Metro Tasmania ramps up recruitment drive but still can’t say when 180 services will be restored

Amid an ongoing driver shortage, Metro Tasmania has taken its recruitment efforts up a notch – but it still can’t commit to a timeline for the restoration of 180 suspended services.

Metro Tasmania CEO Katie Cooper. Picture: Linda Higginson

Metro Tasmania’s recruitment campaign has been kicked up a notch amid an ongoing driver shortage – but the state-owned public transport provider is still unable to say when 180 suspended bus services will be restored.

A range of Greater Hobart services were indefinitely scrapped more than a year ago as Metro grappled with a lack of drivers.

Now the company is ramping up efforts to bolster its numbers, launching a series of slick videos featuring members of Metro’s workforce – from drivers and mechanics to customer service officers and senior executives – talking about why they love their job.

Katie Cooper, CEO of Metro Tasmania. Picture: Nikki Davis-Jones

Metro CEO Katie Cooper said the broader campaign had been under way since July and the new videos were “just one part of our approach to attract Tasmanians to a career in public transport”.

“Since its launch the campaign has reached Tasmanians across a range of channels, including social media, billboard and bus wraps, and shopping centres in Burnie, Launceston and Hobart,” she said.

“We have seen a 167 per cent increase in applications for bus operator roles since the campaign commenced.”

According to Ms Cooper, Metro was feeling the pain of a national shortage of bus drivers and was offering incentives as a means of attracting new employees, including six weeks of paid driver training, eight weeks of annual leave for full-time drivers, and personalised wellbeing programs.

Speaking to ABC Radio on Tuesday, Ms Cooper could not commit to reinstating the temporarily scrapped bus services by a particular date.

“What I can commit to is that we do have a staged plan,” she said.

Metro Tasmania has ramped up its recruitment drive. Picture: Chris Kidd

“One other thing that’s really important to customers, and it’s been proven over and over again … is … reliability. What really annoyed our customers last year was the unpredictability of service cancellations because of on-the-day cancellations.

“And we listened to that, and that’s where we made that difficult decision to bring in the temporary service adjustment because whilst it reduced some of the numbers of services in certain areas across Hobart, what it did do is provide reliability and certainty.”

Public transport patronage has increased in recent months after the state government halved the price of fares in a bid to help ease cost-of-living pressures.

The initiative began in June and will run for 13 months. The number of passengers travelling on Metro buses increased by 4.8 per cent in July 2024 compared to the same month last year.

The government has also pledged to roll out real-time bus tracking before the end of the year, allowing people to see how far away their bus or ferry is via a range of free websites and apps.

Originally published as Metro Tasmania ramps up recruitment drive but still can’t say when 180 services will be restored