Wednesday 18 December 2013
In releasing the bus passenger figures over the last two months the Department has posted an advisory notice that the figures were subject to errors and required review. On each occasion the Department had intentionally delayed the release of the figures in the hope that it would have been possible to address the errors prior to publication. Unfortunately the pressure to release the figures prevented this and hence the figures were published with the advisory caution.
The Department has now been able to conclude its work on reviewing the figures.
The Department has done its utmost to produce the most reliable data it can and to ensure the data is as closely comparable with prior years' data as possible. This has required a comprehensive review of all published bus passenger numbers since March 2010, the date when the current ticketing system was installed. To achieve this comparability with previous years it has been necessary to remove school pupils travelling on the integrated services from the figures from May 2013 onwards. Thus whilst the figures now presented are lower than the actual carrying figures (as they exclude school passengers) they offer a better comparison with previous years for which school passengers were not historically counted. Comparisons with previous years is dependent on the reliability of the captured data.
The revised passenger numbers show a continuation of the decline in passenger numbers which was first evident shortly after fares were initially increased in August 2010. This decline in passenger numbers has continued throughout 2011 and 2012 leading to further reductions in annual passenger numbers of 45,126 and 71,831 respectively. With the exception of April, the first four months of 2013 saw a continuation of this decline and following a further rise in fares in May of this year the numbers have reduced by a further 124,493 during the first 11 months of 2013 - a reduction of 8.93% in passenger numbers as compared with the same period in 2012.
The overall trend of decline was triggered by the initial 2010 fare increase and continued throughout 2011 and 2012. A further reduction was seen in January and March due to heavy snow, as well being aggravated by the staff shortages CT Plus experienced earlier in the summer.
These figures do not make good reading however the Department is adamant that this decline in passenger numbers will be reversed and will be seeking to address this matter as part of its On-Island Transport Strategy which it intends to bring before the States in April of next year.
Further information
In May 2013 the Department agreed for CT Plus to introduce a range of different fare types aimed principally at the visitor market - including a variety of visitor and family passes (vouchers) for 1, 2 or 7 days duration. This new fare type was recorded on the system as "Pass Use" (the same category definition used to record students boarding the integrated school services). Up until April 2013, "Pass Use" had been excluded from the monthly reports. However, following the introduction of the new visitor passes, "Pass Use" was incorporated into the monthly analysis from May 2013. The inclusion of "Pass Use" records for the first time inadvertently added integrated school passenger numbers into the monthly analysis reports and hence reported an inflated passenger carrying figure.
With the States' schools breaking up for the summer holidays on 19th July and pupils returning to school on 3rd September, this has meant that the previously published figures for May, June, part of July and all of September and October have inadvertently included integrated school passenger numbers. This has equated to a total over estimation of passenger carryings on scheduled bus services during this period of 84,662 passengers.
Whilst assessing this data, the Department has also reviewed the relevance of reporting "transfer" passengers (effectively double counting passengers requiring to change bus in order to get to a desired destination), a measure that was first introduced in March 2010 when this additional data became available to the Department. Given that recent changes to the structure of certain bus routes has reduced the necessity for a fairly high percentage of previous transfer passengers to change services, the continued publication of this data would present a slightly misleading account of actual passenger numbers. Accordingly, the Department has also decided to remove "transfer" passenger numbers from its monthly analysis reports at this time.
The aforementioned changes to visitor pre-paid multi-journey ticket arrangements have also highlighted another potential issue with regard to the recording of visitor journeys. Whereas a family member might previously have swiped the requisite number of journeys with an Ormer card, the new pre-paid paper voucher system simply entitles free carriage for families (2 adults and up to a maximum of three children). This process relies on the driver manually pressing the "Pass Use" button for each passenger that gets on. Unfortunately, it is not possible to quantify what effect this requirement may or may not have had on the accuracy of recent passenger counts.
