Our Letter to the Transport Minister's Media Person

We're less than 4 weeks from the big zone and fare changes that were implemented within days of the issue of a report from the Fare Review Taskforce back in June. At this stage we have a low resolution regional zone map, a fare structure for the new zone arrangements, and a Fairer Fares Community Engagement Report. It seems this government made zero effort to share the Fairer Fares Community Engagement Report with the community it apparently engaged with. 

In frustration at the constant obfuscation at every level of the Translink machine, and with serious concerns about what will happen come January 1st, 2017 we have approached the media person for transport minister Stirling Hinchcliffe. Since we are expecting that Stirling Hinchcliffe's media person will make every effort to not give us satisfactory answers to our questions we've decided to post our communication here. 


Sent to: Darren Roberts - Media Person for Queensland Transport Minister, Stirling Hinchcliffe, 09/12/16

Hello Darren,

I'm following up from our phone call of today at 1.30pm. I'm glad you have given me your personal undertaking that you will respond to my questions in writing in a timely fashion. I would urge that you make the responses fulsome and as detailed as possible. I would also urge that you adhere to the time frame that I will provide in this email.

Time frame: By close of business Monday December 12, 2016 I would like answers to each of my 7 questions provided in written form, most preferably in an email.

Here are my 7 questions.

1. What date did the Translink Division/Queensland government/Queensland Department of Transport or any other relevant entity publish the Fairer Fares Community Engagement Report to the web page at this URL: https://haveyoursay.translink.com.au/seq-fare-review

2. What was the communications strategy around the release of the Fairer Fares Community Engagement Report? (I would ask that the minister answer this question while being mindful that the social media record shows little to no evidence of any attempt to disseminate or share the Fairer Fares Community Engagement Report. Further I would remind the minister that the Fairer Fares Community Engagement Report has not been assigned a URL and does not exist on it's own web page, but rather it is a download only document.)

3. Why does the PDF version of the Fairer Fares Community Engagement Report (the only version available to the public) contain extremely limited metadata other than a creation date of 02/09/2016 making the document virtually invisible to internet searches?

4. Why has the transport minister Stirling Hinchcliffe made no formal or informal statements regarding the Fairer Fares Community Engagement Report? (Please be mindful of previous commitments have been made in writing by Stirling Hinchcliffe wherein he committed to an "extensive community consultation") http://statements.qld.gov.au/Statement/2016/2/4/statement-on-the-independent-fare-review

5. When will Translink/Stirling Hinchcliffe be providing information to the South East Queensland public about the changes initiated through the fare review including but not limited to: concession fare arrangements for low income healthcare card holders, detailed zone boundary information (the current map titled 'Proposed 8 zone map' lacks appropriate detail), and any relevant changes/circumstances/consideration arising from from implementation of actions initiated as a response to the SEQ Review Taskforce Recommendations Report?

6. Is the transport minister prepared to make a detailed statement in writing explaining how his government made every attempt to satisfy the Terms of Reference for the Fare Review Taskforce? I would ask that the minister, in formulating his response, be mindful of this statement in the Terms of Reference document outlining the process for community consultation:

"The taskforce will develop a detailed options paper for public consultation.
Following on from public consultation recommendations will be submitted to government."

7. Why was the September 2016 performance snapshot only published yesterday 08/12/16 and why is the October snapshot still unpublished? (it has been customary to publish each snapshot a month after the relevant service period). If indeed the minister has an explanation for not publishing performance data in a timely manner, would the minister provide that explanation to me?

Regards

Michael Swifte

Page Manager - The Translink Ripoff


EDIT: On December 14 after Darren Roberts refused to answer my questions taking issue with my publication of his name in this blog post. I presented these 7 questions to the TransLink External Affairs team. Today, 10/01/17, after apologies for failing to respond to my questions in a timely fashion I received a phone call and email from Jesse at the TransLink Call Centre/Customer Relations. I was able to confirm from Kristen from the TransLink External Affairs team that my requests for information from TransLink Call Centre/Customer Relations  08/12/16, Darren Roberts 09/12/1, and TransLink External Affairs 14/12/16 were amalgamated. 


Text of email from Jesse at TransLink Customer Relations, 10/01/17, TransLink@translink.com.au

Dear Michael

I am writing in follow up to your telephone call to TransLink on 8 December 2016 and email on 9 December 2016, requesting information on the recent fair review.

