Council has decided to reduce the number of routes available on the Hop, Skip and Jump community bus, following a service review of the Council-funded service.

Route 1 to Manly via the Manly Andrew Boy Charlton Aquatic Centre and Little Manly – the most popular route – will continue to operate, while the other less patronised routes, Routes 2 to 5, will be decommissioned next July.  

Council reviewed the current routes of the complimentary bus service and found overall patronage had almost halved from 318,037 in 2018/19 to 174,316 in 2023/24 therefore the service was no longer financially sustainable in recent years.

Northern Beaches Mayor Sue Heins said Council carefully weighed up the benefits of operating a free bus service against significant fiscal constraints.  

“We know that there are many residents in our community who highly value the Council operated bus service, and we did not make this decision lightly.”

“At the end of the day we have a responsibility to all of our ratepayers across the Northern Beaches to ensure services are equitable and fair and financially sustainable.”

The review considered other public transport options available to our community, which negate the need for the Council operated bus service to continue and these services may provide even more accessibility than currently exists. In the Manly ward, 99% of residents are within a 400m radial distance of a Transport for NSW bus service.

The review made a number of recommendations to enhance service delivery, improve driver safety and improve the financial sustainability of the service:

  • Reduce the routes from 5 to 1
  • A follow-up review in 18 months  
  • Changes to shift times
  • Increase the duration of Route 1 from 30min to 40min
  • Update the timetable to make it more user-friendly
  • Consider options for a driver security screen
  • Investigate the viability of a live tracking app for most routes 
  • Investigate the cost and viability of installing automatic passenger counting software for most routes 
  • Investigate the cost and viability of advertising the service to the community for most routes

The changes to the Hop, Skip and Jump bus service will come into effect on 1 July 2025 and a further review on the performance of the service in its new format will be reported to Council in 12 months.

 

Share