A Strange Solution to a Problem
Brisbane is the capital of the state we live in. It’s a typical Australian city with a typical urban sprawl. People get around the city and suburbs by train, bus and car and there are the usual traffic and air quality problems that any large city faces.
Most of the bus services in the city and suburbs are provided by the Brisbane City Council and over the years they have developed an extensive and very popular service. It’s so popular in fact that it’s struggling to keep up with the demand.
Buses are often full and more and more passengers are being left behind because there is simply no more room on the buses. So the City Council asked its bureaucrats to come up with a solution and they did.
The solution was to cut services, reduce routes, leave older buses in service longer and increase fares. The bureaucrats believed that if that was done fewer people would use the buses and overcrowding would just go away.
Now I can understand where those bureaucrats were coming from - it’s a safe approach - it won’t cost money and it will provide a solution to the problem. But it’s not the sort of solution a small business would come up with if it was faced with a similar solution … or is it?
