Bus companies transporting passengers to skifields may face an industry shake-up once the results from separate investigations into two recent Queenstown Lakes bus crashes are made public, police say.
The police Commercial Vehicle Investigation Unit (CVIU) is close to completing reports into bus crashes, near Queenstown and Wanaka.
The two chartered buses were involved in accidents after they had travelled down skifield roads at Coronet Peak and Cardrona Alpine Resort.
CVIU officer Acting Sergeant Colin Thomas said both crashes had the capacity for serious and possibly fatal consequences.
"We may have to look into the industry as a whole to ensure drivers are properly equipped and trained for driving on skifield roads," he said.
The Queenstown bus crash - on the single lane Edith Cavell bridge, near Arthur's Point on August 22 - involved a group of 25 school girls from Dunedin's St Hildas Collegiate school returning from Coronet Peak.
The second incident involved a bus carrying about 45 University of Otago students from Selwyn College, which ran off the bottom of the 14km twisting, unsealed Cardrona skifield access road on September 6.
The chartered buses were operated by Tinto Bus Services, from Dunedin, in the first incident and Christchurch-based company Passenger Transport Ltd, from its Dunedin depot, in the second.
Tinto Bus Services operations manager Gerald Brook, of Dunedin, said the company was not prepared to comment until after the CVIU investigation was completed.
Passenger Transport Ltd general manager Tony Baas, of Christchurch, declined to comment when contacted yesterday.
Const Thomas, of Invercargill, differentiated between transport services operated by regular skifield shuttle bus services and chartered bus companies.
He said he would not call skifield roads dangerous, but did emphasise "different skill-sets" were required for drivers operating heavy vehicles on the steep, twisting, and often unsealed roads.
"Driving on skifield roads is not like driving a bus around town," he said.
Shuttle services providing daily trips employed many bus and coach drivers who drove the same roads every day. However, charter bus drivers "maybe, don't have that kind of experience".
Const Thomas said once the separate investigations were completed police would consider the implications of their findings.
A recommendation about additional training for skifield road bus drivers could be made to the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA).
NZTA regulatory adviser Greg Sims, of Dunedin, said the bus crash investigations could possibly involve Department of Labour health and safety officials.
"To be fair, I'm unsure what response we [NZTA] would have."
The agency informs operators of rules and regulations required for transport companies, but has no enforcement responsibilities, he said.
Const Thomas said the CVIU investigations would "probably" be finished within a fortnight.
It was not unusual for investigations to take longer than six weeks - especially when it involved buses carrying full passenger loads, he said.
