Transport in Brisbane

Transport in Brisbane, the capital and largest city of Queensland, Australia, is provided by road, rail, river and bay ferries, footpaths, bike paths, sea and air.

It empties onto the Goodwill Bridge at South Bank, which in turn, connects with the Bicentennial Bikeway underneath the Riverside Expressway.

[3] Due to declining numbers, this service is now discontinued, with JCDecaux being ordered to dismantle and remove all CityCycle docks and bikes.

Passengers pay 50 cents regardless of the number of zones travelled through, on all the public transport modes covered – trains, buses and ferries, irrespective of who operates the service.

Contracted buses that serve the regional areas outside and across the Brisbane boundary are operated by private companies.

[8] After some years of decline, Brisbane's public transport system is being revitalised and finding greater patronage, with significant investment in railway station upgrades, busways, reorganised bus routes and new buses.

However, patronage remains a far cry from public transport's heyday in the 1940s, when the tram system alone carried 160 million passengers annually.

In December 2005, Translink began all-night public transport services on Friday and Saturday nights, under the name of NightLink.

The Queensland Rail Citytrain network consists of 152 train stations along 13 suburban rail lines and across the metropolitan area, namely: the Airport, Beenleigh, Caboolture, Cleveland, Doomben, Exhibition, Ferny Grove, Ipswich/Rosewood, Redcliffe Peninsula, Shorncliffe and Springfield lines.

Reliance on the rail network is low, compared to Melbourne and Sydney, especially during peak demand periods.

[13] In 2020, the pandemic drastically affected passenger numbers with many services, including peak ones, running at 90 per cent empty.

Brisbane City Council operates most of its suburban and urban bus services under the Translink integrated public transport scheme.

[22] Buses generally operate on a 05:00 to midnight timetable throughout the week, with some Friday and Saturday night 24-hour services.

BUZ (Bus Upgrade Zones) are high-frequency express routes, pioneered by Brisbane City Council, that provide services on main corridors at least every 15 minutes on any day of the week from 6 am to 11:30 pm.

Buses often provide free transport between major shopping centres (for example Westfield Carindale), and The Gabba or Lang Park for sporting match events.

The proposed 21 kilometre metro will service the Brisbane CBD every 3-minutes during peaks times and would be capable to transport 22,000 passengers an hour.

[35] The CityCat high-speed catamaran ferry service, popular with tourists and commuters, operates services along the Brisbane River between the University of Queensland and Northshore Hamilton, with wharves at UQ St Lucia, West End, Guyatt Park, Regatta, Milton, North Quay, South Bank, QUT Gardens Point, Riverside, Sydney Street, Mowbray Park, New Farm Park, Hawthorne, Bulimba, Teneriffe, Bretts Wharf, Apollo Road and Northshore Hamilton.

They may pick up passengers from anywhere in the metropolitan and regional areas of Brisbane via casual or permanent bookings cab ranks.

They also operate luxury vehicles (Silver Service for Yellow, Business Class for Black and White).

According to data released by Moovit in July 2017, the average amount of time people spend commuting with public transport in Brisbane & South East QLD, for example to and from work, on a weekday is 68 min.

As a result, traffic congestion has become a major problem and it was the promise of a new underground road system, nicknamed TransApex, that helped former Lord Mayor Campbell Newman win the 2004 local government election.

[citation needed] Bypasses such as the Inner City Bypass, Clem Jones Tunnel, and the Airport Link are intended to help to circulate traffic away from the inner-city areas and main roads via limited-access roads above the ground, and tunnels below that have higher speed limits and exits to particular suburbs.

Other tunnels are also being planned to link all the various motorways in Brisbane together as part of TransApex, but only two have been scheduled for completion within the next decade.

Historically Brisbane had a network of trolleybuses and trams, both of which were closed in 1969 in favour of an expanded bus fleet.

The government refused to transfer the funds to the council, instead using the money to restore Parliament House and construct the Parliamentary Annexe building.

[citation needed] As the replacement bus fleet aged, their maintenance requirements steadily increased, at a time when labour and spare parts costs had risen sharply.

Subsequently, in 1976, the council was able to negotiate federal funding, enabling them to purchase Volvo B59 buses, its first fleet acquisitions in seven years.

Patronage on the buses continued to decline, despite the best efforts of the Department of Transport hampered by rising fuel and labour costs, together with tightening budgets, leading to further cuts in services.

Brisbane's population growth has seen great strains placed upon South East Queensland's transport system.

Most of the focus has been placed on expanding current road infrastructure, particularly tunnels and bypasses, as well as improving the public transport system.