In consulting with the relevant department we were provided with the information below:

Thank you for your enquiries in relation to the Queensland Government’s Fairer Fares for South East Queensland package.

As you would be aware, on Sunday 12 June 2016 the Queensland Government announced the Fairer Fares reform package in response to the recommendations of the SEQ Fare Review Taskforce. The package delivers more affordable fares for the vast majority of public transport users in SEQ.

Following the announcement, TransLink Division within the Department of Transport and Main Roads commenced a five week community awareness program to inform the community about the Fairer Fares package and gather feedback to inform future approaches to public transport fares.

Information about Fairer Fares was made available on the Fare Review website (https://haveyoursay.translink.com.au/SEQ-Fare-Review) including the Fare Review Taskforce Report, the Government’s Fairer Fares for SEQ document, a fare comparison calculator, FAQs, case studies, fare schedules and zone maps.

Community members were encouraged to provide input into the future direction of fares in SEQ through an online survey which was open until midnight, Sunday 17 July 2016. There were 3,555 survey responses from across SEQ. The focus of the survey was gathering community feedback to guide the longer term approach to fares.

On Wednesday 31 August 2016, the Hon Stirling Hinchliffe, Minister for Transport and the Commonwealth Games, made a statement to the Queensland Parliament on the outcomes of the feedback process. A summary of the feedback from the community was provided in the Fairer Fares Community Engagement Report, which was released to the public via the Fare Review website on Monday 5 September 2016. A copy of the report is attached for your reference.

Previously, implementation of the Fairer Fares package was scheduled to occur in early 2017, however following the completion of all system updates and testing, the changes were implemented successfully on Monday 19 December 2016.

The following changes now apply across South East Queensland:

·         zones reduced from 23 to 8, with cheaper fares across all zones

·         the off-peak period extended through to 6am (currently 3am) with the off-peak discount retained at 20%

·         children aged five to 14 years inclusive travel free at the weekend on an orange child go card

·         50% per cent off journeys after eight journeys in a week with a go card (replacing the existing 'Nine and FREE' incentive)

·         free travel for seniors and pensioners after two journeys in a day (existing incentive retained).

As part of the Fairer Fares package, the Queensland Government also committed to introducing concession fares to people on the Newstart Allowance, Youth Allowance (job seekers) and Asylum Seekers. TransLink is working with the relevant Federal agencies to develop the frameworks and systems to support these new concession products, with implementation planned for 2017.

TransLink has commenced an awareness campaign across South East Queensland to inform existing customers about the fare and zone changes. If you have further questions about the changes, please contact TransLink on 13 12 30 or visit the TransLink website at translink.com.au, where detailed zone maps and fare tables can be viewed.

I trust this has been of assistance.

Kind regards

Jesse

TransLink Customer Relations

Qld Local Elections: The BCC Public Transport Policy Mosh Pit

By Tony Corbett

Its hard to know where to start with the public transport (PT) policy mosh-pit that has characterised the BCC election campaign.  There isn’t much point getting into the nitty gritty, we’ll leave that to Brizcommuter who provides a good assessment HERE. At a broader level the PT promise frenzy the mayoral candidates have engaged in tell us that the toxic relationship and blurred lines of responsibility between the BCC and the state government continues to cripple our PT system and stymie any improvement.

The two main candidates, the LNPs Graham Quirk and Labor’s Rod Harding have promised half baked, expensive metro and light rail systems with zero discussions with the state via Translink, who is allegedly responsible for PT.  Harding has also promised ‘free fare Fridays’ when the BCC actually, nominally, has no control over fares.  The ludicrousness of this proposal prompted Rail Back on Track’s Bob Dow to publicly call for legislation stripping the BCC of any control over public transport.  Both of the major parties were silent on cross river rail, the number 1 priority to get the city moving. The Greens candidate Ben Pennings has made some cheaper bus-based proposals, which are OK if taken in isolation, but that is what we believe is the critical point.  All of the promises and proposals have been rushed and developed in isolation, with little or no thought of system integration.

Meanwhile we have a new transport minister at state level, SH, who on early indications seems as useless and hamstrung as his predecessor Jackie Trad.  The vaunted fare review has supposedly been completed (?), but with no public consultation, no release date, ad hoc releases of more special fare products, and if the BCC election campaign promises are anything to go by, lukewarm or zero political support.

