More disruption on way

The people who can least afford it are likely to be the worst affected by the increasing number of Wellington bus trip cancellations, a community leader says. ‘‘A lot of the people we work with are absolutely reliant on public transport, and the reliability of such. So it’s not as though they have alternatives if the bus doesn’t come,’’ said Wellington City Missioner Murray Edridge. A further 114 trips on Metlink’s bus network were due to be temporarily suspended from tomorrow ‘‘to provide greater certainty’’ for passengers during the national bus driver shortage. This is on the back of 67 trips paused last month. Metlink said service alerts on its website and app would list the suspensions. It said the number of trip suspensions announced yesterday was less than 1% of its regular schedule. Metlink’s general manager, Samantha Gain, said the company worked to make sure the network was adequately covered.