Rideshare fares surged and commuters were left stranded at bus stops after Transport Canberra's drivers called a snap strike and walked off the job on Friday morning.
Uber surge pricing forced workers stranded by the snap bus strike pay hefty prices for their journeys.
Transport Minister Chris Steel apologised for the poor communication and said officials had not been expecting the strike, which was called by the Transport Workers' Union.
Transport officials drove around suburbs telling passengers waiting at stops there would be no services, while schools rushed to send messages to families, some of whom had already set their children off unaware of the strike.
People who need to be at school, work or other appointments faced fares of $50 or more for trips that ordinarily might cost less than half that amount.
Peak-hour pricing, shortly before 9am, showed a trip from Dickson to Parliament House costing $50 in a pool car. A trip from the city to Braddon, ordinarily costing $9.50, was quoted at $20.
The app was warning users that "fares are a lot higher due to increased demand" as surge pricing kicked in.
An Uber Assist journey, for a person needing help to get in and out of the vehicle, from Aranda to nearby Belconnen Medical Centre was quoted at more than $40.
Demand eased shortly after 9am and prices began to return to ordinary levels.
At 9am, the normally bustling city interchange was deserted as commuters diverted their travel plans.
But not all commuters got the message before making their way into the city.
Cynthia Savaridass had come into Civic early for a breakfast meeting, and was now stranded on her journey back to Red Hill.
"I took an Uber because I thought I was going to be late, which is $20 from Red Hill, now I'll have to get an Uber Pool back."
Erin Marshall and Anthony Kervarec, visiting Canberra from Ballarat, already had their tour bus cancelled, and were figuring out how to navigate to Parliament House and the War Memorial on foot.
Former Melbourne tram driver John McKirgan knew what it was like to be on the receiving end of aggression from passengers, but still had to cop the $40 cab fare to get to work in Belconnen. But getting back home to Turner was still a mystery.
"I guess we'll see what I can do on the way back, maybe I can get dropped [off] or something."
Schools scrambled to send messages to parents about disruption to the school bus routes.
"If this impacts on your child's ability to come to school today, please notify the school," Telopea Park School said in an email to parents.
"Students can continue with homework/assignments and for the high school students impacted, work as usual will be in the Google classroom."
The strike is expected to last all day, but schools will aim to update parents on impacts to bus services on Friday afternoon.
ACT Education Directorate senior executive David Matthews told ABC Canberra special needs transport service would not be affected by the strike.
He said there would be alternative arrangements for students who were late or couldn't attend school to do exams.
"Obviously it's a stressful enough time of the year around exams so we just want to assure all parents and students they won't be disadvantaged by this," Mr Matthews said.
He said he was aware of incidents of violence against bus drivers involving young people.
"We do already have a strong relationship with Transport Canberra and we work together on those sort of instances," he said.
"Obviously referrals to the police or concerns that they have around individual behaviour, they'll talk to us and let us know that. And our school communities will work with those children and young people and try to get that behaviour addressed."
Mr Steel apologised for the lack of communication transport officials had been able to provide the community.
Mr Steel said the government was trying to work with the Transport Workers' Union in an effort to get transport officers back to work to let passengers know bus services were not running.
"We have had to scramble. We weren't expecting this to happen. We know that school students are particularly affected. ... We're working closely with Education to try and get those messages out as far as possible," Mr Steel told ABC radio.
"But we do know particularly people who are travelling earlier this morning, who went down to their local bus stop expecting a bus to show up, that bus hasn't shown up, and we haven't been able to get communications out to them.
"Usually we would try and get transport officers to go around and even let people know at the stops themselves. We haven't been able to do that today because, I understand, they're also taking unprotected industrial action."
with John-Paul Moloney
