This is the tenth post in the Research series. Everything we have published so far — the methodology, the negative findings, the demand signal, the dissenting views, the airport overcharging, the late-night safety analysis, the cost-of-failure modelling — has been built on a single dataset. 77 Broome businesses, surveyed once, in early 2026.
A single survey is a snapshot. It tells you what was true at one point in time. To make any of the claims in the earlier posts hold up over the next decade — including the central claim that Pearl Coast Rental’s launch will measurably improve transport in Broome — we have to run the survey again.
This post is about how we are running it, what we are adding, and what we are asking the Chamber membership and the wider Kimberley to commit to.
The schedule
We are aiming to put the 2027 wave in the field in January 2027, with results published by the end of March 2027. That gives Pearl Coast Rental roughly six months of operating data — from launch in July 2026 to the end of 2026 — to feed into the comparison.
We will run the survey annually after that, on the same schedule. January in the field, results in March. A 5-year longitudinal dataset (2026, 2027, 2028, 2029, 2030) is the timeframe over which we believe rideshare and its second-order effects will be visibly measurable.
What stays the same
Every question from the 2026 survey runs again in 2027, with identical wording. This is the discipline of longitudinal data — you do not get to retire a question because it is now inconvenient. The six headline stats from 2026 (73%, 66%, 43%, 84%, 86%, 60%) all get re-measured against the same survey instrument.
We expect some of them to move. The 84% support figure may rise or fall depending on whether the launch has met its own promises. The 73% disrupted-operations figure should fall if we have actually expanded transport capacity. The 43% airport overcharging figure is the one we will be watching most closely as the leading indicator of whether our airport-pickup commitment is shifting market behaviour.
If a number moves in the wrong direction, we will publish that result with the same prominence as a result that moves in the right direction. The credibility of this series depends on us not retroactively curating it.
What changes in 2027
Three additions.
1. Geographic expansion
The 2026 survey was Broome-only. The 2027 wave covers seven towns:
- Broome (continuing)
- Derby
- Fitzroy Crossing
- Halls Creek
- Kununurra
- Karratha
- Port Hedland
Each of these towns has its own transport reality. Karratha and Port Hedland are FIFO mining markets with a fundamentally different demand profile to Broome’s tourism-and-government mix. Derby and Fitzroy Crossing are smaller towns where the question of whether rideshare is viable at all is open. Halls Creek and Kununurra are remote enough that the regulatory and supply-side challenges become qualitatively different again.
We expect the headline stats to look very different across these markets. That difference is the point. A national rideshare expansion strategy that treats Broome the same as Karratha will fail. The data has to be regional-specific.
2. Two new question groups
Question group A: Willingness to pay. The 2026 survey did not ask businesses what they would pay for reliable transport. The 2027 survey does. Three questions, all anonymous, covering employee transport, customer transport, and corporate fleet hire. This is the data Pearl Coast Rental needs to set pricing tiers credibly across the Kimberley.
Question group B: Trip volume. The 2026 survey gave us demand intent. It did not give us frequency. The 2027 survey asks businesses how many trips per week, per category, they would actually book if a reliable rideshare service existed. This is the data that turns a demand signal into a forecastable revenue line.
3. Workforce-side questions
The 2026 survey asked business owners. The 2027 wave adds a second instrument — anonymous, optional — that asks workers in those businesses about their own experience. Have you turned down a shift because of transport? Have you walked home after dark because no ride was available? Have you stopped applying for jobs in town centres because you can’t reliably get there?
The worker survey is the one most likely to change how we think about the problem. The business-owner data tells you what an absorbed cost looks like at the operator level. The worker data tells you who is actually paying it.
What we are asking of the Chamber
Two things.
First, we are asking the Broome Chamber of Commerce and Industry to formally co-host the 2027 wave, as they did the 2026 one. The Chamber’s endorsement is what gave the 2026 survey its 22% response rate. We can run the survey without them — we have the platform and the methodology — but the data is materially less credible without their imprimatur.
Second, we are asking individual Chamber members who took part in the 2026 wave to register for the 2027 wave now. This is a soft commitment. We are not asking you to commit to a specific date. We are asking you to register your interest so we can plan distribution and ensure the response cohort is representative.
The registration form is on the Partners page.
What we are asking of other Kimberley businesses
If you operate in Derby, Fitzroy Crossing, Halls Creek, Kununurra, Karratha or Port Hedland, the same registration form applies. We need at least 30 respondents per town for the data to be statistically meaningful. With 30 respondents in each of the seven towns, we are looking at approximately 210 total responses — a significant uplift on the 77 we had in 2026, and a dataset that can credibly speak for the whole Pearl Coast Rental operating footprint.
If you would like to help us reach the response targets in any of these towns — through your business network, your Chamber if you are a member, or your community organisation — get in touch and we will work out the right way to involve you.
What this series becomes
After this post, the Research series enters a different phase. Posts 01 through 10 were built entirely on the 2026 dataset. We have now used that dataset honestly. Going further on the same data would be padding, and the editorial discipline rules in our internal backlog do not allow that.
From October 2026 forward, the series will cover three new topic areas:
- Driver economics. What Pearl Coast Rental driver-partners are actually earning. Published quarterly from January 2027, once we have a meaningful sample.
- Operational case studies. The Broome depot. The airport pickup model. The mentor-led driver development pipeline. Real implementation detail, not marketing.
- Regulatory and procurement commentary. Indigenous Procurement Policy, on-demand transport licensing, the WA Department of Transport’s regional strategy. Where we have something useful to say.
The next post in the series — post 11 — will be the first quarterly driver economics report. The data window for that closes 31 December 2026 and the post will publish in early January 2027.
Until then, this is where the survey-driven part of the series ends. We will see you in March 2027 with the 2027 results.
If you want to add your business to the next wave, the registration is here. The full 2026 dataset, including the verbatim free-text responses, is available on request to Chamber members and to credentialed researchers. Contact details are in the footer.