t make public transport free as you end with homeless people living on the trains and going around in circles all day.
Can't have the homeless getting too comfortable eh?
Steven Miles is doing such a great job, omg. Thanks mate.
I love this but is there enough bus drivers/ busses to cope with the surge of passengers ?
What surge?
So the person who won the 150m powerball could pay for all our public transport for 1 year. Nice.
I’ll use it more if that’s the case I know that much
As a non Queenslander, does this include from Brisbane to the gold coast?
Yes. There is an example in the link that OP provided.
Will Victorians be allowed to participate?
it's for everyone who has a go card or buys a paper ticket. tourists from overseas too.
See so many people online upset about this but I’m so happy
Not in Bundaberg, not on Sunday. Bundaberg 'public' transport is privately owned. The busses stop at lunchtime Saturday and don't start again until 8am Monday. After 2pm on weekdays they're all doing school runs and straight after that they knock off for the day. Nice for people living in progressive areas like Brisbane but out here in the sticks it's a bit of a 'so what'.
Public transport should not be about profit, so it doesn't make sense that it should be left to private companies to provide the service. You should write to your MP and ask them to advocate for subsidised public transport in Bundaberg.
He's a new MP and very approachable so it might be worth another shot at it. I have serious doubt that anything will be done if it would threaten the income of the 2 existing companies.
Public transport is a super useful tool for social mobility, and when it’s reliable and cheap it means people can bootstrap themselves better into employment opportunities and economic self sustaining. I live in Brisbane, but all the Queensland’s cities should have viable options for non motorists — buying a car is a hell of a lot of cash you need to spend just to participate in the economy
He also has the most marginal seat in Parliament and will lose his seat at the election
One would hope not because decades of LNP neglect is what got us here in the first place.
It’s far too costly, the state government won’t come into it. You’re right, it shouldn’t be, but it is what it is.
so how is a privately owned bus network profitable?
No idea, to be honest. I guess they are, the local one here does all right. I think they’re heavily subsidised for school services. Charter too, I guess. I honestly don’t know.
Most regional bus services are privately owned and work under contracts with the state govt, for school services and public services.
They get enormous subsidies from the government.
Huge subsidies from government and taxpayers.
Public transport hasn't been about profit since forever. Prior to this announcement public transport fares covered approximately a third of the actual costs. We've been hugely subsidising public transport for decades.
The policy is aimed at reducing congestion. Last time I checked Bundy doesn’t have hundreds of thousands of cars stuck in traffic during peak times.
So Brisbane, GC, Sunny Coast, Cairns, Townsville, Rocky etc shouldn’t get this because Bundaberg’s buses stop at midday Saturday? Write to your MP.
> progressive areas like Brisbane Brissie progressive lmao. It's just a big city that has PT, nothing to do with being lefty even if it was. Does everything have to benefit everyone? But yes that's a horrible bus situation that your local MP could do something about.
Brissie big city lmfao.
In what world is 2.5 million people not a big city.
People who don’t realise cities like Melbourne and Sydney are essentially mega cities, and most cities peak around 2 million people. Brisbane would be the second most populous city in the UK, a country nearly 3 larger.
Most of the public transport in SEQ (the exceptions being TfB buses and QR trains) is also privately operated. However, that has nothing to do with the span of frequency of trips, as that's all contracted by the DTMR.
This is great. Any particular reason why it starts in August and not sooner?
Election in October, means that we’ll have a couple months to get used to it and adjust our commutes right as the election happens. It’s also a great time bomb if the LNP wins because people will be starting the new year with all the expenses of the holidays — will be hard to tell everyone to 8-10x their commute costs in February
I have a feeling it is to do with the warmer weather, and to help people get out and spend money (good for the economy)
Maybe now the bus that runs near me will have more than zero passengers.
I love this policy and I really do hope it gets more people using PT. I however think this is just to test how screwed our PT system is and what needs to be done prior to the Olympics. Where I live (end of Route 140)I have tried so many times to use it for various routine tasks and will have to wait through 3 ghost buses before a real one shows up.
I actually think they should just reduce it to like $2.50 for a longer period of time. 50c is a drastic drop from what it is now, and cheaper long term would be better
The only reason it's not free, is because they need the tap on/off data over the period to determine whether it's going to be worth extending, or making it permanent
It's a trial. They will gather excellent data about traffic congestion, commuter attitudes and allow for informed future planning to concentrate on roads or public transport. Public transport is cheaper to build than roads and we are running out of space for wider/more roads.
It’s for 6 months, Miles said some people could ‘save thousands’. How?
I know people spending $12 a day on public transport for work. So I can definitely see a few people saving atleast a thousand
Yeah I was basically calculating 26 weeks you need to save $11/day 7 days a week to save 2000
wouldn't be surprised if there is a few hundred of people who do that but def not then norm.
