Overcoming barriers to implementing flexible transport services in NSW

Flexible Transport Services is an emerging term in passenger transport which covers a range of mobility offers including Demand Responsive Transport, where services are flexible in one or more of the dimensions of route, vehicle allocation, vehicle operator, type of payment and passenger category. Although flexible transport services are used increasingly in Europe and the US as part of the public transport mix in areas where demand is too low to support conventional public transport, there are few sustained examples of these services in Australia. Through a series of semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders in NSW including service providers, peak organisations, users, regulators and policy-makers, the paper identifies barriers to greater use of flexible transport services in NSW. Barriers include institutional frameworks such as policy and regulation; economic issues of funding and fares; operational issues of fleet and vehicles; as well as operator and community attitudes; and information and education. The paper makes recommendations to enable and encourage greater use of flexible transport services by transport service planners and providers.