Even these raw passenger numbers can be misleading because 30-35 per cent or around half of all passengers are secondary school children. Goldcard users are also significant.
Additionally, hospital employees and possibly others as well are eligible for employer subsidised travel paid in the case of hospital staff from car parking revenues.
There is nothing wrong with the buses as such. The drivers are great, the buses feel safe, comfortable and are clean. Rather it appears the service simply doesn't meet most travellers needs and is clearly in need of a serious redesign.
It might help the regional council gain some meaningful insight if managers and those staff now provided with council vehicles had to catch a bus as they are suggesting others should have to do.
The biggest winner from the present arrangement is surely the bus company who is receiving at least $4.5 million a year and possibly much more from taxpayers via NZTA and ratepayers via HBRC. This equates to a subsidy of at least $11 per passenger.
Effectively someone travelling to and from work each day plus a weekend trip is receiving subsidised travel costing around $6500 a year. Many of our least well off citizens, including those working in orchards, are having to contribute through rates and vehicle levies yet receive no benefit from the bus service. Others live in areas where there is no bus service.
Rather than relying on citizen submissions, a process unsuited for determining the needs of many, HBRC needs to undertake some serious market research to find out why so many people have abandoned the buses.
The following comments are mainly based on observations and experience around Hastings but the situation is likely to be similar in Napier.
The present arrangements seem very inefficient. The buses travel through the Hastings CBD in convoys, nearly all empty other than the driver.
Many of the routes are torturous, slowing travel in the hope of picking up the odd extra passenger often with little success. An off-peak trip between Napier and Hastings is scheduled at over an hour for a trip that can be done in 20 minutes by car. Add Havelock North and Flaxmere and another half an hour.
It might be better to operate a frequent CBD shuttle joining the library, Kmart, Megamall plus one or two hubs where passengers can transfer to fast direct services to key locations such as Flaxmere, Havelock North and Napier.
Removing the wasteful duplication of buses would allow an increase in frequency on the core routes.
There also needs to be better transfer options so, for instance, those travelling from Flaxmere to the EIT shouldn't have to travel into the Hastings CBD and back.
The target service level should be 15 to 20 minutes. Miss a bus or not know the timetable and the average wait would only be 10 minutes.
The urban bus service should also include Hawke's Bay Airport with around 500,000 air passengers a year plus at least in the weekends the Regional Sports Park and Park Island.
Just how HBRC decide which streets and suburbs get a bus service is unclear but it is clear the council is not doing a great job at present.
Perhaps it is also time for the bus company to share responsibility for getting more people onto the buses and to be paid accordingly.
Simon Nixon is a Hastings City councillor
