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The draft recommendations proposed cutting adult fares by an average of about 25 per cent and introducing daily fare caps to make bus travel more affordable and improve community access for people with limited transport options.

Reducing the fares is aimed at getting more people onto public transport, but a Busabout Wagga spokesman raised concerns on who would absorb any costing shortfalls.

“Whether we have more patrons or not remains to be seen,” he said.

“We have concerns if there is going to be a 25 per cent reduction in the cost and if we have 25 per cent more passengers, we’ll be at the same running cost,” he said.

Joan Janaway from Transport for New South Wales assured stakeholders they would be reimbursed for any shortfalls, subject to a 12-month waiting period.

“The contract (to be proposed) has a clause in there that refers to material impact and if there’s any adjustments on fares that impact on the revenue of the operators, the shortfall will be made up by Transport for New South Wales,” she said.

“However, (the operators) need to be 12 months in operation of the new arrangement to assess what that impact may be.”

If approved, the new fare structure would apply to the 116 operators providing bus service in the Murray-Murrumbidgee region, including the city of Wagga. It would also see 220 different fares condensed down to 10 fare bands.

IPART chair Peter Boxall said the forum was “particularly productive” and the organisation would now work to put together its final report.

“We will now put everything together and put up our final recommendations in mid December. If the government adopts anything from our final recommendations, that will take effect in the new year,” he said.

“For shorter distances, the 25 per cent reduction is not as large but for long distance it is much greater. We’re not only looking to have a higher patronage, we’re looking at delivering a much better service and we think this will give the government much better value for money.”