Trains are running late more often and costing taxpayers $175 million more each year, it can be revealed, sparking a new fight over whether Labor’s flagship Made in WA project has been worth it.
Rita Saffioti denied the new C-series rail car was to blame for worsening reliability, despite the Public Transport Authority’s annual report attributing the problem to “electrical and mechanical issues”.
The report revealed the percentage of train services arriving within four minutes of schedule fell three per cent in 2024-25 to 91.87 per cent, below the PTA’s 95 per cent target.
“We’ve been trying to integrate the biggest transformation of the rail line, of the public transport network, ever,” the Transport Minister said.
“As we bed this last rail line down, we’ll see those numbers change because, to be honest, they’ve been operating on so many fronts.”
On Friday, Ms Saffioti initially claimed faulty demisters in the new C-Series railcars, blamed for sparking a fire, have been fixed.
Her office later clarified that, though a solution has been identified, the wipers remain turned off and drivers are still being armed with manual window wipers, as revealed by The West in June.
“Apparently the squeegees are still in action, how long will train drivers have to wait for a solution to this farcical situation,” Shadow Transport Minister Steve Martin said.
This is just one of the issues, the squeegees are embarrassing for the Government but at the heart of it there were genuine safety issues around braking, brake surging, and we just don’t know.
“There’s no transparency in the responses from this Transport Minister about whether these concerns raised by the drivers have been adequately solved.”
The PTA report also revealed a massive blowout in the annual operating subsidy to keep Perth’s public transport network running, up 14 per cent to almost $1.4 billion in 2025.
“It’s up nearly $175 million, which is more than three times the emergency hospital maintenance fund and almost a race track at Burswood,” Mr Martin said.
“They’re not sustainable numbers. The Labor Government has increased the scale of the public transport network, but it’s not efficient.
“This network has expanded to the tune of $15 billion and there’s less people using it than there were in 2012-13.”
The cost per passenger kilometre of Transperth’s bus, train and ferry services surged 12.4 per cent, largely due to “inflation and fuel cost pressures” and a “variety of Metronet related costs”, according to the PTA report.
Ms Saffioti said cheaper fares also added to the operating cost, but said passenger numbers will keep growing to make the Metronet expansion worth it.
“We are pleased with the results, given that one major rail line was shut for the entire 2024-25 financial year,” she said.
“We are also investigating how we can get better data in relation to school student boarding as many students are now not tagging on, skewing our patronage data.
“We are seeing significant increases in boardings on our new stations. This will grow over time. For example, patronage on the Airport line has increased 65 per cent over two and a half years.”
The PTA also missed seven out of eight occupational safety, health and injury management targets.
Work time lost due to injury or disease nearly doubled, while only 56 per cent of injured workers returned to work within 26 weeks, well behind the 80 per cent target.
The report said it was a result of a high number of transit officers injured during arrests, and railcar drivers affected by suicides.
Transit officers will start wearing body-worn cameras from next month.
“More incidents are now being captured and reported than ever before,” Ms Saffioti said.
“The safety of passengers, staff and other people who come into contact with the public transport network is of utmost importance to the PTA.”
Overall customer satisfaction was positive, with 99 per cent of patrons surveyed reporting that they feel safe at train stations during the day.
The perception of safety fell to 78 per cent at night, still above the target of 72 per cent.\
https://thewest.com.au/politics/state-politics/targets-off-the-rails-rita-saffioti-defends-made-in-wa-railcars-as-trains-run-late-and-cost-taxpayers-175m-c-20076208
