Brisbane’s bus patronage record has been smashed, with over 7.3 million passengers choosing to use Brisbane City Council buses in April alone, Public and Active Transport Chairman Jane Prentice said today.
The 7,300,900 passengers surpassed the previous record of 7,081,453, which was set a year earlier in April 2008.
Cr Prentice said the record showed that Brisbane commuters were voting with their feet.
“Bus services in Brisbane have improved dramatically since the Lord Mayor was elected in 2004,” she said.
“Our BUZ routes are massively popular with commuters and the proportion of the fleet with air-conditioning has jumped from just 35 per cent to over 85 per cent.
“Brisbane buses are more comfortable, more reliable and increasingly the preferred mode of public transport for Brisbane commuters.”
Cr Prentice said despite the record patronage, the number of buses reporting full had actually dropped last month, demonstrating that Council was successfully catering for record growth.
Of the 256,651 journeys in April, a total of 2057 (0.8 per cent) services reported full at one point during their route, which was down from 3295 (1.5 per cent) in March. Of those, 76 per cent (1621) occurred on routes with a waiting time of less than 20 minutes for the next bus.
“Last financial year, Brisbane City Council buses carried 67.6 million and that’s on track to rise to 71 million in 2008/09,” Cr Prentice said.
“That’s significantly more than the south-east Queensland CityTrain network, which only carried 61.7 million passengers last financial year.”
Lord Mayor Campbell Newman put a record 337 new buses on the road during his first term, which will increase to an additional 500 in his second term.
The Lord Mayor also recently launched Brisbane’s 1000th bus at the official opening of Brisbane City Council’s new $56 million Willawong bus depot and turned the sod at a new bus building facility at Eagle Farm.
Cr Prentice said she and the Lord Mayor were determined to meet the increasing demand for bus services, brought on better services and newer, more comfortable buses.
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