Te Puke bus route reaches patronage milestone

File photo.

The figures don't lie - Te Puke residents have embraced recent changes to their bus service, says the Bay of Plenty Regional Council.

They've taken nearly 50 per cent more trips on the Bayhopper route during the past four months compared to the same time last year.

From March to June this year 8722 passenger trips were taken compared to 5,987 for the same period in 2018.

Patronage hit an all-time time high of 2634 trips in May this year.

Bay of Plenty Regional Council Public Transport Committee chairman Lyall Thurston says this is great news for the Bayhopper service and he's thrilled to see that the changes made recently to more frequent services have been embraced by the town's residents.

'The transport network in Western Bay of Plenty of Plenty has been under pressure for some time, due to increasing populations and growth, which has led to increased congestion on our roads.

'These passenger numbers reflect what the Western Bay Blueprint was designed to do which was to support Tauranga's needs as a modern city, both today and into the future."

The current service provides 14 return trips a day from Te Puke to Bayfair.

Over the last four months there have been over 500 more tertiary trips than the same time last year and nearly 1900 more adult trips.

A standard one way cash fare from Te Puke to Bayfair is $5.70 for an adult and $3.40 for a student, with a 20 per cent discount for using a Smartride Card.

Passengers can use their Te Puke to Bayfair ticket to transfer for free to any other Bayhopper service within Tauranga within one hour.

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1 comment

Nice work but at what cost

Posted on 18-07-2019 12:08 | By Neil Pollett

Thats a massive increase well done. However I question the logic in running large 40 seat diesel burning buses when much smaller vehicles would be both cheaper and easier on the atmosphere. If you do the math 8722 trips spread over 4 months and 28 trips a day thats 2.5 people on each bus. A mini bus would do the same job and help save costs and the planet


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