'Ludicrous' anomaly in pupils' fares

Kowhai Intermediate students have been charged different fares for catching the same bus at different times. Photo / Greg Bowker

Children travelling home by bus from an Auckland school are being charged different fares along exactly the same route, depending on which service they catch.

Early birds who catch the first of two buses running past Kowhai Intermediate School after lessons are charged 90c to reach the Sandringham shops, about 2km away, but those who spend a few more minutes leaving their classrooms face a fare of $1.70.

The anomaly has been described by one parent as "absolutely ludicrous", and has surprised school principal Paul Douglas, who Auckland Transport says it will try to meet for an explanatory session this week.

Mr Douglas said the school did not arrange bus transport for its pupils, and he had not been made aware of the different fares.

But he would be prepared to take the matter up with transport officials, if asked to by parents.

"It's a little hard to understand why one bus is cheaper than another when it is going in the same direction, unless it has hard seats or something," Mr Douglas said.

Heather Laxon, the mother of a new entrant at the school, discovered the fare difference only by studying a print-out of electronic Hop card transactions made by her 11-year old daughter for trips from and to home.

They recorded fares of 90c on her way to school, from the Sandringham shops to a bus stop next to the Kingsland railway station, about 300m short of Kowhai Intermediate. But fares for the return trip, from immediately outside the school, were recorded variously as 90c and $1.70c even though they are collected by the same company - NZ Bus.

A 90c return fare was recorded for travel on a bus which left the school at 3.18pm on February 2, but the higher price applied to those which her daughter caught just two to five minutes later on other afternoons.

Auckland Transport spokeswoman Sharon Hunter said the earlier fare was a concession to counter the fact that a fare-stage boundary existed between the school and Kingsland station.

Travel from outside the school to the Sandringham shops amounted to two stages, compared with one-stage trips from the shops to the station, so $1.70c was the normal non-concessionary fare.

She said the concession for the earlier of the two buses was a one-service exception "to keep school children safe at a specific time at the end of school.

"We acknowledge that we should have communicated this to the school through our school-travel planners and will be rectifying this situation by speaking to the school principal."

But Mrs Laxon said it was ludicrous that if her daughter missed the first bus, she was charged 80c more.

Bus company charges two different prices for kids travelling same route

MISS COSTS 80c
*90c for those who catch the first of two buses running past Kowhai Intermediate School to the Sandringham shops
*$1.70 is the fare for the bus that passes minutes later

The earlier fare is a concession to counter the fact that a fare stage boundary existed between the school and Kingsland station