Bruny ferry a matter of balancing competing needs
THERE are many advantages to living on an island, from pristine coastlines to relative isolation from the hustle and bustle of busy life in a larger community.
There are also challenges, and ensuring reliable access through a ferry service which meets the needs of the island and broader community is certainly one of them.
The role of government in the provision of such ferry services is to consult with communities, understand their needs and concerns, and to ensure a very thorough process is undertaken to provide a service which gets the balance right.
In 2016, given the impending end of the existing Bruny Island ferry contract, the State Government began
Jeremy Rockliff
this journey to develop a new ferry service for Bruny Island.
It began, in 2016, with consultation with stakeholders, including community meetings on and off the island, to gauge the views of residents and regular users on what they needed from a ferry service.
The views included that some local residents are concerned about increased visitation.
Some, particularly business people, want more.
Further, we heard the people of Kettering are understandably unhappy that the queues for the ferry are often reaching the highway, that it’s unsafe, and that islanders are concerned about the queues for the ferry at Roberts Point, particularly at peak times when they can often queue for hours and not get on; and that we needed to somehow smooth the flow of use to avoid peak demand times.
These are just some of the many, often divergent views that were captured, and which informed a set of selection criteria that any party interested in providing a new service would need to address if they wanted to be in the running.
This was the first step in an exhaustive multi-stage competitive procurement process conducted by the Department of State Growth, on behalf of the Transport Commission, over approximately 18 months from 2016.
Ultimately, SeaLink’s proposal was assessed as best meeting the requirements for the new service, including reliably meeting the needs of all ferry users every day of the year, providing an improved service that is customer and
tourism focused, providing replacement vessels within the first five years of the contract, providing innovative solutions to manage growth and peak demand, realising opportunities to improve the visitor experience to Bruny Island and securing wider economic benefits for Tasmania.
Yes, SeaLink’s proposal includes a booking system, as did other proposals, because a booking system is largely accepted by ferry operators across the country as an excellent way of managing demand, reducing queues and increasing certainty for residents and visitors that they can travel when they want to travel.
But you don’t have to book. There will continue to be places available on every ferry crossing for people who prefer to drive to the ferry and wait to get on, just as they do now.
We also recognise how important it is that emergency services, school buses and regular service providers can get on and off the island when they need to.
That’s why SeaLink will always retain spare spaces on each trip for emergencies and special needs travel.
I acknowledge there are concerns across the community about this change and the Government is committed to continuing to consult to ensure a seamless transition to the new service.
A new Bruny Island Ferry Reference Group is being established to enable community views to be heard and managed by SeaLink, and I encourage people to make their views known to local representatives on this group.
In addition, SeaLink will continue to address the individual concerns of people on the island through ongoing community consultation.
Deputy Premier and Braddon MP Jeremy Rockliff is Tasmanian Infrastructure Minister.