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Melbourne Transport |
Common Urban Myths About TransportMyth:
Bringing back tram conductors and station staff would send fares through the roof
Fact:
The net cost of restoring full staffing to the system is around $20 million
a year, after accounting for reduced fare evasion and a reduction in the
number of ticket inspectors required. If funded through a fare rise, it
would add less to fares than the GST did.
Essential to a well-patronised and efficient public transport system is the presence throughout the system of staff who can assist passengers, create a safe travelling environment, and ensure fare compliance in a non-threatening manner. As recently as the 1990s Melbourne's public transport system had such a presence, in the form of friendly conductors on every tram and staff at every railway station. Since these staff were sacked by the Kennett Government, public transport operators have had to compensate by hiring hundreds of ticket inspectors (570 currently), who perform only one of the functions of real staff and in a manner that creates an atmosphere of conflict rather than service.
A writer to The Age compares this to trying to run a newsagency on an 'honour system', where people take what they want and put money in a box at the counter. Anyone would be a fool to think they could run a business this way, let alone a community service. And taking a confrontational approach to enforcing payment, rather than just having counter staff to take people's money, would just make things worse:
Despite our sorely-missed 'connies' being featured at the 2006 Commonwealth
Games Opening Ceremony, and a Leader Newspapers survey in September 2007
finding over 90% support for returning staff to stations, our public
transport bureaucracy has resisted all calls to restore tram conductors and
station staff. They claim it would be far too expensive - notwithstanding
the fact that fares have nearly doubled in the 10 years since staff were
withdrawn. In response to media questioning in March 2002, Transport
Minister Peter Batchelor said restoring full staffing The true cost of restoring full staffing is nowhere near what the Minister suggested, as a quick calculation shows. Approximately 1,400 passenger-service staff would be required to staff our 500 trams and 210 stations. Of these 200 are already in the budget (100 conductors and 100 station staff, currently used as ticket inspectors and security guards). This leaves 1,200 to be funded from additional revenue. Allowing $70,000 per employee for salary and on-costs gives a gross cost of $84 million per year to restaff the system. For comparison, the revised cost to the public of the 'myki' smartcard system is $113 million a year - plus an extra $43 million a year to keep the Metcard system alive while all the bugs in Myki are fixed. But there are a number of factors that would cause the net cost to be much less than $84 million:
We expect, therefore, that the net cost of restaffing the system would be less than $25 million a year. This is a conservative figure and is likely to overestimate the true cost. The return of conductors and station staff is completely affordable. If it were to be funded through a fare increase, the increase would be less than the 10% GST that now applies to public transport tickets. But it does not need to be funded through increased fares: cost savings and cuts are never passed on in the form of reduced fares, after all. We don't increase the Medicare levy every time we fund a new initiative in public health, and this should be the same. © 2007 Public Transport Users Association Inc. (PTUA), Victoria, Australia. ABN 83 801 487 611. Last modified: 26 May 2008 |