Transperth Ferries
Description of services
Two Transperth ferries operate between the City (Barrack Street) and South Perth (Mends Street) providing 80 services on an average weekday from September to April, and 60 services on an average weekday from May to August.
The Transperth ferry service has been competitively tendered since 1995, and the service is provided under contract by Captain Cook Cruises.
During the year a new ferry, the MV Phillip Pendal, was commissioned and commenced service on 3 May 2009. This new vessel replaced the MV Countess II, and operates as the primary vessel, with the MV Shelley Taylor-Smith now the back-up vessel.
Patronage
The ferry service represents only a very small part of the Transperth system patronage (less than 0.5 per cent). The upward trend in ferry patronage recorded in 2005/06 and 2006/07 was reversed in 2007/08 with significant reductions in both fare-paying and total boardings. This trend continued in the case of fare-paying boardings which fell 4.6 per cent in 2008/09 from 413,000 to 394,000. However, following accurate recording of transfers stemming from more modern ticketing equipment, the trend was reversed for total boardings which increased by 4.3 per cent in 2008/09 to 484,000 from 464,000.
On a per-kilometre basis, ferry fare-paying boardings fell 4.3 per cent to 11.41 in 2008/09 from 11.92 in 2007/08, while total boardings per service kilometre increased by 4.6 per cent to 14.01 from 13.39 in 2007/08.
|
Service characteristic |
Importance rating |
Satisfaction rating |
||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
2008 |
2009 |
2008 |
2009 |
|
|
Cost of the fare |
67% |
77% |
86% (1%) |
84% (1%) |
|
Cleanliness on board |
80% |
76% |
96% (0%) |
100% |
|
Shelter at the jetty |
55% |
65% |
75% (11%) |
79% (18%) |
|
Off-peak service frequency |
60% |
61% |
78% (6%) |
85% (8%) |
|
Availability of seats |
63% |
60% |
98% (0%) |
97% (2%) |
|
Punctuality |
61% |
57% |
92% (1%) |
100% |
|
Speed of trip |
57% |
53% |
97% (1%) |
96% (4%) |
|
Access to ticket purchase facilities |
45% |
92% (8%) |
||
Note: Dissatisfaction level shown in parenthesis.
Passenger satisfaction
The 2009 PSM showed that a very high proportion of passengers continued to express satisfaction with Transperth’s ferry service overall, continuing the trend over the past five years.
The importance rating of the key service characteristics of Transperth’s ferry services (other than passenger safety) and the level of satisfaction for each key service characteristic are shown in the table above. In 2009, "access to ticket purchase facilities" replaced "availability of timetables" as a key service characteristic. It is noteworthy that there was 100 per cent satisfaction with "cleanliness on board" and "punctuality". The importance rating for "shelter at the jetty" increased and while the satisfaction rating for this characteristic increased from 75 per cent to 79 per cent between 2008 and 2009, the dissatisfaction rating also increased, from 11 per cent to 18 per cent.
Passenger safety
In the PSM, ferry users were asked: "How safe do you generally feel from personal interference or threat from other passengers?" The following graph shows the proportion of respondents who "always" or "usually feel safe" at the specified times.
The results for the past five years show that almost all ferry passengers generally felt safe on the ferry during the day and at night and at the jetty during the day. The proportion of users who felt safe at the jetty at night increased significantly from 91 per cent in 2008 to 97 per cent in 2009.