NSW Transport Minister Andrew Constance has warned that traffic congestion will return as the state restricts how many people can get on buses, trains and ferries.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said on Monday buses and trains were “pretty much at capacity” in peak hours.
“We recommend that people who aren’t already on the system in the peak, especially on buses and trains, travel in the off-peak [after 10am or before 2pm],” the Premier said.
The state is asking people to “self-regulate” and check apps for colour codes to see how crowded buses, trains and ferries are before getting on them. It has warned it will close train platforms if they get too crowded but has not threatened fines.
NSW is turning big parks such as Moore Park into pop-up car parks so people can drive there and then take shuttle buses or light rail trains into the city.
NSW Transport Minister Andrew Constance said he expected more congestion on roads. “Ultimately people are going to opt to drive because it’s safe,” he said.
Traffic flows around Australia are now around half of what they were a year ago, up from less than a third of historical levels in early April, according to Intelematics, which gathers real-time data from hundreds of thousands of cars around Australia.
John Cardoso, a senior manager at transport data group Intelematics, said that increases in traffic were gradual, with many people still working from home.
The numbers of people who used to take public transport but who are now driving was not yet offsetting the initial big drop in traffic after the virus outbreak, he said, forecasting it would take about six months for traffic nationally to return to previous levels.
“As a proxy for the recovery for economic activity, we are seeing around 2-3 per cent improvement [in traffic] week over week, so that would loosely point us to a six-month scenario,” he said.
Big companies like Wesfarmers and Fortescue Metals Group have encouraged staff to return to offices in Perth and Brisbane. Western Australia’s government has told people to go back to work, while Queensland schools are set to fully reopen on May 25.
In NSW, traffic is coming back faster with 86 million vehicle movements around the state’s transport network on Friday compared with pre-COVID levels of 105 million movements, Mr Constance said.
The state’s public transport network usually carries 2.2 million-2.3 million people daily, but the numbers on Friday were around 570,000 people.
The state government is urging people to be dropped off at light rail and ferry routes, which are not yet at capacity, instead of taking the bus or train, and is also putting in pop-up bike paths in Sydney and considering adding more transport services.
Around 90 per cent of car parks across Sydney’s CBD are currently empty, according to the government.