Getting around the Sunshine Coast from Sunshine Plaza at Maroochydore just became easier with the introduction of real-time bus departure information.
From today (November 12) Sunshine Coast Council has introduced a healthy, smart, creative way to leave the car at home and give the bus a go for your next trip to the shopping and entertainment precinct.
Transport Portfolio Councillor Rick Baberowski said shoppers could use existing digital directory kiosks located throughout the centre to check when the next bus is expected to leave Maroochydore Station.
“According to TransLink data, during the 2017/18 financial year there were more than 559,000 passenger boardings at Maroochydore Station,” Cr Baberowski said.
“That’s an average of more than 10,500 weekly and more than 1500 daily passenger boardings at the Maroochydore Station.
“So, we know commuters and shoppers are using the station, and providing real-time information inside the shopping precinct was the next step to help everyone make the best use of the time they have available.”
Sunshine Plaza centre manager Michael Manwaring thanked Cr Baberowski and the Sunshine Coast Council for helping to make the real-time data screens available to staff and customers of Sunshine Plaza.
“The collaboration between Sunshine Coast Council and Sunshine Plaza has enabled us to provide real time public transport data across our centre information directories,” Mr Manwaring said.
“Having real-time bus information at shoppers’ fingertips is a great new feature for the centre’s digital directory screens.”
Cr Baberowski said real-time data gave shoppers the opportunity to make on-the-spot decisions according to actual travel time, not just scheduled times listed on the journey planner or timetable.
“Timetables are a great indicator, but traffic and weather conditions can cause delays and no-one wants to rush only to discover there’s been a delay,” he said.
The introduction of real-time bus information on screens throughout Sunshine Plaza was funded by council’s Transport Levy.
Image 1: Transport Portfolio Cr Rick Baberowski joined Michael Manwaring of Sunshine Plaza during the testing phase of the real-time bus information.
