An investigation of regional public transport spend in Australia

This paper describes the outcome of a study to investigate the regional public transport spend in each state of Australia. The objective is to derive a reliable figure for comparison and the core metric used is spend per capita. The study assessed publicly available data on public transport spend, followed by a series of consultations with key staff from state bus associations and governments. The analysis was conducted separately for metropolitan (metro) and regional areas and then the regional data were further examined. While the Northern Territory (NT), Tasmania (TAS) and regional South Australia (SA) completely rely on bus services, Victoria (VIC) stands out as the state with the highest public transport spend per head in regional areas with robust train and bus networks which deliver the highest patronage. Western Australia (WA) is the state with the highest bus transport spend per head ensuring relatively high patronage despite the low population density. The study identifies low public transport patronage in regional areas as being influenced by low spending per capita and poor connectivity. It recommends prioritizing improvements in connectivity, multi-modal networks, and opening school buses to the general public. Additionally, funding strategies should focus more on patronage trends linked to spend rather than overemphasizing population density. Further, the study reveals that publicly available data seldom clearly segregates public transport spending in terms of regional and metro expenditure, which would lead to inefficiencies when assessing spatial equity in public transport provision.