Estimates - Transport - Intercity Services

CHAIR - Minister, we've talked about the free buses, but I want to just turn to the intercity services. So, it's almost becoming a victim of its own success, with a number of intercity routes run by Kinetic often fully booked, meaning that there are people who are being left without any other means of transport, which is a bit different to a full Metro bus whizzing by, because in some cases the next Kinetic bus won't be leaving for another few hours or even the next day. This was particularly acute during the school holidays which many of the services were fully booked. Minister, I wrote to Kinetic asking if they would put on additional services to meet increased demand to ensure no-one would be left behind, and they said they have offered this to State Growth, but those offers have been declined. So, I'm just curious to know, why aren't you allowing State Growth to put in additional services to meet the demands of our often rural and remote population who often rely on this as a public transport option?

Mr VINCENT - It certainly has been a point of conjecture, like we raised earlier, and I will ask the deputy secretary, who is also the Transport Commissioner, to expand on that a little bit more. Kinetic are reserving four seats, I believe, to make sure that there are seats on the bus for people that come in late where it's been fully booked and not everything's been taken up. So, they're trying to deal with that issue pretty well. I will ask the deputy secretary to expand a little bit more.

Ms HEYDON - Through you, minister: I'm unaware of Kinetic making that request. I'm not saying they haven't, but I myself am not aware, so I'll ask the team for more information in relation to that. I know we are actively monitoring a lot of the intercity services, because there was some significant popularity during school holidays and people taking the opportunity to get out to the West Coast and up to Launceston. And we're looking at what our mitigations are to make sure that there's still capacity for people who are, let's say, not using it just for leisurely travel, which might have a more flexible time frame, as opposed to those people who require it for specific services and appointments. We are working with Kinetic and other operators in relation to the booked services, but I will come back to you with information into the specific request from Kinetic.

CHAIR - During this session?

Ms HEYDON - Hopefully, yes.

CHAIR - Thank you. My second question is: in output 6 of the Budget there is $42.9 million this financial year, I think, and then $43.8 million per annum in the 2029-30 forward Estimates of subsidies over that time, and that's allocated to school bus services. How do you ensure demand for school bus services is met and how do you assess that? Or do you not have the capacity to properly assess these needs?

Mr VINCENT - It's certainly an ongoing assessment. The operators notify us fairly quickly if there is overcrowding. Parents certainly write in if they feel their children are in an awkward situation with the volume of kids on the bus. But in just recent times there has been a fair bit of work done by the Department to ascertain the volumes on the school bus and what adjustments need to be made - and they do make adjustments around the state. They've just had to put a new service on from Primrose Sands to Dunalley, which takes pressure off the Dodges Ferry School and relay some of the children down to Dunalley for that sort of thing. I will ask the deputy secretary for a bit more clarification on how the process works.

Ms HEYDON - Through you, minister: we undertake, at the beginning of each year or actually towards the end of each year as well, working with the Department of Education around what the service needs are for schools and any sort of predicted patronage or increases in school intakes in certain areas so that we can plan for that for the new school term happening. We actively manage and, as the minister said, respond to requests from operators identifying that there's an additional need, and we supplement and put additional buses on. Sometimes we'll put additional buses on in the beginning of the year and there isn't quite the uptake, so we also then adjust along the way, but we do have a fairly dynamic approach to the school bus service management.

CHAIR - Thank you.