CDE is a passenger transport company operating in Melbourne and has made losses over the last few years. It is seeking to improve its performance in the near future. It operates on several bus routes within 40 kilometres radius of Deakin university. It operates a fleet of 50 buses throughout the day, seven days per week. Each bus has a capacity of 40 persons. The frequency of the buses on each week of its routes varies based on the demand. The passengers who use the bus are a mix of adults and children including school and university students. Some routes are busier than others.

The directors of CDE are considering how best to measure the performance of each route that they operate, and it has been suggested by the management accountant that they should use a balanced scorecard approach to measuring performance for long-term benefits and survival of the company. Furthermore, the management accountant made the following comment to the directors "The businesses are blamed for focusing more on the financial performance measures. One way to overcome this issue is looking for the organizational performance from the balanced scorecard point of view".

Required:

1. a) Do you agree with the management accountant's statement? Discuss. (12 marks)
2. b) Identify and explain two performance measures from each perspective of the balanced scorecard (a total of 8 measures) that the CDE could use to measure the performance of its routes. (8 marks)