Bus cancellations soar as too few drivers volunteer for weekend and holiday shifts

A record share of services was cancelled during last month's Queen's Birthday long weekend, when 363 routes were ditched.

That translates to more than one in every 15 scheduled buses failing to show up.

An analysis of all published bus data over the past five years shows the cancellation rate was 14 times higher than usual, and higher than ever recorded.

The Canberra Times was alerted to several travellers who waited at stops for almost three hours as consecutive services were scrapped.

The head of the drivers' union says the problem is not isolated to public holidays; it's also affecting normal weekends.

Klaus Pinkus, of the Transport Workers Union, acknowledged the government is trying to hire more drivers.

But he says there are presently too few staff to meet the demands of the new timetable, which came into effect in April.

"The weekend work has increased exponentially," he said. "The cancellations have been up since the first weekend [of the new timetable].

"They've ramped up the work, so of course driver availability is going to be an issue. It's going to be an issue this weekend, too."

The ACT has a unique arrangement with bus drivers: they're not forced to work on weekends but instead agree to "be willing to work reasonable numbers" of those shifts.

However, unless they are working overtime, they are paid at the same rate on a weekend as they are on a weekday.

Mr Pinkus said drivers were willing to reconsider mandatory weekend and holiday shifts if the government paid them an appropriate penalty rate.

"If they put that on the table, we'll revisit it. But not without the extra pay."

The issue had prompted a lengthy dispute between the union and the government until the parties agreed to their existing deal late last year.

The government has massively expanded weekend bus services under its latest transport shake-up.

Service-reliability data covering the period after the new timetable's launch is not yet available, but there were signs in May of a lack of drivers.

Transport Canberra said it operated 999 bus services on the Monday Queen's Birthday holiday last year, compared with 1634 bus services this year, plus light rail.

A spokesman for the agency said use of the network had increased significantly.

"The number of journeys made by public transport in Canberra is up 48 per cent compared to the same weekends in 2018," he said.

The ACT's new Transport Minister, Chris Steel, said the government was monitoring weekend services and was working with the union and drivers "to help ensure they deliver on their commitment and help us provide a seven-day network for Canberrans".

"Our new network is designed to increase services where our community said they wanted them and this specifically including weekends," the minister said.

"The recently negotiated [enterprise agreement] includes provisions for weekend work and we will continue to work with the TWU on this."