SkyBus lane faces fight

[JessicaTam]

You may find it will attract an additional fee on top of the normal fare (a la the "gate fee" on Sydney's Airport Line services, hopefully not as much as that).


I think they will find enforcement of the priority lane a real PITA unless it has cameras assigned to it (and fines issued promptly).
...

I knew about the rail link myth. It seems though that Transurban is having a sook about Skybus (and maybe taxis) getting their own lane on CityLink. Not sure how well that will go with the actual contract. Is it possible for them to get compo for it or is it just bad reporting?

CityLink already have cameras. Surely a simple programming matter to send an enforcement notice to any vehicle that is not a registered taxi/bus travelling in that lane during the designated hours. If they take a percentage that would offset any perceived lost revenue.

 

[whatmeworry]

It's a pity as the previous (and possibly the replacement government) were responsible for it!

Funny line from another article.

Myki may be Labor's cough child, but the Baillieu government adopted it and its failure to explain why it dumped short-term tickets means it will rightly wear any voter discontent about the issue.

We're stuck with a ticket to deride

 

[serfty]

Funny line from another article.



We're stuck with a ticket to deride

That article fails to mention the 1 Billion + minimum estimated cost of scrapping it entirely the government were saddled with.

Obviously that fact did not suit Adam Carey's for the article.

I mean to say, the specification in the original contract specified 160ms (or was it 150ms?) response times. That failure alone would have been sufficient to have the contract terminated with recompense demanded in the private sector.

 

[Bofter]

There is actually a "priority lane" established for peak periods - they simply don't enforce it (apparently due to transurban thinking it would cut their revenue to do so).

My understanding of this has been that while Transurban might not want the lane enforced, the practice of not doing so had more to do with the safety of those who would have to enforce it in a high speed/high risk environment. Once non-compliance creeps in as the norm, it then becomes quite difficult to change.

I haven't seen the specific advice that the newspaper was quoting from, but it seems they either received documents that painted only a part of the picture, or they chose to run only with part of the picture. Statements around enforcing the express lane not increasing travel time for other road users don't make a lot of sense on this particular road and conditions, and makes me suspect that they either have access to, or chose to use an early report where the cause of that apparent conclusion had not been addressed.