The Bay of Plenty Regional Council has celebrated its first day of introducing fares on its new school bus network, despite some hiccups resulting in late services.
The new bus system follows a term of free travel that was offred as the new service established itself.
Lyall Thurston, chair ofthe Public Transport Subcommittee and Bay of Plenty Regional Councillor, said there had been challenges in introducing the new network and getting the routes and timings bedded in, but generally they were happy with how things had run.
"This morning we have had reports of services running late, which we apologise for. All services did run, and a few were held up by the crash on Takitimu Drive," Mr Thurston said.
"Despite our best planning there were also a few technical problems which affected individual buses and we're looking at them this afternoon to find out what caused them.
We'll be watching to see if fare processing delays buses over the next few days, in which case we'll look at changing route timings.
"We have been really pleased with the numbers of students using the service, which was between 3000 and 4000 students a day in term one," he said.
"We've had some useful feedback and have worked through a number of suggestions that have been made to improve how things were running, and will continue to as the new term continues."
Mr Thurston said he understands the introduction of fares will mean some parents and caregivers will decide not to use the service, but overall the regional council was happy to be offering students an alternative way to get to school, which helped keep cars off the road and congestion down.
Charging students fares to get to school will always be a contentious topic, however it was something that's has been happening in New Zealand's other larger cities for many years, Mr Thurston said.
The Schoolhopper network took over a bus service previous managed by the Ministry of Education.
The Ministry continues to provide bulk funding or operate about 35 school routes daily in Tauranga.
"Besides our contracted services, 13 Tauranga schools continue to receive school transport funding from the Ministry of Education through the Tauranga Transport Network Group," said Kim Shannon, head of education infrastructure services at the Ministry of Education.