Brisbane’s public transport system remains woefully inadequate, with no indications of reform or improvement in the future.  None of the players at state or BCC levels seem to understand or care that political and institutional reform is the only way forward.  While they don’t seem to understand, they actually do understand.  What seem to us like a murky, opaque web of backroom deals between politicians and unions, and between state and BCC politicians combines to maintain the status quo of an unintegrated system that is expensive to use and run and stuck in time somewhere around Expo 88.

The state leaving PT to the BCC has had disasterous results.  The BCC only has control over buses, and inevitably they have delivered us to ‘peak bus’.  A single, state government controlled metro controlling all aspects of the system, with a focus on rail is the only way forward.  If the BCC genuinely cared about delivering good public transport it would recognise the need for integrating rail and bus modes.  For that to happen the BCC needs to stop acting unilaterally on major infrastructure and the state needs to prioritise PT and get on the front foot politically.  In other words, the BCC needs to step aside, and the state needs to step up.

How to Vote: Ripoff Style

Well it's state election day 2015. After an ultra short campaign we're ready to give our voting recommendations . At the start of the campaign we set out to compare the published policies of the three parties LNP, ALP, and Greens, but that didn't happen so you wont be getting a point by point comparison, just our honest assessment.

 

Vote 1 Greens. 

The Greens took the opportunity to do some blue sky thinking and came up with a policy and plans that we could really get behind. Who knows if they would stand up to budget scrutiny but the Greens committed to extending concessions to the unemployed and removing the absurd bureaucracy around the TTCC card and that's an important first step. The only thing the Greens plan was missing was a commitment to improving community consultation.

Vote 2 Labor. 

Mid campaign we were promised a public transport policy statement from Labor's transport spokesperson Jackie Trad. The policy never appeared. A week and a half later Jackie indicated in a candidates debate that the Labor party supported the extending of concessions to unemployed (a big policy shift), removing TTCC bureaucracy, and starting a fare reform process. Though Jackie's statements about finally bringing Queensland into line with the rest of the country on unemployed concessions were welcome it was too little too late. By not releasing public transport policy statements at any stage Labor withheld the trigger for discussion and debate in the media. While Labor were withholding their public transport policy they were also campaigning on anti-privatisation and their Cross River Rail infrastructure plans. Given that we're experiencing a protracted affordability crisis which started with the previous Labor government we find their unwillingness to be upfront extremely disappointing.

Vote 3 LNP. 

The LNP have brought nothing new to the table during this election campaign. No new ideas or plans, no sweeteners. A vote for the LNP is a vote for the 5 bilion dollar Bus and Train Tunnel and more of the same brutal approach that has left train stations understaffed and a massive number of Senior Network Officers deployed. If voted in the LNP will continue with their aweful community engagement, reduction of services, poor planning, and continued systemic failure. Public transport users will continue to suffer, especially those in areas outside metropolitan Brisbane.

Note: Our voting recommendations were written with input from many of our team members some of whom have affiliations with political parties. Some of our team have just finished high school, some are university students, and others have experience in community work. Our sense of fairness and honesty unites us.

Fairness, Honesty, Talk to us!

It's the night before the election, Jan 30th, 2015 and we're disappointed that the ALP and LNP left the affordability crisis in South East Queensland off their campaign agendas. Promised policy statements never appeared and no debate could take place. 

The Translink Ripoff team have been bouncing around some ideas and below you can read the values we want politicians to take on board. We will assess what policy and commitments have been put forward against our values and give you an honest assessment of each party in our next post. 

Fairness

 

High fares, tiny and complex zones, disappearing services, and cumbersome bureaucracy (TTCC) make us all struggle, but the people who struggle the most are the unemployed and under employed, many of whom can’t afford transport, or are forced to severely limit their transport use. Fairness can only happen when politicians make plans with battlers in mind.

 

 

Honesty

The people of SEQ know that their public transport system is woefully inadequate and far too expensive.  And yet Translink and State Government’s selective and strategic use of statistics and design of survey parameters suggests the opposite.  No amount of spin or advertising is going to fix the system. We need politicians to be upfront and face reality. Politicians need to do what needs to be done to get to a decent system, and that starts with honesty.

 

Talk to us!

 

Public transport needs to deliver the services that people want. The best way to find out what the people want is to talk to us. Ask us about the services we want delivered, let us talk to the planners, and listen for our answers.

Let's Make Public Transport an Election Issue

The Translink Ripoff is nearly three years old and at this moment in time we think the people of South East Queensland are ready to make public transport an election issue.

