Public transport across the Opal network in New South Wales (NSW) will be free to travellers for 12 days over the Easter holiday period to encourage people to get out and about throughout the holidays.
People will still be required to tap on and off with opal cards for train, bus, ferry, light rail, and metro services. The period was chosen to coincide with the Easter holidays, ending on ANZAC weekend.
Free fares begin at 4 a.m. April 14 and end at 4 a.m. April 26 and cover services in Greater Sydney, Newcastle, and the Hunter region but will not cover regional train services.
People tapping on and off at the airport will still be charged the station access fee, but the train fare will be waived.
Transport Minister David Elliott and Transport for NSW CEO Howard Collins encouraged people to go out and enjoy themselves.
“No excuses not to go and use those Dine and Discover vouchers, no excuses not to go and get on Sydney harbour, and no excuses not to explore the nooks and crannies the metro and light rail can take you to,” he told reporters.
The free fares are estimated to cost around $8 million and $20 million (US$6 to 15 million), but Elliott said the opportunity cost was “well worth it,” with officials hoping that the economic activity generated as a result will more than makeup for it.
“Whilst it will cost some money in farebox terms, the big picture is, we are encouraging this city to start breathing again,” Collins said.
“We want to see the NSW government deliver a fare-free Friday every week until the end of June,” RTBU NSW Secretary Alex Claassens said on March 14. “If [Premier Dominic] Perrottet refuses, rail workers will resort to industrial action that forces the government to provide it.”
However, Professor Jago Dodson, the director of the Centre for Urban Research at RMIT University, believes providing free public transport is a “flawed approach” but acknowledged it was one of the few approaches a state government could take to help ease living costs.
“I think that the problem is that you forego the fair revenue,” Dodson told The Epoch Times. “Which means that there’s less money to operate public transport services and less money available to invest in new public transport services.”
He noted that all public transport services already operate at a loss, with fee recovery in Australia at around 30 to 40 percent.
Further losing the costs that the services can recover means transport funds need to be sourced from other areas of the budget, for example, health and education, Dodson said.
