Subscribe to RSSSign of Things To Come? Northland Bus Services Reduced
The Northland Regional Council has reviewed the number of passengers who have been travelling on each of its 39-seater bus since the current 10-strong fleet began operating 18 months ago.
And Whangarei’s CityLink public bus service will now drop a number of mainly early morning and evening services from March along with other cuts.
It says people have gone back to using cars since petrol prices stabilised.
Northland Regional Transport Committee Chairman John Bain says the changes will remove poorly patronised trips carrying three or fewer passengers at a time and should save about $300,000 annually.
Councillor Bain says most of those are trips in the early hours of the morning (before 7am) or the evenings (after 6pm).
But that’s not all. The council is also going to axe Saturday services after about 2pm and will not operate at all on public holidays, again blaming poor patronage.
Similarly, the Central Business District route – which on average has carried less than one person each trip – will cease altogether.
“We had a marked increase in passenger numbers in 2008 when oil prices rocketed but that then fell off again as prices reduced.
However, our responsibility to ensure the bus service – which is jointly funded by ratepayers and the New Zealand Transport Agency – uses money as efficiently as possible does not change.”
2 Comments
Oil prices have been on the up and up hitting $83 a barrel this week, the highest prices for 18 months and more than double this time last year. I predict these services will be needed again soon enough once oil prices start to rocket as the world economy kicks back into gear. And little old NZ will have lost the breathing room needed to get PT into order whilst petrol prices were low, stay tuned for packed services in the years to come along with services cuts due to lack of funding.
after 2pm saturday? Great, now everyone needs a car in order to do anything on the weekend, be it work or entertain or go out.