New Facebook pages have appeared and people from all over SEQ have been growing more active in the fight against an unfair system. Where are the Translink officers at? was started by a first year uni student who has amazed us with his organising skills. It was an extremely effective response to introduction, masses of red tape, and delay involved with the new Tertiary Transport Concession Card. The TTCC debacle is yet another of example of failed consultation and aggressive regulation. Students have been made into a political football with Translink targeting inner city campuses with new Senior Network Officers deployed to busy student routes to find "students in suits"..

We've decided the time is right for us to bring on new admins for our Facebook page. We believe diversity is strength and new voices will help highlight the range of issues facing SEQ commuters. There is so much to do to keep public transport in the election spotlight for both state and local elections.

Putting the call out for admins has reminded us of why we started The Translink Ripoff in the first place. The lack of concession fares for low income health care card holders makes Queensland the most unfair state in Australia. We want this embarrassing and unfortunate circumstance to change. That's our bottom line.

We look forward to the next six months. We will do everything we can to make sure the stories from people suffering after services cuts, poor service frequency, lack of connectivity, and massive fares get heard.

Still unaffordable!

We prepared this table from information available from transit authority websites for each mainland state capital.

Look at the state of zone 1!

This is an updated version with some corrections 09/09/12. Our apologies to anyone living in the zone 1 part of Kangaroo Point.

We rode the boundaries of Zone 1 on our push bikes in order to plot out it's true shape (a bunyip?). Please take the time to observe that it is in no way circular as indicated on the Translink maps. We have discovered that the shifting of zones has occurred all over the Brisbane Metro area.

Look at the state of these zones!

Brisbane's public transport zones under Translink are a product of  a long history of manipulation and disorganised attempts to create an effective integrated ticketing system. The map we have created shows the various tentacles created by the inclusion of  transition zones or 'precincts' which make up 20% of all train stations on the Translink network. It is a band aid solution that has become part of their system which is why Translink don't provide us with good zone information, and we have to go and dig it out. 

Have a close look at Darra Station. Look near it and you will see just how ridiculous and unfair this zoning system is to people in Inala.

We used online maps, journey planner, timetables, push bikes, walking, and lots of local knowledge to plot the REAL zone boundaries for this segment of Brisbane's south. You can see how they've manipulated the boundaries along train lines a

nd the South East Busway.
We have 5 more of these to do to complete the map of Brisbane, but it takes a lot of work and local knowledge. If you would like to help, we have prepared some instructions for doing the research and plotting the zone changes. Just get in touch and we'll help get you started.

National comparison table

We prepared this table using info gathered from the transit websites for each city. Feel free to print it out.

Notching up with the 9 journey cap

The current government said they were going to do something about cost of living. They've said they would do something to make public transport more affordable. Tomorrow they deliver the one thing that will make fares lower until the next fare rise in 6 months time. Changing the 10 journey cap to a 9 journey cap is a tiny tweak to an existing fare saving opportunity that is targeted at those who commute to work full time.

So make the most of this tiny tweak. It's now even cheaper to notch up your go-card. 

Here's how our notching up service works. 

• I provide the service to people who work in or around the Brisbane CBD on Monday mornings so as to optimize the benefits for the rest of the week. Ideally you will have notched one journey getting to work. 
• You need to provide me with an unregistered go-card as this protects both of us from infringement of Translink rules as anyone can be the bearer of an unregistered go-card.
• I charge $1 per notch and the go-card needs to be charged with enough credit to cover the cost of 8-1 zone (off peak) journeys $19.52 or the cost of 9-1 zone (off peak) journeys $21.96 if you have not notched up a journey that morning.
• Text me your workplace address or a meeting place, I'll meet you around 9am, grab your go-card and $8 or $9, and return it before you finish work. 

The cost of each journey will be $3.44 which is a significant saving! I am eager to get as many go-cards as I can as I have a new strategy that will allow me to notch up go-cards in bulk. This may interest your co-workers?

Michael Swifte

0449 180 465

Struggling with the unfair Translink network? Tell us your stories.

Are you part time employed, unemployed, or a first year apprentice and have a health care card? We would like to hear from you! 

Do you know someone who is struggling to get to interviews, work, or appointments due to the excessive cost of public transport? If you do please drop us a line. 

The stories of real people who deserve better transport are what the transport minister needs to hear during the coming election!


Translink page: Types of go-card.