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Sydney Morning Herald
6 days ago
- Business
- Sydney Morning Herald
Sydney had free trains for 54 hours. A lot of us went whale watching
Did Sydneysiders use their fare-free train days at the start of the month to go whale watching? It seems many of us did. There will never be a precise way to tell who went where in the 54 hours between 12.01am on July 31 and 6am on August 2, when the Opal card readers were turned off at railway and metro stations. There were office zombies among us who walked through the darkened Opal gates while feeling awkward about gripping their cards in an automated response Pavlov would be proud of. (Guilty, your honour.) Then there were others who actually got out and did things. (Not guilty of this, I'm afraid.) The free travel was pitched as consolation for months of disruption as the industrial dispute between the government and half a dozen rail unions dragged on. Some consolation, you might think, as many of us would have endured 54 hours of transport hell and the estimated $7 million cost will be borne by taxpayers, really, but there are clues it worked. Loading Big Red Group has some idea about what Sydneysiders got up to on the free train days. The company behind RedBalloon and about '10,000 experiences' across Australia says bookings were up 5.6 per cent during the fare-free period compared with the previous week. The company says five of the top growth categories were whale watching, up 300 per cent, watching the V8s (up 60 per cent), romantic getaways (up 44.4 per cent), aquariums and zoos (up 13.7 per cent) and eating out (up 4.8 per cent). Big Red Group chief growth officer John Boris acknowledges it is impossible to draw a direct causal relationship, but says the company's data shows a correlation between the fare-free days and extra bookings. 'And that was in the face of a pretty terrible weather weekend as well.'
The Age
6 days ago
- Business
- The Age
Sydney had free trains for 54 hours. A lot of us went whale watching
Did Sydneysiders use their fare-free train days at the start of the month to go whale watching? It seems many of us did. There will never be a precise way to tell who went where in the 54 hours between 12.01am on July 31 and 6am on August 2, when the Opal card readers were turned off at railway and metro stations. There were office zombies among us who walked through the darkened Opal gates while feeling awkward about gripping their cards in an automated response Pavlov would be proud of. (Guilty, your honour.) Then there were others who actually got out and did things. (Not guilty of this, I'm afraid.) The free travel was pitched as consolation for months of disruption as the industrial dispute between the government and half a dozen rail unions dragged on. Some consolation, you might think, as many of us would have endured 54 hours of transport hell and the estimated $7 million cost will be borne by taxpayers, really, but there are clues it worked. Loading Big Red Group has some idea about what Sydneysiders got up to on the free train days. The company behind RedBalloon and about '10,000 experiences' across Australia says bookings were up 5.6 per cent during the fare-free period compared with the previous week. The company says five of the top growth categories were whale watching, up 300 per cent, watching the V8s (up 60 per cent), romantic getaways (up 44.4 per cent), aquariums and zoos (up 13.7 per cent) and eating out (up 4.8 per cent). Big Red Group chief growth officer John Boris acknowledges it is impossible to draw a direct causal relationship, but says the company's data shows a correlation between the fare-free days and extra bookings. 'And that was in the face of a pretty terrible weather weekend as well.'