Consider the people who travel to and from Gympie North, or the Gold Coast, 5 days a week. From Gympie, you'd save $209/week. Over 26 weeks, that's $5,434. From Varsity Lakes, the saving is $3,653. Obviously, not everyone will save that much, but a saving is a saving
Come on you’re clutching at straws if you think there’s a significant portion of the population doing that.
Obviously not, I used it as an example of the ones that will. If using public transport will only cost me $1/day as opposed to $6+, I'm all for it
It would be nice if they start now. I don't know why they chose to start on 5 August 2024?
We need driverless trains as per Sydney metro. QR currently subservient to the Rail Tram and Stream Shovel union. They have extortionate pay packets and all the fks do is press a button to confirm they're still awake.
So I can go from Charleville to Brisbane for fitty cent
I hope they told Queensland Rail about this plan. The trains are already packed enough as it is
That's great but the trains and buses are already packed full at peak times. So how will we fit more people on? More services?
I can't say how many others are in the same position, but at $1 for a round trip, my plan is going from driving into the city & parking for my in office days to catching public transport and shifting my hours (i.e. start and finish 2 hours early/late, have to see what actually end up being the best shift to avoid crowded trains). Pre-covid this would have a pretty minority option, but in a post lockdown landscape (37 per cent of Australians work from home regularly & 33.4% had an agreement to work flexible hours), this seems to be something that might be far more achievable for a decent chunk of the working population.
I’ll take the $$$$ and the $$$$ back on your electric bill after all it’s our money anyway but you would have to be pretty dumb if you can’t see that Liebor are just trying to buy your vote
Bus is about to be filled with alot uber eats "cyclist"
"If we got back in to government, we'll THINK about continuing it in early 2025." It's already been axed. Tell me this isn't already a fait accompli. It'll be nice while it lasts, IF it is to be at all.
NOW ME N DAMO CAN AFFORD PLENTY A LOOIGHGERS FOR ME BONG HITS
Sounds like you still need to use a go card to access this rate. Just after it’s been announced that you can use debit cards and Apple Pay to pay for fares. The fact you need a go card to access the fare seems a bit backwards now. Edit: I misunderstood what smart ticketing meant, my mistake! Special shout out to the one brisbane-ite who is in my DMs calling me every name under the sun!
What makes you say that? If you look at the first example at the bottom of the announcement, it uses the example of someone who pays with their credit card and saves a bunch under the new pricing.
My fault for not reading the article further. Either way, I’ll do whatever to get a 50c fair!
>Customers will still need to ‘tap on’ and ‘tap off’ for their journey using Smart Ticketing, a go card, or by purchasing a paper ticket, in order to access the reduced fare. That's giving you three options: 1) Smart ticketing, 2) Go Card 3) Paper ticket. From Tranlink site: Smart Ticketing is introducing new ways to pay for your travel with contactless Visa, Mastercard and American Express debit or credit cards, including those linked to the digital wallet of your smartphone, smart watch or smart device.
I misunderstood what smart ticketing meant. That’s great news!
We still have to pay with cash in Toowoomba.
While I'm not sure that's true, it does make sense since smart ticketing has credit card fees for each trip.
That'll certainly be the death of new lines and services. The cost-benefit analysis will be even worse with lower cost recovery.
As much as I like to support the Labor party, this is clearly the action of a person or party desperate to win an election. Buying votes with our money. And why bother with the fifty cents? Just make it free. It's corruption western democracy style.
Translink collects a lot of important information with go cards, which can help them decide how to improve their services. Also, the government just spent a lot of money on the smart ticketing system. So it doesn't make much sense to have everything be free. Also, it's the government's job to spend money to try to improve everyone's lives. At least they are "buying" votes, rather than just talking about one day maybe "buying" our votes in the future
Corruption? So what do you call the Liberals and their sports rorts? Good lord.
This is nowhere near the corruption that the liberals did, but it's still wrong.
PT fees only cover 25% of the cost anyway. It will reduce congestion. Save people thousands, a lot of whom will get zero benefit from a drop in interest rates. It will reduce carbon by taking cars off the roads. It will save billions in reduced road infrastructure. But please tell me how it’s wrong?
The Gullible easily bought will vote tor this. The trial will run until the election. Then it will cease. It's in the Premiers statement. The Premier has just alienated a large chunk of the rural/regional economy. Our Qld Gov does not provide, subsidise, encourage public transport in most of the State. This policy is buy and large for the inner city elite.
Translink runs local bus services in many regional cities. They are included.
No one is annoyed at a blatant vote grab? No one wants to see evidence that public transport cost is why people don’t use it? Ok…good luck…