The new network "makes it viable for anywhere to anywhere travel".
Whanganui’s new bus network will launch in April, putting people closer to frequent routes and making it easier and faster to get around more of the city.
Five new routes – two Tide-style frequent routes (every 20 minutes) and three hourly routes – will replace the current 17 routes.
The new network puts 70% of the population within 400m of an hourly bus, up from 31%, and 52% within 400m of a frequent bus.
Services will now operate earlier and later in the day, and on Sundays.
The new network will be anchored around two Tide-style frequent routes - Castlecliff to Whanganui East and Gonville to Aramoho.
They will stretch further into Castlecliff and Aramoho than the current Tide route.
Hourly routes will run from St John’s Hill to Pūtiki, Springvale to Trafalgar Square, and Whanganui East to Trafalgar Square, with all three connected to the Tide routes at transfer points.
Anthonie Tonnon is the Whanganui District Council representative on Horizons Regional Council’s passenger transport committee.
“It makes it viable for anywhere to anywhere travel,” he said.
“That’s important. A lot of people now will be in a position that in a reasonable amount of time, they can get to just about anywhere that they might need to.”
Horizons’ transport services manager Mark Read said the introduction of the high-frequency Te Ngaru The Tide service in 2023 had driven an increase in patronage on the Whanganui urban network.
The Tide was a trial of a ridership model which prioritises frequency and directness as opposed to a coverage model that covers a wider area at the expense of frequency and speed.
In 2022 there were 93,245 passenger trips on Whanganui buses.
In 2025 that had more than doubled to 193,940, with close to 60% of those trips taken on The Tide.
Read said the success led to consulting the Whanganui community in 2025 about more improvements to the bus network.
“When we did two rounds of public consultation last year, there was overwhelming support from respondents to have a more fit-for-purpose public transport system for the city, now and into the future,” he said.
Tonnon said the ridership model got more people using the bus and it was time to expand that to the whole network to “make them as useful and direct as possible”.
“So they’ve got a better chance of working together so that one person in most spots can get anywhere else in the city in a good amount of time,” he said.
“I think we’ve clearly shown that a ridership approach can succeed in Whanganui.”
Of the 320 submissions to Horizons’ annual plan, 89% favoured more investment in the network.
The improvements are being funded through rates with $6.65 per $100,000 in capital value per property being collected for the 2026-27 year – up from $3.80 this year.
Tonnon said Whanganui’s spend on public transport remained lower than its neighbours and similarly sized cities.
“We’ve had to be really efficient to make this work,” he said.
The new network will launch on April 17, which is World Public Transport Day.
“I think Whanganui is a really well set up city for public transport because of our history with the trams, because we haven’t grown heaps in the car era,” Tonnon said.
“This is the first time this century that we’ve set up a full network that has the best chance of being useful to people.
“And I really hope it will see a lot of use.”
All of the city’s big schools were on the Castlecliff to Whanganui East route and Tonnon hoped the frequency and extended hours would allow students to use the bus for school and getting home from part-time jobs and sports.
“It has the potential to revolutionise travel for teenagers.”
Tonnon encouraged people to use the Transit app to see how they could use buses.
“It’s the first time that we’ve got a system that is designed to succeed,” he said.
“I think this will see a big increase in people using it. How much is hard to say exactly.
“What I can definitely say about this network is that the access a person has in Whanganui to where they could go on public transport in a reasonable amount of time is drastically bigger.”
Read said the council would run a public awareness campaign with more details about the new network leading into April.
“We want to ensure as smooth a transition as possible for our current users and clear information for new users.”
For more information about the Whanganui urban bus network, including a map showing the routes being introduced in April, head to www.horizons.govt.nz/buses-transport/whanganui-network
Key features of the new network include: