Before the pandemic, households across NSW spent $14 billion a year on transport services such as train, bus and ferry fares. But data contained within the June national accounts revealed this had collapsed to just $5 billion in 2020 and to $3.7 billion in 2021 as various pandemic-related restrictions meant public transport use plummeted.
Since then, spending has recovered only to $12.6 billion despite the state adding 370,000 residents.
The state’s households spent almost $20 billion in 2019 on operating their cars, with the largest single expense being petrol. In the just completed financial year, spending was still $3 billion lower.
Even accounting for extra spending on new vehicles, NSW households – predominantly in Sydney – have saved more than $39 billion since the pandemic as people drive less and work from home.
In Victoria, transport service spending collapsed from $10.2 billion in 2019 to just $1.6 billion in 2021. Over the past year, it has recovered but is still well short of its pre-pandemic level.
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Victorian households’ spending on operating their cars peaked at $17 billion in 2019. In 2023-24, and despite the state being home to an extra 310,000 residents, spending on cars is at $15 billion.
The cumulative savings to Victorians amount to more than $34 billion.
Together, households in NSW, Queensland, Victoria and Western Australia have saved more than $85 billion on transport-related purchases and costs since COVID.
Public transport patronage figures show that before the pandemic, NSW residents took 30 million train trips. This fell to just 5 million during COVID but in June this year it was still only back to 25 million.
Victorian train patronage is also about 5 million trips a month down on its pre-COVID level. Similar falls have been recorded across the two states’ bus networks.
Before the pandemic, the long-running Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey found the average Sydneysider spent almost six hours a week commuting between work and home. In Melbourne and Brisbane, the average commute was around 5.5 hours a week while in Perth it was almost five hours.
Independent economist Chris Richardson said the work-from-home phenomenon had delivered both financial and life benefits with the biggest winners low-income or part-time workers.
He said while businesses did benefit from having all their staff together, many people discovered during the pandemic how much time and money they spent commuting to work.
“There’s one thing that you can’t get any more of and that’s time. It’s hard to over-estimate just how important that is,” he said.
Morning rush hours have been less rushed since the pandemic.Credit: Kate Geraghty
Richardson cautioned NSW Premier Chris Minns, who last month ordered public servants to work “principally” from the office, that his plan would not be felt equally.
“Life is a series of trade-offs. There’s a little bit of over-optimism about trying to look after Sydney’s CBD against the benefit many people are enjoying by working from home,” he said.
Independent economist Nicki Hutley said the drop-off in spending on public transport could reflect price pressures keeping people from going out for recreational activities.
Population growth would probably bring the volume of spending on public transport back up towards pre-COVID levels, Hutley said, but there had been a fundamental shift in commuting habits.
“I do think flexible work is an ongoing change,” she said, noting it would be difficult for governments and big companies to compel workers back into the office full-time. “It’s been a positive thing for the majority of people to have that ability to work from home and save time and the money.”
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Source Agencies
