Efficiency

The cost per 1000 place kilometres (see the Performance Indicators section of this Annual Report) rose in 2004/05 because of a change in reporting gross, not net, expenditure. Excluding this, the costefficiency did not change significantly.

Passenger and occupational safety

At 30 June 2005, passenger and occupational safety records were maintained by individual operators. RTBS is developing a standardised reporting format for all regional town bus services to facilitate RTBS maintaining such records as from 2005/06.

REVIEW OF PERFORMANCE

The Year’s Developments

The total capacity provided on regional bus passenger services increased by 9.1 per cent from 163.089 million passenger place kilometres in 2003/04 to 177.860 million in 2004/05. The increase mainly resulted from:

• the full-year benefit of service enhancements introduced in Bunbury and Busselton during the previous year;
• the benefit of service enhancements introduced in Port Hedland and Kalgoorlie;
• the expansion of the trial road coach service running from Perth to Port Hedland from one to two return services per week in the middle of April 2005;
• the expansion, on a trial basis, of the four-wheel drive service providing transport between Port Hedland, Marble Bar and Nullagine, and Newman and Nullagine; and
• the introduction of a trial youth bus service between the towns of Wickham, Roebourne, Karratha and Dampier. In June 2005, the service was extended to Point Samson.

During the year, six country bus operators entered into 12-year contracts with the PTA, while three metropolitan based operators entered into contracts of varying terms to provide services in a complementary capacity to Transperth. In addition, a formal contract was signed with the Shire of East Pilbara for the four-wheel drive service operated in the Pilbara.

At year’s end, a bus replacement program proposing the transfer of Mercedes Benz NH low-floor buses from the Transperth fleet to regional services in the future was being developed.This proposal, if accepted, will reduce the average age of the regional bus fleet to around 12 years and provide accessible buses on regional bus services and will be the start of RTBS progressively complying with the Disability Standards for Accessible Public Transport and Guidelines under the Disability Discrimination Act, 1992.

The Transperth timetable format was adopted on bus services in major regional towns which brought about timetable uniformity across the State. Also, work began on implementing a standard bus stop system in the regional areas with orange posts designated for general commuter stops and blue posts for school bus stops.

At 30 June 2005, the regional bus fleet totalled 134 vehicles compared with 145 in 2003/04.The decrease primarily resulted from Transperth taking over some of the services that were previously administered by RTBS operators in the Perth metropolitan area.

Three late-model low-floor wheelchair accessible Mercedes Benz buses were transferred from Transperth to the TransGoldfields fleet in October 2004 for use on revised services in Kalgoorlie-Boulder. Revised town and school bus services were introduced in Geraldton (from 15 November 2004) and Albany (from 19 December 2004). In Geraldton, the new services include a City Clipper route via the museum and the HMAS Sydney Memorial.

Revised routes and improved service levels were introduced in Port Hedland on 4 January 2005.

Patronage

Fare-paying initial boardings on regional bus services increased by 1.2 per cent from 1.802 million in 2003/04 to 1.823 million in 2004/05. However, total boardings (which include free travel and transfers) decreased by 1.5 per cent from 2.314 million in 2003/04 to 2.278 million.

As a result of the decrease in total boardings and an 11.6 per cent increase in service kilometres, total boardings per service kilometre fell by 11.5 per cent from 0.96 in 2003/04 to 0.85.