Start the Change

The NSW Liberals & Nationals today announced a $40 million Park and Travel Safety Fund to improve commuter safety in and around train stations, NSW Opposition Leader Barry O’Farrell and Shadow Minister for Transport Gladys Berejiklian said today.

“As I move around the community, people constantly say safety concerns are one of the reasons why they don’t use public transport, especially at night,” Mr O’Farrell said.

From left field - How much does it cost to issue, collect, safeguard, count, and audit transport fares? Please include all printing, ditribution, commissions, staffing and office overheads. OK. Now what if it was free? Would the transport system lose about the same amount as they lose now?

We need Buses, Trains for the local villages in the Southern Highlands, there are a lot of elderly people live here, and you need a car, or you do not go any where.

We have two Trains in the morning into the Central, you can spend a day in Sydney, but to come home there is only the one Train, that travels without you having to change at Campbelltown, and I do not like to change there, the Bus is a school bus, or there is a rail bus, but that is only the one, picks up at Colo Vale at 10.10am, must be at the railway station by 12.30pm to come back home.

Last Monday my family travelled to Coffs Harbour by train. (a distance of 530 km). If the highway ever gets finished it would probably be 5 1/2 hrs by road. Well we live at Rooty Hill about 50km west of the CBD. We could not get the train to Strathfield station early in the morning as the trains are crowded and have no provision for luggage. So we got a mini bus. As the train was leaving at 7.30am and we had to book in 1/2 hour earlier, because the M4 is usually a parking station in peak hour we had to leave home at 5.30am to be sure we were on time. Then the train trip from hell. 7.30 am until 4.30 pm  nine hours to cover 500 km. I think they are using the 1910 timetable not the 2010 timetable. All up 11 hours to get to Coffs Harbour from Sydney.

My biggest gripe is the people of this state have paid enough taxes to have decent train travel, but all the money gets wasted (the CBD metro for example). The government wastes money without blinking an eye as though it is their money. It is our money.

For our sake get into power, cut the beaurocracy, stop wasting money and get things done.

Gladys Berejiklian when the NSW Labor Party introduced myzone ticketing system even though I'm not a regular my zone ticket holder. Could you abolish the my zone ticketing system please?

Community transport is vital for seniors, the ill, people with disability and people who live in isolated communities.

It provides non-emergency transport to members of the community who do not have access to transport. This includes assisting transport-isolated people to get to medical appointments, social and recreational activities, grocery shopping and access to social services.

Community Transport groups rely on over 3,500 volunteers to assist in various roles including volunteer drivers who use their own vehicles and bus assistants.[1]

In 2007-2008 Community Transport Groups carried in excess of 139,103 passengers on 2,262,150 trips, travelling nearly 29 million kilometres.[2]

Thirty per cent of these trips were health-related.[3]

Community transport groups estimate they refuse 90,000 requests for

transport to health services every year.[4]

The NSW Liberals & Nationals will make access to Community Transport a priority. In government we will:

• - Provide an additional $12 million to the Community Transport Program through the Ministry of Transport. This will extend services to thousands of transport-disadvantaged people.
• - Establish a “one stop shop” for Community Transport providers within the Ministry of Transport to improve communication, efficiency and reduce unnecessary administration costs.
• - Establish an appropriate driver accreditation framework to ensure Community Transport providers can enhance their services and ensure utmost safety of volunteers, employees and clients.

We will end Labor’s decade of neglect. The NSW Liberals & Nationals believe we owe it to those with disability, those in remote communities and our seniors the ability to get around.

The NSW travelling public deserves a safe, reliable and accessible public transport system, particularly late at night.

NightRide bus services play a valuable role in ensuring that people in Sydney are able to get home safely from shift work or following a night out. However, currently across many destinations the service is simply not available, or is too infrequent.

A NSW Liberals & Nationals government will:

• - Provide a weekend timetable service on Thursday nights. In many cases this means that the frequency of services will be doubled.
• - Introduce a new NightRide Bus Service to Richmond. On weekends four bus services terminate at Blacktown. We will extend these services to Richmond with an additional ten stops – Marayong, Quakers Hill, Schofields, Riverstone, Vineyard, Mulgrave, Windsor, Clarendon, East Richmond and Richmond.
• - Increase the frequency of weekend NightRide services to Macarthur. We will extend the current weekend N50 Route that terminates at Liverpool to Macarthur, meaning there will be a service to Macarthur twice an hour on weekends. This will further assist people living in Campbelltown, Leumeah, Minto, Ingleburn, Macquarie Fields, Glenfield and Casula.
• - Introduce a new weekend NightRide Bus Service along the Carlingford Line and increase NightRide services to Parramatta. A new service will be established to run from the City to Carlingford. This service will follow the existing N60 Route between Town Hall and Lidcombe and then extend from Lidcombe to seven stops – Clyde, Rosehill, Camellia, Rydalmere, Dundas, Telopea and Carlingford. The service will run every hour, which will provide increased frequency for commuters on the N60 Route between Town Hall and Lidcombe and a new service for commuters on the Carlingford line.

These additional services will help people commuting to work at night, and ensure people having a night out arrive home safely.

The NSW Liberals & Nationals have committed to an Integrated Transport Authority. It will improve the delivery of public transport services by better co-ordinating different transport modes, and enabling more efficient delivery of major transport infrastructure projects.

The Integrated Transport Authority will be responsible for transport policy including planning, infrastructure, fares, ticketing and customer information. It will ensure that different transport modes work together, and that the interests of the travelling public are put first.

Under this structure, the operational transport agencies, such as RailCorp, State Transit Authority and Sydney Ferries, will be focused on front line service delivery.

Each frontline agency will play a lead role in their specific transport mode. These agencies will be required to focus on their core role – delivering clean, reliable, safe and efficient transport services, while the Integrated Transport Authority is responsible for planning and policy.

An Independent Board comprising a panel of experts will oversee the new Authority. The Board will be at ‘arms length’ from the day-to-day running of transport services but will play a critical role in keeping the State Government accountable on transport policy and providing expert advice.

Specifically, the new Authority will:

• - provide a central point of management for the provision of public transport services across Sydney and NSW;
• - be responsible for transport planning including the development of workable transport interchanges;
• - deliver better co-ordination between transport modes;
• - provide a central point of accountability for the planning and delivery of major transport infrastructure projects; and
• - put commuters first by providing more accessible real time information about services and ticketing.

For the first time since the 2000 Olympics, Sydney will have an intelligent, strategic and responsive public transport system, to give its customers the service they expect and deserve.

Shadow Minister for Transport Gladys Berejiklian said today Kristina Keneally’s lousy excuse as to why private bus commuters will have to have their tickets stamped under Labor’s MyZone ticketing system has exposed yet another delay to the delivery of integrated ticketing for Sydney.

“David Campbell’s promise that contracts to deliver integrated ticketing would be signed by the end of this month have been rubbished by Kristina Keneally, who today admitted T-card will not be finalised until later this year,” Ms Berejiklian said.

Bus commuters will be faced with lengthy delays and longer travel times later this month when Labor’s new MyZone ticketing system, which has been plagued with problems, is introduced later this month Shadow Minister for Transport Gladys Berejiklian said.

“Bus drivers will be forced to mark or date stamp tickets because the State Labor Government has failed to install machines to validate the MyZone tickets on private buses,” Ms Berejiklian said.