Brisbane’s bus patronage reached 6.13 million passengers last month, eclipsing last May by over a quarter of a million, Public and Active Transport Chairman Jane Prentice said today.
That increase was despite massive disruptions to services during last month’s floods.
The 6,127,668 passengers who caught a Brisbane Transport bus last month surpassed the figure of 5,853,838 recorded in May 2008, which was an increase of 273,830, or nearly 5 per cent.
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 210,418 journeys in May, a total of 1956 (0.93 per cent) services reported full at one point during their route, which was down from 2057 in April. Of those, 77 per cent (1500) 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 earlier this year 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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