Bus chief acts over strandings

NZ Bus chief operating officer of Shane McMahon. Photo / Greg Bowker

Auckland's main bus company is promising passengers furious at being stranded on a commuting route that it will closely monitor operations to ensure they get to work in time.

NZ Bus chief operating officer Shane McMahon yesterday acknowledged a major scheduling error on the 267 route from Lynfield to central Auckland on Friday morning, when three express buses in succession were dropped from their runs.

That made many passengers, already upset about changes to express bus schedules, up to an hour late for work.

Mr McMahon said trip schedulers - one of whom was new to the job - should have spread the pain across more routes, rather than drop three buses from a single service.

"It's not what people want to hear, but to miss them all on the one [route], it wasn't good form, so that is something we have addressed this morning with the duty supervisors involved," he said.

As well as tracking Lynfield buses electronically, the company had sent a staff member into the field to monitor them through this week and to gather more patronage information.

That follows concern raised by some of the passengers stranded last week about changes to route schedules in February, which have pushed back by 30 minutes until 7.30am the first express bus leaving Lynfield, making it too late for workers rushing to 8am job starts in the city.