LGA Funding of Public Transport Operations

Queensland Queensland - General
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Toowoomba Regional Council has implemented a Council Public Transport Levy

A new levy aimed at improving accessibility to public transport services across the Toowoomba Region has received strong backing from the highest levels of the Queensland State Government.

Toowoomba Regional Council’s (TRC) new Public Transport Levy, introduced with this week’s adoption of the 2024/25 Council Budget, has received praise from Queensland Minister for Transport and Main Roads, Bart Mellish.

This includes partnering with the State to deliver key elements of the TRC Sustainable Transport Strategy 2023 which simply would not be able to be delivered in a business-as-usual approach.

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“TRC now has skin in the game when it comes to public transport and I look forward to continuing to work with the State Government to improve the approach to public transport services across the Toowoomba Region,” Mayor McDonald said.

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No extra levies on rates or utilities please to pay for something.

I agree on the developer levies though.

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Of course the State is happy. It’s somebody else raising taxes.

The State could and should collect a levy determined on a Statewide basis for any LGAs with public transport services. It can be done very easily through rates notices, same as the emergency services levy. No reason Bulloo or Pormpuraaw residents should be paying it but those in the bigger councils should, and it would be a good way of getting the ball rolling on some other parts of the State with no or only limited public transport but which should have it - Mt Isa, Emerald, Ayr / Home Hill, Oakey, Roma, Charters Towers, Mission Beach, Moranbah etc.

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Some more detail.

Toowoomba has adopted a scaled-down version of the BCC approach where LGA money funds bus operations within the LGA. This is expected to give an edge against the other 11 LGAs also asking for more PT funding in their LGA.

See: Annual budget 2024/25

Public Transport Levy

This is a new levy in 2024/25. It has been introduced taking into consideration community feedback over many years. It will give us greater leverage in advocating to the State Government on improvements that are much needed to our Region’s public transport network.

This levy is set at $39.80 for the full year.

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Some Statistics:

Estimated Resident Population from Profile.ID

  • Toowoomba (2023) 181,821
  • Ipswich (2023) 251,148
  • City of Moreton Bay (2023) 510,104
  • Logan City (2023) 377,773
  • Sunshine Coast LGA (2023) 365,942
  • City of Gold Coast (2023) 666,087

We can estimate rateable properties from population by dividing by 2.55, the average household size in SEQ. See Household size | South East Queensland | Community profile

We can then multiply by Toowoomba’s $39.80 levy per property to see what revenue this could raise assuming no business revenue funding.

‘Before Leverage’ LGA PT Levy Revenue Estimate (assuming Toowoomba levy levels).

Toowoomba - $2.8 million
Ipswich - $3.9 million
Moreton Bay - $7.9 million
Logan - $5.8 million
Sunshine Coast - $5.7 million
Gold Coast - $10.39 million

Now this might seem modest, but as a contribution the LGA funding would be used to attract and leverage more Queensland Government funding.

‘After Leverage’ Estimate

Let’s set the contributions to a similar level to what BCC has, where 25% is BCC funding and the remaining 75% is State Government funding. The figures below are the estimated totals for LGA + QLD Government funding assuming a similar ratio as for what BCC has currently:

Toowoomba - $11.35 million p.a. => 2 High Frequency bus routes
Ipswich - $15.6 million p.a. => 3 High Frequency bus routes
Moreton Bay - $31.8 million p.a. => 6 High Frequency bus routes
Logan - $23.5 million p.a. => 4 High Frequency bus routes
Sunshine Coast - $22.84 million p.a. => 4 High Frequency bus routes
Gold Coast - $41.58 million p.a. => 8 High Frequency bus routes

(assuming $5 million p.a. High Frequency bus operating costs, and assuming these are new routes and not top-ups of an existing bus route)

Conclusion

Assumptions and limitations - this is only an exploratory model for the purposes of discussion, and which relies on assumptions about future Queensland Government policy.

However, if the larger LGAs within SEQ (a) raise a modest PT levy, (b) succeed in attracting Queensland Government funds on a similar subsidy ratio as to what BCC has, and (c) focus on only contributing to specific high-frequency, high patronage bus routes rather than diffuse low patronage coverage services / flexi link services, the impact of introducing these new services enabled by the levy and the Queensland Government funds attracted could be significant.

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