The union representing Canberra's bus drivers says it is confident the issues plaguing the weekend timetable can be resolved, after talks with Transport Canberra on Wednesday.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
However the fix won't come in time for this weekend's services, meaning more cancellations could be on the cards.
Nearly 150 buses were cancelled last weekend after too few drivers put their hands up to work weekend shifts.
Weekend work is not compulsory under their enterprise agreement.
Transport Workers Union ACT secretary Klaus Pinkas urged the government to scale back weekend services until more drivers were recruited.
But Mr Pinkas said on Wednesday the union was now convinced there would eventually be enough drivers, after directorate officials gave them numbers on how many they planned to recruit.
"I think the problems of the weekend timetable can be overcome through recruitment over time but it won't be fixed next week and they won't be fixed this weekend," Mr Pinkas said.
"I can almost guarantee this weekend they will be short."
Transport Minister Meegan Fitzharris stressed that service reliability over the weekend was over 95 per cent, with twice as many boardings on Sunday as the same day last year.
Her spokeswoman said the government was aware drivers were doing their bests to fill the shifts.
I can almost guarantee this weekend they will be short.
- Transport Workers Union ACT secretary Klaus Pinkas
She hoped over time with the extra drivers they could meet the community's expectations with weekend services.
The union also rejected the government's assertion that the union had committed under the terms of the recently agreed enterprise agreement to ensure that all weekend duties were covered at all times.
The agreement, signed late last year, does state: "there is a commitment to ensuring that all weekend details are covered at all times" .
However Mr Pinkas said it was a hangover from agreements from the 1990s and meant nothing.
"We're in no position to give commitments on who shows up on the weekend," Mr Pinkas said.
"To say we gave a commitment that weekends would be fully staffed is false."
Transport Canberra has recorded more than half a million passenger boardings since the new network went live last Monday.
Ms Fitzharris said sales of MyWay cards had increase fourfold since the new network launched, and there were more school students travelling on the system than ever before.
Meanwhile another selling point of the new public transport network has come up short for residents in Canberra's west.
The backbone of the network is the 10 Rapid bus routes running along arterial roads at least every 15 minutes from 7am to 7pm.
But residents in the Molonglo have been left scratching their heads, as their Rapid bus comes every 20 minutes at best, and often every 23 minutes.
However an ACT government spokeswoman confirmed this was by design, and that the frequency of the service would grow over time.
"Molonglo is a growing region, however the current population numbers do not support a full rapid route today," she said.
"Transport Canberra believed it important to incorporate a rapid to this region now to help shape travel patterns into the future."
Correction: An earlier version of this article had incorrect details at bus drivers' pay. Bus drivers have weekend penalty rates built into their ordinary rates of pay and are not paid extra beyond that if they volunteer to work on the weekend.
