[size=14pt]Passengers desert ferries[/size]
[size=8pt]Besser, Transport Reporter - Sydney Morning Herald[/size]
July 11, 2007
SYDNEY'S ferries are ailing and the Manly service is high on the sick list: the number of people using it has plummeted by more than 110,000 passenger trips in three years as commuters abandon the city's harbour icons.
The man appointed to investigate an overhaul of the Sydney Ferries Corporation, Bret Walker, SC, has revealed the dire state of the Circular Quay to Manly service, including its spiralling cost. While the corporation spent more than $40.5 million on this route alone in the past financial year, up substantially from $34.6 million in 2004-05, patronage on the Manly service has fallen substantially.
An internal draft of the corporation's Fleet Replacement Strategy shows the ferries travelling across the harbour are usually only half-full. There has been a decline in the use of both the Freshwater Class ferry and the JetCat, but it is the fast commuter service that has suffered a more marked downturn of 5.6 per cent.
Overall ferry patronage has declined by almost 1 million passengers since 2001.
The Manly ferry ran at a cost of $4.90 per passenger during 2006-07, but JetCat costs soared to $15 per passenger, making it "one of the highest cost passenger journeys provided by Sydney Ferries", Mr Walker said.
Mr Walker was appointed by the State Government to head a special commission of inquiry into Sydney's ferries after the deaths of five people in two separate ferry accidents in January and March. Separate inquiries were launched into both incidents.
Behind the scenes the service has been plagued by problems. Its ageing fleet is in need of replacement and has not been perfectly maintained, and there have been rostering problems, inadequate training and below best-practice management, a transport safety report found last year. Costs have ballooned 46 per cent in the past six years, but revenue fell 14 per cent.
In April, the availability of ferries and JetCats to service Manly - 74 per cent and 63 per cent respectively - fell to below the minimum required before services are affected. Since February, these figures have been well below the corporation's target range. In May, customer complaints were four times higher than the organisation's own target.
Mr Walker will attend a public forum in Harbord later this month to hear northern beaches locals talk about the importance of the service to them.
The Mayor of Manly, Peter Macdonald, said he suspected the inquiry was part of a campaign by the Government to privatise the loss-making ferry service. "It worries me. If it gets into private hands, it may well be there are steep increases in ticket prices, [and] when you privatise a service, an operator will discard less profitable schedules."
The state MP for Manly, Mike Baird, a Liberal, said he would support partial privatisation if service conditions were improved. "There's no doubt that Sydney Ferries needs to be reformed."
A Sydney Ferries spokesman, Kai Ianssen, said the organisation could not comment broadly on the Manly service while the inquiry was under way. He said the operating costs for the JetCats in 2006-07 were affected by periodic planned maintenance.
