Bumper week sees record 514,000 boardings on bus and light rail

More Canberrans than ever before are choosing to use public transport as their preferred way to get around the city with more than 514,000 boardings recorded last week – the highest week of public transport use on record since the introduction of MyWay*.

“It’s been a huge start to the year for public transport with more Canberrans using buses and light rail to get around the city to work, school and to travel to major events.” said Minister for Transport, Chris Steel.

Last weekend alone saw more than 60,000 boardings with people choosing to take the bus and light rail to and from the Multicultural Festival in the city – also a record for weekend public transport travel since MyWay.

“These results are showing the benefits of 10 rapid routes including light rail, running frequently and late at night, 7 days a week.”

New patronage data released shows that 36% more journeys made on public transport for the Multicultural Festival this year compared with Festival weekend in 2019. In the first three weeks of Term 1 2020 there was a 10.26% increase in the number of journeys taken across the ACT compared with the same period in 2019 (prior to Network 19).

Earlier this month the Minister for Transport announced an update to the bus network to provide more direct connections for rapid and local services between town centres and improved timings across the network, and improved frequency on Saturdays for local buses. These improvements are expected to commence on 28 April 2020 and complement additional light rail frequency and expanded peak travel times commencing at the same time.

“We’re seeing for the first time crowding on new Rapid bus services like the R10 (Molonglo to City) and we’re responding to this by putting on more frequent services from April,” Minister Steel said.

“It’s great to see more Canberrans choosing public transport in 2020, and with the practical improvements we are making to the network starting in April, we hope to see patronage grow even further.”

More details along with full timetables and updates to school services will be announced in

mid-March 2020. Read about the improvements in your region at www.transport.act.gov.au.

Specific comparative data of boardings and journeys is available on request.

Boardings: Boardings are a measure of public transport patronage. A boarding is every time a person gets on a public transport vehicle, such as a bus or light rail vehicle.

Journeys: Journeys are a measure of public transport patronage. A journey is a customer’s whole travel from origin to destination on public transport, which may include more than one boarding.

*Figures are for the week commencing 17 February 2020. Comparison excludes the free travel period following commencement of the integrated public transport network in April 2019. The MyWay ticketing system was introduced in 2011.

/Public Release. View in full here.