World class public transport for a compact, efficient city

World class public transport for a compact, efficient city

Canberra’s public transport helps make our city less congested, more sustainable and more equitable. Attractive, convenient and connected public transport is critical to achieving a more compact, efficient and liveable city. As Canberra moves towards its vision of a more compact urban form, buses and light rail offer the potential to move people in a safe, efficient and timely manner that supports liveable places. As identified in the 2016 Canberra: A Statement of Ambition, world class public transport is key to a high quality of life in a globally competitive city.

Towards better public transport

In past decades, public transport systems across the world saw a trend to incremental and ad-hoc development. Many cities saw routes develop that were indirect, time consuming and uncoordinated. This was financially and environmentally inefficient and led to a lower quality customer experience. As a result, in many cities bus ridership declined, and Canberra’s public transport system and ridership levels tended to reflect this trend. Recognising this, the ACT Government outlined its vision in Transport for Canberra 2012 to develop a public transport system that fully meets the needs of Canberrans and realises its city shaping potential.

In 2019, building on wide ranging planning and investment and broad community consultation, we introduced a new public transport network to drive the step change needed to deliver a high-quality, modern and sustainable public transport service. What we learnt from our research and experience drawn from around the world is that successful public transport features six key principles:

A new network for a growing city

The new network improves travel choice and flexibility by giving people a range of destination choices through transfers, broadening the range of hours transport is available, and making services simpler and easier to use. It is also more financially and environmentally sustainable because the network design reduces duplication in routes. It has allowed greater area coverage with the same number of vehicle kilometres travelled.

Already this new network is showing positive results. In the first quarter of 2019-20 (1 July to 30 September 2019), there were around 5% more weekday and around 20% more weekend journeys on public transport than during the same time in 2018. This new weekend travel demonstrates that the network is now catering to a more diverse range of trip needs including weekend travel, which tends to be more focused on leisure and shopping trips.

As we transition beyond COVID-19, the new network and the principles it is based upon will become ever more relevant. The new network caters to a more diverse range of trip needs, which aligns with the changes in working life brought about by COVID-19. An all-day rapid network is better able to support flexible work patterns because it meets people’s need for direct, frequent services throughout the day, not only at peak times. For example, when working from home, people who may have previously made a peak hour commuter trip, will now potentially still need to attend meetings and site visits in the interpeak period. When seamlessly connected with last kilometre and on-demand services such as bike and car share, the new network puts flexibility at its heart, to create a travel experience that meets the diverse needs of all Canberrans.

Beyond adjustments to the network we will also adapt our management practices to enable us to provide more flexible, demand responsive services. This includes adaptation and innovation in all elements of our business from engaging with customers, scheduling services, ticketing, fares and real-time information. In this way, public transport will play its part to reinforce changed travel patterns that spread demand through the day and support the need for flexibility by providing people with more choice and control over how and when they travel.

By reviewing the outcomes of these changes, we will continue to make the incremental adjustments necessary to achieve our vision. As the city grows and intensifies, and demand on our network increases the new network will allow Canberrans to reach more destinations in less time via frequent reliable connections, 7-days a week. We will continue to build and reinforce the new network to ensure we get to where we want to be. The above table provides a quick guide to where we have come from and where we are going.

Supporting a more compact, walkable and liveable city

Our public transport system is designed to shape a more compact, walkable and liveable city, with connected communities, more accessible services and greater transport choice. It comprises three tiers: rapid, feeder and local. These are aligned with the surrounding street context and urban structure, so users can easily determine the type of service they want and where to find it.

Rapid routes

High frequency rapid routes lie at the core of the new network to service those corridors with highest demand and destination points. They include a total of 10 rapid routes (including light rail) to provide a frequent, reliable and fast journey into and across the city. The rapid routes comprise our long-term framework for public transport and will largely remain fixed. This will provide certainty for businesses, employers and individuals to make long term decisions on where to live, work and invest.

Continued improvements to service frequency and speed on the core rapid network as well as the connecting local and feeder services will help cater for future population growth and urban intensification. Rapid routes run largely on central links. We will plan bus priority measures on these links to make public transport faster and more reliable, maximise government investment, and to improve access to jobs and services by public transport.

Light rail

Canberra’s future public transport system will have a high capacity light rail network at its core. The first stage of the north-south spine between City and Gungahlin is already operating. Together with the delivery of the second stage between City to Woden, the north-south spine will represent a major and lasting investment in the shape and well-being of the city for future generations. This spine will later be completed by an east-west corridor to service the large demand for travel across our city. While COVID-19 has brought forward emerging trends such as working from home and associated reduction in travel demand, the long-term ambition of high-quality light rail to lead a compact and efficient land use pattern will remain relevant to shape the sustainability, liveability and vibrancy of our city.

Future stages will be developed in accordance with the Light Rail Network Plan and ACT Infrastructure Plan to create a radial mass transit system supported by our orbital feeder and local bus, cycling and walking and private vehicle networks.

Feeder and local routes

Our rapid routes are complemented by a comprehensive network of feeder and local routes. The feeder and local routes facilitate travel within and beyond our suburbs to the rapid network, local district centres and their services. Along with quality infrastructure, the success of our feeder and local routes relies on seamless transfers, frequency and good connections to other transport types.

Preparing for growth and delivering new suburbs

As our city grows and demand for services increases, service frequencies will also need to increase. Growth in weekend and local service frequency, will be critical to supporting travel choice and attracting new users to public transport. In order to provide more travel choice, it is critically important to provide new capacity to meet growing demand.

The coordination of land release and transport is key to delivering successful suburbs. New suburbs will be designed with the provision of convenient public transport, walking and cycling routes as a priority. People tend to develop new travel patterns when they move to a place and those travel patterns are retained over time, even when new services become available. That is why providing quality public transport, cycling and walking upfront is critical to the success of new suburbs and to preventing congestion on surrounding roads.

Comfortable, accessible, zero-emissions fleet

Fleet size and depot capacity dictates the level of service we can provide on our network and plays a major role in customer experience. To ensure Canberrans have a safe and comfortable ride we are growing our fleet and replacing our older fleet with newer, safer, more accessible and more environmentally friendly vehicles.

Our light rail vehicles are already zero emissions and we have committed to our entire bus fleet being zero emissions by 2040. Zero emission vehicles will mean a quieter ride inside and healthier, quieter streets outside.

Whole journey approach

Recognising that journeys begin and end at the front door, we will use a ‘whole journey’ approach to integrating services. A whole journey approach includes harnessing new technologies to support trip planning and ticketing and fares.

That is why we have introduced an online Journey Planner to enable people to get the most out of the new network and we are working with technology providers to ensure quality data is available for app development to improve access to services. We plan to introduce a new public transport ticketing system to allow people to tap on and off with their chosen device, without the need for registering, including credit cards, smart phones and other devices.

A whole journey approach is particularly enabling for people with disabilities, who often experience barriers moving between transport modes. As part of this approach we will ensure that infrastructure and services designed with the needs of people with disabilities in mind from the beginning and bring our fleet up to Australian accessibility standards.

Map shows central links and public transport network into the future