Bus usage figures challenged

Councillor Karen Hunt (left) and Mayor Steve Chadwick. PHOTO/STEPHEN PARKER

Rotorua mayor Steve Chadwick is calling for the Rotorua Lakes Council to take control of the CityRide bus service - an idea the regional council says it's open to.

Mrs Chadwick made the call at a meeting of the council's operations and monitoring committee yesterday.

Last week, the Rotorua Daily Post reported that CityRide bus passenger numbers provided by the Bay of Plenty Regional Council revealed an almost 50,000 drop in passenger numbers in the July-September quarter compared to last year.

But Mrs Chadwick disputed those figures yesterday and berated councillor Glenys Searancke, who is the council's representative on the regional council's public transport subcommittee, for "politicising" the issue instead of working through it with staff from both councils.

At the time, Mrs Searancke and regional council public transport subcommittee chairman Lyall Thurston partly blamed the drop in passenger numbers on changes to the inner city bus route.

"We clearly can't trust the usage numbers in the reports, they clearly show errors," Mrs Chadwick said.

Her concerns were borne out by a report from the regional council's strategy general manager, Fiona McTavish, which said there were issues with the electronic ticketing system that were being brought to the attention of the operator.

Other issues mentioned in the report were improved signage, driver behaviour, further marketing, route delays and improved bus shelters.

Mrs Chadwick said it raised the issue of the "inability to manage a local service between two councils" and she felt the service could be better run locally. Councillor Karen Hunt said she felt the regional council had not done enough to publicise bus route changes and the issue had been "blown out of all proportion".

"It feels to me at this point there are some people working against us," she said.

But when asked who those people were, Ms Hunt refused to answer, saying she would respond to the question in a confidential session.

Councillors resolved to direct staff to work with the regional council to resolve the current issues and to "commence discussion on the devolution of these services to Rotorua Lakes Council".

Regional council chairman Doug Leeder said he was open to any discussions and the regional council was committed to building public transport services across the region. "This should not turn into a blame game. If those figures are not correct I would encourage the councils to get together urgently to discuss the issues that led to this problem and how we can make it better."

On the buses

* Mayor calls for Rotorua Lakes Council to take over CityRide bus service from the regional council

* Passenger figures disputed by councillors

* Both councils to try and work through issues

* Councillor Searancke criticised for "politicising" the issue

* Work under way to fix routes, signage, bus shelters