New South Wales Consolidated Acts

PASSENGER TRANSPORT ACT 1990 - SECT 23

23 Performance assessment and renewal of commercial contracts

(1) The performance of service operators under commercial contracts is to be assessed according to a performance assessment regime established by the Director-General that prescribes best-practice objectives and standards of service to be met by operators while their respective contracts remain in force.

(2) Objectives and standards of service prescribed by the performance assessment regime are to be settled by the Director-General after consultation with the Transport Advisory Group constituted under the Transport Administration Act 1988 and such persons, representative of commercial regular passenger service operators, as the Minister may direct.

(3) The objectives and standards may apply differently to different services according to relevant population densities of communities served by them, or other factors, and may relate to (among other matters):

(a) service levels, and

(b) the costs to government (if any) of the service, and

(c) fares and ticketing, and

(d) any aspect of service quality.

(4) The performance assessment regime may be varied from time to time by the Director-General. Subsections (2) and (3) apply to any variation of the objectives and standards prescribed by the regime.

(5) Service operators are to be notified by the Director-General of:

(a) the objectives and standards of service applicable to contracts to which they are a party, and

(b) the manner in which assessments of operators’ performance are to be undertaken,

and of any variations made in either case.

(6) The objectives and standards of service prescribed by the performance assessment regime that are applicable to assessment of the performance of a service operator during the term of a commercial contract are only those specified by the regime as at the commencement (or, as the case may be, the last renewal) of the contract.

(7) A commercial contract is to be renewed by the Director-General for a further period of 5 years if the contracted operator, on the Director-General’s assessment, has met the objectives and standards prescribed by the performance assessment regime that were applicable during the term of the contract, unless the region or route of operation of the contract is varied in accordance with section 24 or the operator declines to take up a renewal.

(8) A contract is not to be renewed if the contracted operator, on the Director-General’s assessment, has not met the prescribed objectives and standards, even if minimum service levels and all other requirements of the contract have been met.