The free holiday bus will be back for Easter after another successful holiday bus service over Christmas, where more than 40,000 people took advantage of the service.
According to a council survey, 85 per cent of the people travelling on the free bus service over the 10-day period between Boxing Day and 4 January had access to a car.
Councillor Ingrid Jackson said many respondents said the main reason they caught the free holiday bus was to avoid traffic congestion, it was convenient to catch a bus and because there was limited parking.
The busiest free buses were 626 and 627 from Tewantin to Sunrise Beach via Noosa Heads, carrying 69 per cent of all passengers, while 60 per cent of free holiday bus service users were Noosa Shire residents and 53 per cent had used the free service in previous years.
“This is great news for council because it demonstrates that many locals have embraced using the free buses to access the beach, entertainment and dining precincts during busy holidays,” Cr Jackson said.
“They have enjoyed the benefits of leaving the car behind, and when the next peak period came around they opted for the bus again, instead of the car.
“These people have realised that it makes sense not to sit in a long queue of traffic and then spend ages looking for a park, often without success.”
Cr Jackson said the survey results were encouraging and she now hoped council could encourage residents to stay with public transport.
“While we can see that we now have many locals getting into the habit of using the free buses during holidays, we really want to encourage even more locals and visitors to use buses and other non-car transport,” she said.
“This will help to reduce congestion into our main shopping, dining, entertainment and beach areas. Encouraging a greater shift from using the car to other modes of transport is a big focus for council in 2017.”
The free holiday buses will be running again over Easter. For information about Noosa’s free holiday buses, please visit www.noosa.qld.gov.au/free-holiday-buses.
