2017-02-07 Services & Organisation Committee Agenda

SERVICES & ORGANISATION COMMITTEE MEETING AGENDA                              7 FEBRUARY 2017


4.   Passenger Assistant at Noosa Heads Bus Station

One Sunbus passenger assistant was based at Noosa Heads Bus Station from 9.30am to 4.10pm
on 29 and 31 December and 3 January. These days were selected based on busiest passenger
data from 2015/16. The passenger assistant addressed passenger enquiries and bus movements
at the station.

5.   Feedback Survey

A feedback survey was available on Council’s website, Facebook, a link on the FHB posters and
hard copies were distributed by the passenger assistant and the Council Project Officer at the
Noosa Heads bus station. The survey consisted of 16 questions seeking feedback on areas such
as age, purpose of travel, satisfaction with trip, residential status, reasons for using the Free
Holiday Buses and awareness of public transport. Of the 16 questions, 5 of the questions were
targeted specifically at Noosa residents. A total of 140 surveys were completed (98 online & 42
hard copy).

Points of interest include:
 Over 85% of respondents who caught a Free Holiday Bus had access to a car in Noosa.
 The main reason people caught a free holiday bus was to avoid traffic and congestion, followed
   by convenience and limited car parking.
 70% of users were very satisfied with their trip and 25% were satisfied.
 84% of users caught a bus for recreational purposes e.g. to get to the beach, entertainment,
   dining etc., 12% used it to perform errands such as shopping, 9% caught a bus to visit
   friends/family and nearly 9% caught the bus to get to work (total is greater than 100% as people
   could select more than one answer).
 If the buses had not been free, 57% of the respondents would have driven their car, 10% would
   have walked or cycled, 9% would have been a passenger in car, 6% would have caught a taxi
   and 19% would have caught the bus anyway.
 Word of mouth was the primary means by which people found out about the Free Holiday
   Buses (41%), followed by street banners on power poles (30%), roadside traffic signs (20%),
   and the newspaper (18%).
 53% of respondents had caught a Free Holiday Bus in previous years.
 The residential status of respondents included – Noosa Council residents (60%), Queensland
   residents (14%), Interstate visitors (13%), Sunshine Coast Council residents (10%), and
   International visitors (3%).
 48% of respondents were aged between 41-60 years and 23% were 26-40 years and 60 years
   and older.
 Of the Noosa respondents, outside of the Free Holiday Buses, 43% never catch a bus. The
   main reason cited for not catching public transport was that it was inconvenient followed by
   unsuitable bus times.

The open ended feedback was mostly positive with requests for the service to run for longer and
for more evening services. There continues to be confusion/negativity about Route 620 (Noosa
Heads – Maroochydore) which is not part of the free services due to constraints with TransLink.




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