Dunedin public transport passengers continue to have a positive view of their bus services but their rating of its value for money has dipped, possibly because of a 25% increase in fares, a customer satisfaction survey report says.
The annual customer satisfaction survey of Otago Regional Council-contracted bus services was conducted in early July, just after the council raised fares.
A report to the policy and resource planning committee yesterday showed 95% of surveyed users rated overall performance as good, very good or excellent.
In the value for money category, 72% considered the service good, very good or excellent, down from 95% the previous year.
"This drop is understandable given the 25% fare increase that came into effect on July 1, 2009, a few days after the survey was commenced," the report said.
The 2008 survey was completed before a 25% increase took effect.
Of the seven performance factors, including availability, safety and journey time, 90% of those surveyed rated them good or better, except for the frequency (79%) and reliability (84%) categories.
The main reason for taking a bus was mainly (54%) because people had no alternative.
Transport senior policy analyst Jane Turnbull said the uptake of the GoCard was a success story, with demand increasing in July, as it had done last year, probably in response to fare increases.
Uptake of the Super Gold Card, which the Government introduced in October to provide free off-peak bus travel on council contracted buses, accounted for just over two-thirds of the patronage increase (14.9%) for the year.
Patronage varied between routes, with the greatest growth on the Balaclava route (72.2%), which had its route extended and frequency improved at peak times, and the Garden Village route (53.6%), which had its frequency improved to 30 minutes.
However, patronage dropped on four routes including the St Kilda-Shiel Hill-Waverley after peak times route (-16.2%), Lookout Point (-5.2%) and Wakari-Helensburgh (-4.4%).
Pine Hill dropped 12.8%, although some passengers may have been miscoded to Balaclava in the March quarter.
