Taking my son to school today, on public transport. Trains/light rails are running with weekends timetables, while fares follow weekdays timetables, with 4 + 4 hour peak periods (before Covid it was 2+2.5 hours).
My son asked how that reduced timetables could help in Covid time?
Wait, what?
NSW trains privatised?
Sorry you're right.
Geez government shafting their own users.
Admittedly the trams are a quasi private/gov operation.
Government shafting its own? Never heard of that before……
My understanding was that it was initially running at weekend timetable due to high percentage of staff needing to self-isolate due to catching covid or being a close contact. Not sure if the close contact rules have changed for transport staff.
OP actually got asked where he came from, but misheard the question.
The fares are a reflection of getting you from A to B and maintaining the infrastructure, frequency has little to do with cost but rather dictated by demand/utilisation. The higher the demand the more revenue which then allows to maintain a more frequent (and costlier) service.
During covid there are two issues, reduction in demand/utilisation and staffing issues.
With reduction in demand/utilisation it makes less financial sense to run a service that isn't utilised at a profitable/reasonable level, in other words maintaining a high frequency schedule is just pissing money away for no real benefit.
The second issue is staff shortages, less services means less staff requirements which makes providing a service more reliable. If you can only reliably maintain a staffing pool to provide X number of services then you should only be providing X number of services, scheduling more services means having to cancel services which can have major impacts down the line as the delays and cancellations add up.
If you want to be the same but keep a more frequent schedule with reduced ridership then you're essentially asking taxpayers to cover the drop in revenue. The alternative is the fares are increased. The reasonable middle ground is keep fares the same (at the end of the day you are still getting from A to B) but reduce frequency so the reduced revenue collected can cover the running costs. As for the inconvenience, it's public transport in the middle of a pandemic, don't like it then drive (and pay even more for the privilege).
What did you say when your son asked how that reduced timetables could help in Covid time?
His ground for that question was that the less frequent, the more crowded trains. So I had no answer for that.
At our station, before 10/01, there was one train every 10 minutes during kids travel hours, now it is one in every 30 minutes.
I thought this was going to be about someone selling fake opals.
Same!
Yes, public transport is expensive in Australia because we don't have many people to justify the high frequency and low ticket costs. However, if you're going to the city mid-week, it's still cheaper than driving and paying $80 for parking more than 2hrs.
Some amount of the fare goes to the company that created opal. X cents on the dollar. They do absolutely nothing. So there it is. Transport for NSW is also useless and a money sink
This was one of the reason I've love to work at home. Been doing that since Feb 2021 and only on the bus/train 2 times. BS timetable and delay all the time. Every time hot weather = track metal melt; every storm = tree on track. You would think they build the tracks out of LEGO.
Seriously? It costs me like $3 to get the bus to work. Can’t you find something else to complain about? Children get free public transport to school so what’s the problem.
Public transport is expensive in Sydney, it can cost $3 to travel a few km
i think it's pretty reasonable.. like in greece it's cheaper but wages are bad.
Wait, what?
Yes.
TLDR: Trains are running at lower frequency due to covid and they're still charging peak period pricing.
That's what privatisation gives you.