The people of Bermuda deserve to be told what’s going on with the Island’s public transport, OBA MP Patricia Gordon-Pamplin told the House of Assembly. The Shadow Minister for Transport and Tourism said there had been complaints from up and down the Country as “buses were sporadic at best”.She questioned when Transport Minister Terry Lister was going to address the concerns of the public. Ms Gordon-Pamplin said she would have liked Mr Lister to come to the House “armed with a statement to tell the people of Bermuda what the problem was with transportation”.She said: “When is something going to be said? When are we going to get the information? We all want to know what is happening here. Information is important.”Ms Gordon-Pamplin said Ministers refusing to answer questions was “petty politics” and she suggested trying to get information was “like pulling teeth out”.She also highlighted the ferry improvements at Rockaway and the “great cost” of Heritage Wharf at Dockyard. Ms Gordon-Pamplin said: “All this work is done but then they cut back on the ferry service with little on no explanation. The schedule has been scaled back dramatically because there’s no money in the kitty to pay for it … we’re getting less with less.”The Department of Marine and Ports significantly cut back on the ferry timetable after its budget was slashed from $9.9 million in 2010-2011 to $7.6 million this financial year.The cutbacks mean the pink route, which serves Hamilton, Paget and Warwick, has had its weekday service cut from 24 trips per day on the old schedule, to just 13 on the new. The route’s weekend and holiday service has been axed completely.Ms Gordon-Pamplin questioned the negative impact the ferry cuts were having on tourists staying in the area. She said: “We can’t tell our visitors to walk to Middle Road and go get a bus if the bus is going to come that is. We have to roll the red carpet out to our visitors.”OBA MP Grant Gibbons, who represents Paget East, agreed that ferry cuts were still an issue “from a local and visitor perspective”.He said visitors who stayed at Salt Kettle Guest House, Greenbank Guest House, Fourways Inn and Newstead Belmont Hills were among the worst sufferers. He called these types of tourist accommodation “the bread and butter of our tourism product” as they attracted repeat guests who stayed for longer periods.Dr Gibbons said: “Visitors choose these locations because of the ferry service, but there is no longer a weekend service. They have to last two full days without a ferry service. This reduces the quality of the visitor experience. I don’t think the Minister of Transport intended to put these [guest houses] in jeopardy but the reduction of the ferry service means people are considering whether they want to come back.”Dr Gibbons called on Mr Lister to have another look at the ferry service saying “any bit of help would be enormously helpful”.He said even though Government didn’t seem “terribly interested” in Paget, everyone to the West of the parish felt the knock-on effect with more cars on the road. Dr Gibbons said there had also been “chaos” on the buses, saying he knew there were problems on the number one route along South Road in Smith’s. He said there were “still inconsistencies” even though Mr Lister says “everything is better”.He also questioned why the transport problems were occurring, as there had not been huge reductions in manpower. There were 77 ferry staff in 2008-09 compared to 71 in 2011-12 and there are now 255 bus drivers compared to 264 in 2009-10. Dr Gibbons said: “There’s been very small manpower reductions so I just don’t understand. There were 192 drivers managing the bus routes in 98-99 and we didn’t hear the complaints that we are hearing now. We need to have better coordination between Transport and Tourism. We think tourism is very important but we are increasingly sceptical that Government feels the same way.”Mr Lister said he had had no intention of speaking until MPs started “chiming in on the chaos of buses and ferries again”.He said he regularly monitored the feedback of cruise ship passengers, explaining: “I don’t find one negative comment, all the people have a good experience. We have buses up at Dockyard waiting for the cruise ship passengers. They move them back and forth. It works, it works brilliant.“We do what we do and we do it well. We also have taxis and minibuses working together and earning money like never before. Ninety percent of tourists are happy. Some people do go off, but they are ones who go off at everything, that’s their personality. There’s nothing we can do about them, our job is to please the majority.”Mr Lister added that when bus services were cancelled because drivers called in sick, they were the least popular routes. He added that he was not prepared to “use up gas” for runs used by just three or four people. Mr Lister added that Government would maybe answer questions if the Opposition party asked better ones.He said: “Some of the questions you ask don’t even make sense, I’d encourage you to try a little harder.”