00:02Free public transport piqued the interest of Mark Donnellan.
00:06I looked at where I could go for free on the bus.
00:10Turns out you can get to the Spirit of Tasmania from Hobart for free.
00:14Having never crossed Bass Strait by boat, he's taking the opportunity to get there and do it.
00:20Walking onto the Spirit is actually super low cost on a day sailing.
00:25Something like, it was cheaper than flying.
00:28Metro says free travel is prompting more patrons to jump on board.
00:33On the first day, 5,000 extra people caught the bus, compared to a week earlier.
00:38From feedback that we've seen from a lot of people is they're actually enjoying the experience.
00:43I think our customers are enticed by the service reliability
00:47and the opportunity to use our services potentially for the first time.
00:52Travellers are noticing a few more passengers.
00:54Thousands, millions.
00:57And noticing the savings.
00:59We catch four of the Metro main buses every day.
01:02Free service at the moment.
01:04So at the moment, how much are you saving on the buses?
01:06A lot.
01:07Some are hoping the swarm of new passengers might translate into rejuvenating the service.
01:12Where I live over the Eastern Shore, they cut numerous bus services a while ago and that really impacted me,
01:19impacted a lot of my friends.
01:21Around 180 services were chopped from Metro's network back in 2023 in what were termed temporary cuts.
01:29Around a third have been restored. Metro says those are all that are coming back and that they'll monitor demand
01:35going forward.
01:37As for weather free travel will be extended beyond three months.
01:41It is encouraging and we want to continue to encourage people to use the service.
01:46To use Flash A&M and the crew members to use the service, to be able to encourage people to
01:50use the service.
01:50You
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