Absolutely bonkers stat: South Australia’s *entire* regional public transport network costs the state about $18 million per annum.
For that expenditure, the region’s 400,000 residents make 912,000 trips per annum – an average of 2.3 per person, per year, at a cost of $19 per trip. Altogether, the state spends around $45 per regional resident.
Compare that to Adelaide Metro’s budget of ~$500 million. Greater Adelaide’s population of 1.4 million makes just over 60 million trips on the network each year, or 43 per person, costing $8.33 per trip. The total per capita budget is about $357 per year – an incredible 8 times the regional budget.
The conventional wisdom is that regional services are typically more expensive on a per-capita basis, due to diseconomies of scale and the much larger distances such services need to cover. Yet here we see the opposite – regional areas are being massively underfunded, and each journey costs the state barely twice what a metropolitan journey does, despite the regional journeys being many times longer.
This indefensible neglect has been a bipartisan status quo for at least the last three decades, and it’s high time things changed. Regional SA needs to kick out the majors and elect locally-focussed independents who will ensure a fair deal for their constituents.
Also, compare the V/Line budget of $1.2 billion for Victoria’s 1.5 million regional residents = $800 per person, not even including the PTV services . A lazy 18x what South Australia spends. Embarrassing and enraging.
V/Line provides 22 million trips per year, = average of 15 trips per person per year, and $54/trip (this is presumably *not* net of farebox, but that makes less of a difference now with the fare cap)
Sources: Regional bus service contracts: https://audit.sa.gov.au/sites/default/files/2024-01/Report%201%20of%202024%20-%20Regional%20bus%20service%20contracts%20-%20Phase%201.pdf…
Adelaide Metro annual report and financials: https://dit.sa.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/1286904/DIT-2022-2023_SA_Government_Annual_Report_with_financial_statements.pdf…
Just appeared too good to leave just on twitter where it will be hard to find again and not seen with enough eyes.
Adapted from recent Twitter Posts and recognising HOT RAILS. By Helen.
Such a good find wanted to ensure it was read more widely.
–Helen
Thank you for doing this as it is often impossible to find posts on twitter.
I am very interested in how this article would spur discussion on a passenger rail service to Mount Barker and also to Port Augusta. Why did passenger services to Port Augusta stop anyhow?