Morning peak hour bus services from Murdoch to Perth will increase

16/10/96

Morning peak hour bus services from Murdoch to central Perth will increase by 21 per cent from October 28.

It will be the second major expansion of services since half the metropolitan public transport bus areas were contracted out to private operators.

Transport Minister Eric Charlton announced today that an application by Swan Transit, the successful tenderer for the Southern River service, to increase the Murdoch services had been approved.

All the new services will run from the Murdoch Park-and-Ride Station, lifting from nine to 13 the number of express buses from the station to the city between 7 am and 8.30 am.

Mr Charlton welcomed the increase as an exciting divided from the second round of bus contracts, which only took effect on September 29.

"It results from efficiencies introduced by Swan Transit and is exactly what the Government always said would happen through the contracting out system," he said.

"Before the handover of Southern River to Swan Transit, there was chronic overcrowding on the route 185 services from Murdoch, and especially on the express buses operating from the phenomenally successful Park-and-Ride Station next to Kwinana Freeway.

"There is also a bonus in the increase.

"Swan Transit has been asked by the Department of Transport to operate the Route 4 service between the Wellington Street Bus Station and West Perth. It has accepted and from about the end of this month, six of the Route 185 services will go on to West Perth from Wellington Street."

Mr Charlton said this would significantly reduce the need for people from the Murdoch area who worked in West Perth to change buses. The Route 4 buses would operate at intervals of only seven or eight minutes in the morning peak.

"The new services will begin as soon as new timetables are produced this month," he said.

Mr Charlton said Swan Transit, the first private operator to win a contract to operate public transport buses, was also being given approval to increase services in the Midland area by 25 per cent.

"This leaves the politically motivated critics of the contracting system with egg on their faces," he said.

"Far from services declining as these people predicted, they are increasing - and it is being done by liberating resources previously wasted - at great cost to taxpayers - in outdated operating procedures.

"While the doom-and-gloom merchants carry on, the Government and the new bus operators have been getting on with building the public transport system.

"Everyone can now see who was on the right track.

"This is only the start - there is a revolution under way that will give Perth a world-class public transport system over the next decade, with a new fleet of modern buses providing a fast, efficient service."

Media contact: Caroline Lacy 222 9595