Transport Canberra is investigating incidents of full buses being forced to leave school students behind in the first two weeks of a new timetable.
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A spokesman said an alternative vehicle or service has been used to collect students "on a few occasions" since the start of term 1.
"In some cases larger capacity vehicles have been allocated to busy routes to ensure capacity is available," the spokesman said.
The number of trips on public transport in the ACT was almost 50 per cent higher in the first week of the school year compared to 2022, with the government confident Canberrans are again embracing travel by light rail and bus.
There were 234,500 passenger journeys on the public transport network in the five days from January 30, the day a new timetable with a reduction in bus services was introduced. In 2022, there were 159,602 passenger journeys in the same period.
Data released by Transport Canberra showed passenger numbers had returned to a level equivalent to 87 per cent of the journeys taken in the same period in 2019, before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Transport Minister Chris Steel said it showed Canberrans were regaining confidence in travelling on buses and light rail.
"We are now actively encouraging people to return to public transport and to keep growing patronage in the years ahead. This is essential for cutting Canberra's emissions and keeping our growing city moving," Mr Steel said.
"The current timetable prioritises frequent and reliable services so that it is a great alternative to driving, helping to reduce congestion on our roads during major construction works this year."
The new timetable reduced the number of services to account for delays on the road network as a result of light rail related construction work.
The government has said short delays on each service add up across a driver's shift, meaning they need to drop some services despite the driver working the same length of time.
Transport officials announced in August they would attempt to boost passenger numbers across the bus and light rail network to pre-pandemic levels as quickly as possible.
The government's transport recovery plan, released at the time, found one in six passengers had not returned since the beginning of the COVID era.
A performance report for Canberra's public transport network, released on Thursday, showed patronage was 16 per cent lower than forecast in the last six months of 2022, which was attributed to COVID-19.
There were 8.38 million boardings across public transport in the six months to December 31, 2022, compared to a target of 9.95 million.
The government expects 19.9 million boardings on public transport in 2022-23. In 1985, there were 24 million boardings on public transport in the ACT.
Greens backbencher Jo Clay on Thursday criticised the government's level of investment in the territory's bus network, pointing to figures that showed the bus fleet was smaller in 2022 than it was in 1990.
Mr Steel on Tuesday told the Legislative Assembly only a tiny fraction of bus boardings in Canberra were made after 11pm, justifying a decision to reduce late services on the new bus network.
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Mr Steel said 0.2 per cent of bus boardings on weekdays were made after 11pm, which he said was one in every 500 boardings.
"All changes to the bus network were based on data-informed decisions, with the Transport Canberra bus scheduling team heavily scrutinising network patronage data," he said.
The Transport Minister on Friday said the government was monitoring road conditions and looking for ways to improve commuting times for Canberrans.
The government said there had been an increase in traffic along key corridors over the past week, including Constitution Avenue, Parkes Way and Commonwealth Avenue in the city centre.
Motorists parking in car parks along Constitution Avenue have been delayed in the afternoon peak, but the government said more commuters were exiting the car parks before and after the peak which was easing congestion.
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Jasper Lindell
Jasper Lindell joined The Canberra Times in 2018. He is a Legislative Assembly reporter, covering ACT politics and government. He also writes about development, transport, heritage, local history, literature and the arts, as well as contributing to the Times' Panorama magazine. He was previously a Sunday Canberra Times reporter.
Jasper Lindell joined The Canberra Times in 2018. He is a Legislative Assembly reporter, covering ACT politics and government. He also writes about development, transport, heritage, local history, literature and the arts, as well as contributing to the Times' Panorama magazine. He was previously a Sunday Canberra Times reporter.
