A New Zealand council has reviewed bus services and plans to make improvements
Making bus services more reliable and improving connections between buses and trains are the top priorities to come out of a review of public transport in the Hutt Valley, New Zealand.
The review was carried out in 2013 and 2014, and looks at patronage and reliability of all services in Hutt City and Upper Hutt City, the connectivity between buses and trains and changes in travel patterns, population growth and land development.
“Public transport services in the Hutt Valley are generally pretty good so this review was more about fine tuning current services to improve them for customers rather than a fundamental redesign of the network,” says Greater Wellington Regional Council public transport portfolio leader Paul Swain.
The review recommends that a small number of under-used services be discontinued, and savings from the discontinuation of the some routes will be reinvested into the bus network to improve reliability and bus-train connections.
Staff will work with operators to ensure that timetables provide for sufficient bus-train connection times.
“The money saved from removing these extensions will be used to make the improvements in reliability,” says Swain.
Details of the proposals will be discussed with all those affected before they are carried out.
Changes are expected to begin being made towards the end of this year and will be completed in mid-2017.