KEY POINTS:
Auckland's public transport agency has been accused of "divide and conquer" tactics by axing a free discussion forum from its website for bus, rail and ferry passengers.
The forum, which had run since 1999 on www.maxx.co.nz, was suddenly removed last Monday in a redesign of the
website now under the control of the Auckland Regional Transport Authority (Arta).
Although passengers are invited to communicate with the authority through an online form, their views are no longer posted for others to read.
North Shore bus passengers and forum contributor Steve Withers accused the authority of "a classic divide-and-conquer approach by removing the ability of users to agree that they as a group might have a problem".
"They have nuked that community - a lot of them are passionate public transport supporters."
Many of them contributed useful information to the forum, such as reasons for delays to services.
Although the website asks passengers to allow two working days for a response to any comments, Mr Withers said it usually took the authority five to 10 days to reply to his queries.
He was still waiting for a response to a complaint he made at the end of January over the denial of an under-16 child's concession bus fare to his 14-year-old daughter.
Authority spokeswoman Sharon Hunter denied that removing the forum was an attempt to suppress free speech. She said the authority had replaced it with the contact form as it wanted "to be a bit tighter about capturing the information we are getting.
"We want to be a bit more scientific about what our customers are thinking."
Ms Hunter said anybody could host an online forum, and the authority had invited the Campaign for Better Transport to do just that. She understood that organisation was willing to do so, subject to a trial of hosting software.
Campaign convener Cameron Pitches said that although his organisation of volunteers initially indicated it was too busy to do so, it was prepared to consider hosting a forum, to which a link on the authority's website could refer passengers.
"But it would be better if Arta kept it going," he said.
West Auckland rail user Charles Greegan said the authority should have appreciated the value of giving free expression to passengers while conveying the impression that it cared about what they had to say.
Auckland Regional Council chairman Mike Lee, whose organisation sets policy directions for the transport authority, said it was vital to keep communication lines open through such a forum "because time after time public transport supporters have been right on technical issues and the so-called experts have been wrong".
