In stark contrast, Thagoona station in Ipswich saw its passenger numbers halve over five years, with just 3647 people passing through in 2016-17 - an average of 10 commuters a day - compared with 7510 in 2012-13. Figures showed the Doomben train line was busier than the Ipswich to Rosewood line, but had fewer services - while Landsborough station was busier than all stations north of it. The Springfield line past Darra and the Redcliffe Peninsula line past Petrie had almost the same total patronage, but the latter was spread over twice as many stations. Robert Dow of Rail Back on Track believed commuters were shunning public transport because it was not meeting the community’s needs. “Folk have given up sadly and the rail fail has had serious impacts on Ipswich region particularly, as the 18 per cent slump in patronage on the Ipswich-Rosewood line demonstrates,” Mr Dow said.

“The opening of the Springfield Central line in December 2013 would have taken some passengers from Goodna, Wacol and Gailes, but not enough to explain the significant drop in patronage. “There’s also been a drop off in Western bus patronage as well. The network needs an urgent review to correct the bus timings and routes.” He said the real surprise was that the line with the strongest growth was the Doomben line. “Considering the particularly poor frequency on weekdays and the limited service on Saturdays, this was unexpected,” Mr Dow said. “The Doomben line does not operate on Sundays. There is a case for operating this line seven days a week, and improving the frequency and span - the time between the first and last services - on all days of the week.”

In a statement, a Palaszczuk government spokesman said the data was more than 12 months old and only included figures from the first six months of the government’s Fairer Fares implementation. “The 2017-18 financial year saw a record number of trips on the TransLink south-east Queensland public transport network,” he said. “The 182.83 million trips was an increase of 5.4 million - 3.1 per cent higher - than the 2016-17 financial year. “Train trips increased by 3.4 per cent (an increase of 1.7 million trips) while buses increased by more than 2 million trips or 1.8 per cent.” The spokesman added that western bus patronage increased by nearly 400,000 trips in 2017-18 to 2.39 million, up from 2 million trips the previous year.

“The Ipswich-Rosewood line (all stations west of Darra) increased by 2.9 per cent in 2017-18, or about 95,000 trips, when compared to the previous year," he said. “There has been an increase in patronage on the Doomben line, but the services on the line still have capacity to carry more passengers. “The needs of communities change over time and TransLink continually monitors the performance of the public transport network to ensure its is providing efficient and reliable services. “TransLink’s network planning team works with public transport operators, including major stakeholders like Brisbane City Council and Queensland Rail, to continually deliver network improvements.” But Rail Back on Track hit back, saying the government was relying on data from the last financial year to claim that the public transport system was improving.

“They’re saying there’s been an increase in patronage, but where’s the data?” Mr Dow said. “Unless they give us the data, we don’t believe them. Because what they’re talking about is aggregate figures, which will reflect the big bump in passenger numbers from the Commonwealth Games. “We put in a request for the 2017-18 data but they didn’t provide it to us. “I think that data will be very inflated because of the Games, it won’t give a representative picture. “We’re more interested in the long-term trend over a five period and that trend is devastating for the likes of the Ipswich line.