Question Time

Public Transport

Mr MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Leader of the Opposition) (14:02): My question is to the Premier. Why hasn't the government provided additional substitute bus services to alleviate the overcrowding on both the Outer Harbor and Gawler train lines?

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL (Schubert—Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Local Government, Minister for Planning) (14:03): To lay out this issue for the house as it has unfolded, what we saw back in 2016 and 2017 was a contract to refit our existing 70 diesel train units to extend their life—essentially, an end-of-life refurbishment to extend their life well into the future. That contract was awarded, those works were done and they were completed last year.

What happened last Wednesday at about 1am on a train returning on the Gawler line was that we had a train come to a stop and taken back to the depot for investigation. During that investigation, it was found that a turbo part, which is part of the drive train (please don't ask me for more detail; that is as technical as I understand it), had failed.

Over the course of those investigations on Wednesday afternoon and into Thursday morning, the decision was taken on Thursday afternoon that, of our 70 DMUs, 50 would be taken offline pending inspection and/or replacement of that turbo part. That meant that for the Thursday afternoon service into this week, we've been running what is ostensibly a modified Saturday timetable, where we have put substitute buses onto the Grange line but run a half-hour service for the Belair, Outer Harbor and Gawler lines. For the sake of members in the southern suburbs, the electrified Seaford line trains are not affected and so that service is running as per normal.

On Friday after a meeting of the various people involved, the maintenance contractors, a plan was put in place to replace the turbo units on those 50 trains, and in fact now what we will see is a replacement of that turbo unit across the entire diesel fleet. Over time, essentially what has happened is that that turbo unit has failed well before when the advice was that those units would fail, and for the sake of safety and reliability those units have been taken offline.

From Monday, we were able to put eight trains extra back into service, giving us 28 trains to be able to operate, and then that is the way that we have operated now over the course of this week, again on a sort of extended Saturday timetable. This morning we had officials from the Chief Public Health Officer's office ride with departmental staff on some of the peak services, and it is very clear that the Gawler line is the line that is taking most of the pressure at the moment.

As a result of that and a briefing I received about 15 minutes ago, the public health advice has not been for the transport department to do anything different from what it is doing. The observation from this morning is that—and it is what we see happen on train services—there is quite a density of passengers towards the front of the train, because when you get to the Adelaide Railway Station if you get off at the front of the train you have less to walk to get out of the train station, and less density on the back of the train.

As of tomorrow morning, we will see an extra two units being put back into service on the Gawler line, especially during those morning and afternoon peaks, and we will do as we have consistently done over the course of this pandemic; that is, if the advice from the public health officials changes, then we will follow that advice.