Bus patronage bounces back from Covid

DUNEDIN’S bus network has rebounded from the effects of Covid19, a new report shows.

But the same cannot be said for Queenstown’s bus service.

A report on the Otago Regional Council’s Orbus network performance between January and April this year was provided to councillors during a data and information committee meeting this week.

It showed that Dunedin bus patronage was 32% higher than the corresponding time last year, but that was mainly due to Covid19 restrictions then.

Transport implementation lead Julian Phillips said it was misleading to compare the figures with this time last year, as the accumulation of various levels of lockdowns, a period of free fares and reduced Covid19 timetables affected patronage.

Instead, comparing usage with the corresponding time in 2019, preCovid, was a better comparison.

Those results showed patronage had only dropped by 1% this April, compared with April 2019.

That was indicative of the Dunedin network’s strong recovery postCovid, Mr Phillips said.

Cr Michael Deaker also said it was an ‘‘excellent’’ result.

However, fare revenue was significantly lower due to the effect of the $2 flatfare trial, which began late last year.

Transport manager Garry

Maloney told councillors it was a lot more expensive to have $2 fares than expected.

There had been many suggestions through public consultations about bringing in a $1 flat fare, but the council would need to find ‘‘millions of dollars’’ to do that, he said.

Meanwhile, Queenstown’s public transport remained significantly affected by Covid19.

Patronage was down 30% between January and April this year, compared to the corresponding time last year.

However, there was some success as the resort town’s more commuter and residentialoriented bus routes had a patronage increase of between 31% and 86%.