Bus use falls 4% despite growth bid

Despite continuing moves to boost Dunedin bus use, including through a planned new central bus hub, recent figures show city bus patronage has fallen more than 4%.

Otago Regional Council figures show bus patronage fell by about 90,000 passenger trips to 2.2million trips in the financial year ending  June 30 last year.

That was despite a performance target of 3% growth outlined in the council’s latest annual plan.

Council staff say there has since been some further decline, although latest statistics were not  available yesterday.

Council support services manager Gerard Collings said the 4% reduction — noted in the council annual report— was "consistent with trends" in other New Zealand bus networks of a similar size.

Mr Collings acknowledged  the council was seeking increased bus patronage, and it had had a 3% annual growth target for some time.

But the "decline" was not unexpected, given it had also happened elsewhere.

It remained "difficult" to "compete with the private car" in Dunedin, given the relatively low price of petrol, the comparatively limited traffic congestion and the "easily accessible" car parking.

But the planned bus hub, in Great King St, would help make a long-term change, given its "real time" electronic display of when buses were arriving and leaving, and its encouragement for passengers to use the free transfer system to switch to another bus.

The council remained keen to make improvements to the transport system and he was still optimistic about  prospects.

The continuing transport changes amounted to a "long-term investment".

Bus Go bus user support group co-president Alex King said there was "no need for panic" over the reduced patronage, which was "expected and quite understandable" under the circumstances.

The city’s bus service was already good, and he was "still very confident about the future", given that a better overall service was being developed, which was likely to result in increased patronage in the longer term.

Many Dunedin bus users had already benefited from a series of changes since the first of them, affecting the "southern routes", began on July 1, 2015, but there had also clearly been disruption for some bus users.

In the longer term, there was scope for more promotion of the bus services and he hoped the council would also undertake some "tweaks" to the recent transport changes, including restoring a direct bus service between Green Island and South Dunedin, and reinstating the frequency of the weekday morning bus service involving Belleknowes.

The modest decline in patronage was "disappointing" but "I would not be too worried about it," Mr King said.

"It reflects that changes are happening, changes that will be positive in the longer term."

The overall changes would "take  a while to show their benefits", and these would not be apparent until after the proposed bus hub had been established, near the central police station, later this year.

"I don’t think this is showing there’s any fundamental problem with the strategy," Mr King said.

john.gibb@odt.co.nz