As the world continues to move on from years of COVID lockdowns and restrictions some changes are proving harder to kick. The pandemic saw public transport use in Adelaide plummet and new figures show the network is struggling to bounce back.
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00:00 It's a different journey to how it used to be for Adelaide's public transport commuters.
00:07 I know the bus, I used to catch it for school, it used to be fully packed out and now you can probably get a seat every time you get on.
00:13 I notice when I'm on the train that I'm the only person on it.
00:16 While some commuters might not mind the extra space, for the government it's a source of concern that public transport patronage remains stubbornly low.
00:26 We're bringing our trains and trains back into public hands, we're increasing security, we're decarbonising our fleet, we're electrifying our rail lines, so we're doing what we can.
00:35 There were 800,000 fewer trips on South Australian public transport in July compared to the same period in 2019.
00:43 That's a 13% decline, with the train network, the hardest hit, down 20%.
00:50 One expert says it's a worrying sign.
00:53 You get into the spiral of decline where patronage has dropped down, you start withdrawing services, the people that are using it say well the service is not what it was, they start leaving.
01:05 An increase in people working from home has played a part, but changes in routine are also a factor, with more people paying for parking or finding new ways to travel.
01:16 We tend to be creatures of habit, we haven't really bounced back to the old model we had pre-COVID.
01:22 The government says it's doing what it can to bring passengers back on board, but it admits there's unlikely to be a quick fix with fewer workers using the network to commute into the city.
01:34 A trend that might mean trams, trains and buses are emptier than they used to be for a while to come.
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