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The inconvenient truth of public transport success
IPA REVIEW ARTICLE
Since its privatisation in 1999, Melbourne's public transport system has recorded the largest patronage increases in the country. Sadly, ideological opponents of privatisation will go to any lengths to not only hide this fact, but to actually argue the opposite.
In a paper entitled Travel journey to work in Australian capital cities, 1976-2006: An Analysis of Census Data, some Melbourne-based transport academics recently claimed that ‘Melbourne is the worst performing city over the three decades' having the biggest increase in car use and decline in public transport use.
While over three decades this might be true, what was intriguing was the explanation of Melbourne's ‘poor' performance. One of the three alleged reasons for Melbourne's performance was ‘poor public transport management ... a situation exacerbated by the privatisation of trains and trams in 1999'.
Yet, the fine print in the academics' own document clearly demonstrates that in recent years Melbourne has been the best performing city.
In the ten years, 1996-2006, public transport's share of journey to work passengers has increased by 1.7 per cent in Melbourne, by 1.4 per cent in Perth (the public transport activists' love child), by 1.3 per cent in Brisbane, by 1.0 per cent in Adelaide, and actually declined in Sydney, Canberra and Hobart.
So, one can see that the real reason the academics chose 1976 as their base year was to include the five years from 1976 to 1981 when Melbourne's public transport share declined dramatically and other cities, especially Sydney with significant public transport investment from the Wran Government, did much better.
It appears that in their ideological opposition to privatisation some alleged supporters of public transport will do anything to present the services in their home town in a bad light.
Considering the road lobby's use of low public transport share as their chief argument for greater roads investment, it seems a bizarre strategy.