Question Without Notice No. 680 asked in the Legislative Council on 11 October 2017 by Hon Tim Clifford
Parliament: 40 Session: 1
PUBLIC TRANSPORT AUTHORITY — STUDENT CONCESSION TICKETS
680. Hon TIM CLIFFORD to the minister representing the Minister for Transport:
(1) Is a secondary or tertiary student aged 15 years or older able to purchase a transport concession ticket without a SmartRider?
(2) If no to (1), what are the options available for secondary or tertiary institution students over 15 who do not hold a SmartRider card to purchase a ticket?
(3) Is a secondary or tertiary student aged 15 years or older able to purchase a transport concession ticket with only their student concession card?
(4) If no to (3), why not?
(5) Have there been any reports or complaints relating to these issues made to the Public Transport Authority or Transperth?
Hon STEPHEN DAWSON replied:
I thank the honourable member for some notice of the question.
(1) Secondary students, yes; tertiary students, no.
(2) Secondary students who do not have their student SmartRider and are in school uniform can purchase the appropriate concession fare for their journey. Tertiary students need to purchase a standard fare.
(3) Secondary students, yes, noting that the student SmartRider is typically the students' concession card. Tertiary students, no.
(4) Tertiary student ID cards are issued at the time of enrolment and do not indicate whether the student is full time or part time. Given that a tertiary student must be in full-time study to be eligible for a concession fare, it is not practical to use the student ID card as evidence of concession entitlement.
In addition, some students enrol at the start of a semester as a full-time student and subsequently change their enrolment to become part time or withdraw from education, thus eliminating their entitlement to a concession fare.
The tertiary student SmartRider card is an effective mechanism to manage student entitlement as the Public Transport Authority has arrangements with many Western Australian tertiary institutions that regularly provide up-to-date details of a student's enrolment status. All major tertiary institutions have a student portal where a student can register their SmartRider card and at the same time give permission to the institution to keep the PTA informed of the student's enrolment status.
(5) There have been minimal complaints made to Transperth and these are mainly associated with tertiary student ID cards not being accepted as proof of student identification.