Canberra's bus provider ACTION, which has had six managers and five ministers in less than eight years, lacked direction and leadership, according to opposition transport spokesman Alistair Coe.
''The ACT government does not have a strategic plan for ACTION or public transport beyond the current minister,'' Mr Coe said yesterday.
He said budget blowout after budget blowout and the most recent enterprise bargaining agreement had given a trigger for the government to bring about change, yet every benchmarking on ACTION showed it to be the worst performing bus operator in Australia.
In 2010 then chief minister Jon Stanhope made public a consultant's report which indicated ACTION was spending about $30 million of its $100 million annual budget on waste and inefficiency.
Mr Coe said the Liberal policy on public transport would be issued closer to the October election, though he thought the intertown bus service was reasonable.
''The real problems occur if you do not have easy connections to one of those services,'' he said.
Greens transport spokeswoman Amanda Bresnan was pleased park and ride locations had been established at Mawson and EPIC, and others were planned at Erindale, Kippax and Calwell.
She said weekend bus services remained the subject of many complaints. ''That is where we need a big improvement,'' she said.
Ms Bresnan said improved bus priority measures were crucial, as were connections with rapid services so people were not left waiting for 30 minutes.
Chief Minister Katy Gallagher said that by catching buses in January she had learned the intertown service was pretty good. ''I think the suburban routes is where it lets passengers down. It is not frequent enough. That is the most common complaint I am picking up, particularly on weekends. That certainly lets the ACTION passenger down.''
The government has committed about $12 million for a real-time information system to be progressively introduced from June next year.
Ms Gallagher said this would be a big step forward.
''The thing that seemed to irritate people was not knowing where the bus was, or not turning up at all.''
She did not accept ACTION's inefficiencies were all down to unions or management. But she would want unions to have an open mind about changes needed to make improvements.
''I genuinely think we are starting to see improvements but it will not happen overnight.''
The most recent major change to weekday routes and timetable was in June 2008 when the government said weekend services would be improved when more drivers were recruited. There is yet no indication when these improvements will occur.
The first buses on some Sunday routes do not arrive at major town centres until about 10am, disadvantaging shop workers.
Director of transport planning Paul Peters said in January last year Canberra's public transport would move from fixed routes which had changed little for many years to a network which would provide greater coverage and more frequent services.
An extensive review of the service will be held this year with a redesigned network promised for next year.
Meanwhile, changes are proposed in May to West Belconnen, Gungahlin, Fyshwick and central Canberra.
Mr Peters said last week it was too soon to say when in next year the major changes would occur.
He said changes due in May this year would be finalised and published shortly.
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