Passengers vote with their feet and return to public transport

These latest patronage figures showing passengers are voting with their feet thanks to increased reliability, new travel options and better integration in New South Wales.

After consecutive periods of growth, latest figures show public transport patronage nearly reached its pre-covid high with more than 629 million ticketed trips made across all modes in the last financial year.

That figure is edging closer to the network-high 735 million ticketed trips taken on public transport in the 2018/19 window.

Minister for Transport Jo Haylen said people are voting with their feet and are coming back to public transport, with ridership on light rail and ferries now surpassing pre-covid levels on weekends.

“Our investment in rail maintenance and our new timetable means our network is more reliable and can recover more quickly when things go wrong,” she said.

“Patronage figures for the new City Metro show that ‘Metromania’ isn’t slowing down. The daily average of 200,000 trips during its opening week, has increased to an average of 215,000 trips per day.”

With the success of Sydney Metro City services and employers getting workers back to the office, public transport could set new post-covid patronage highs through 2025.

The new Metro line is seeing around 215,000 passenger trips daily, with people incorporating new ways of travel into their overall journey. There have been more than 12 million trips on the new Metro in its first 10 weeks.

Transport for NSW is anticipating greater demand as it has listened to passengers, looked at the modelling and adapted services to fit in with how the community wants to use public transport, most notably in the shoulders of the peaks and for recreation.

Weekend travel has been the big winner with families or visitors to the city overwhelmingly travelling by bus, train, tram, ferry, and metro to major events and to explore the city and attractions.

Patronage on weekends is up 17 per cent on last year, and for ferries and light rail, has eclipsed pre-Covid travel rates – growing faster than weekday travel.

Sydney Metro has three times the weekend travellers that it did when only operating as a Northwest route.