Nothing is for free. A few weeks of free V/line travel may have won them breathing space with some good will over the ongoing service fiasco but it could not factually be called free. Most regular commuters have already paid with months of pain and delays and the occasional free ride is unlikely to make up for the losses endured. If time is money the cost to many is already incalculable. And they will have to go on enduring it until the wheels are fixed or belter alternatives have been found.
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As the inquiry revealed yesterday the overall cost of this wheel problem and the free rides is escalating. Two million dollars for the free rides is money from the public purse that might have even better spent on the extra carriages needed not to mention going towards longer term projects so sorely in need. And at $300,000 per day for the replacement bus regime and the prospect of many more days of substitutes still to come it is not difficult to calculate how much this is costing general transport revenue. Ten million dollars or a months bus replacements may not buy you much in thee way of trains or tracks but in an age when revenue is short and demands are many, it is all money better spent elsewhere when it is ultimately paid out for reactive damage control. It highlights once again that cost savings on major projects ;(and it would be interesting for instance to compare just how much was saved on the North Melbourne flyover compared to this total damage) are not savings at all but simply short cuts that precede throwing more good money into the well of created problems.
Now in the latest bad news for the service provider but one at least they could have easily predicted, the punctuality rate has dropped to 80 percent. If you ride the train you are guaranteed to be late at least once a week- and that is services outside the six minutes so significantly late enough to compromise appointments, jobs and any other urgent business,. For a reliable service this is quite simply not good enough and V/line knows it. The targets are set at one train in every twelve should be late instead it is one in five. The Government is well aware the commuting public will only stand for so much. The Opposition smells blood but it should be careful what it wishes for. The transport impasse was a major persuader in the 2010 election, but the Coalition failed to solve the problems and served a single term. Both sides should understand the gravity and the enduring cost of this crisis,.