An electric future for Tauranga buses

Kiwi Bus Builders managing director Richard Drummond and Design Engine Architects managing director Mark Wassung have designed smaller electric buses. Photo: John Borren/SunLive.

Two Tauranga men are on a mission to make bus travel more attractive while reducing carbon emissions.

Architect Mark Wassung and Kiwi Bus Builders managing director Richard Drummond have been working together for four years on 23-seater electric bus prototypes that they hope will be trialled in Tauranga.

Wassung told Local Democracy Reporting he was driven to take up the project after using a lot of the buses and bus routes in the city and speaking to drivers.

'It's come out of seeing what's out there and looking at how to do things smarter and differently,” he says.

'I think there's a place for a smaller bus.”

The fully electric buses could be built at Drummond's factory in Tauriko and would be smaller and lighter than the handful of electric buses the Bay of Plenty Regional Council currently has in its fleet.

Drummond says infrastructure would also be required to ensure the network was as efficient as possible and in service charging would reduce the size of the batteries required.

His company is currently building 31 electric buses for Wellington that only need a 120-kilowatt battery because of in-service charging.

'With an eight-minute charge they can run 20 hours a day,” he says.

Other electric buses require 400 kilowatt batteries.

Drummond says the buses would cost between $600,000 and $700,000 each so it has been difficult to get funding for a trial.

Members of the joint transport committee formed by the regional council and Tauranga City Council, have shown interest in the pair's ideas during their presentations, which is 'heartening” says Drummond.

'Our drive was to try and create vehicles that were more useful, more usable and people and would prefer to travel on them, which is basically the opposite of where we are now,” he says.

A render of the 23-seater electric buses. Photo: Design Engine Architects.

Both Drummond and Wassung agree the current bus system is underutilised and large buses often drive around with very few passengers on board.

Wassung says: 'It's no good having all these big yellow buses running around that are empty or there's two or three people in there.”

'They're not really consistently accessible [either], so some of them have platforms, some of them drop down. I'm suggesting here that the accessibility is really important.”

The 23-seater electric buses would have a different layout than current buses enabling better accessibility.

'What I brought to it as an architect is to treat it like the floor plan of a building,” says Wassung.

'You could modernise it and change it, so I suggested a more open floor plan to allow for mobility scooters, prams, surfboards, et cetera, so you have a less standardised approach than having bucket seats.”

Wassung has suggested colour coding the buses and routes to simplify the network and increase usability.

'All of our buses are yellow and one of the ideas that I'm suggesting is that we could colour code our loops or lines.

'So, for seniors and for kids, it'd be easier. It'd be easy to see all the red buses are Cameron Road, for example, and all the bus shelters and the buses would be red.”

The prefabricated bus shelters could be customised to include a toilet or coffee shop. Photo: Design Engine Architects.

Wassung also designed prefabricated solar bus shelters that could be customised to have a toilet, coffee shop or bike hub.

The multi-modal hubs would be built from aluminium and high impact acrylic and have proximity lighting and heaters.

He would like to see the shelters trialled at the same time as the bus prototypes.

'We're just trying to make the whole system more user friendly.”

Both Wassung and Drummond have put their own time and money into designing these projects.

The pair have also worked with Max Lewis, who provided the perspective of seniors' needs for the bus network.

'Three concerned residents that have different backgrounds have come together to put something to together that's innovative … fast, frequent, reliable, nimble, and accessible” says Wassung.

Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ On Air.

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7 comments

No thanks!

Posted on 15-07-2022 16:55 | By The Professor

Why on earth would we trial these buses in the Tauranga region when hardly anyone uses buses? And if these went beyond a trial, at $700k, they would never be paid off by passengers before the vehicles ended up on a scrap heap.....oh wait....the rate payer picks up the losses for public transport in our region. Oh well, sign the contract Trolley and crew.....commit the region to further debt.


Sensible ideas

Posted on 15-07-2022 18:40 | By Kancho

Like the idea of different colour buses as it's not easy know which bus until they are close and if it's sunny it makes makes numbers hard to see. Smaller buses makes some sense too. Guess we shall see. I try to use buses but so far it's not been a great experience. Changing buses especially in the winter just takes so much longer to get to the hospital. Last trip to the hospital was terrible as was a trip into town.


Good ideas

Posted on 15-07-2022 18:43 | By Kancho

Maybe too good for our current city transport staff and the commissioners . We shall see


Great idea

Posted on 15-07-2022 22:53 | By Johnney

But look at the cost. Just about double the price of a big bus, but half the size. I hope they do a cost/benefit analysis if they understand what that is.


Low hanging fruit PLEASE ...

Posted on 16-07-2022 09:33 | By Murray.Guy

$700,000 per bus for half the capacity at twice the cost. The business case is already looking shaky. More buses required to cover peak periods means more drivers. Will electric be the way of the future, or hydrogen (or other)? How about give me a few 'low cost' Park and Ride' facilities and I'll start using the bus occasionally, regardless of the colour, and whether or not the bus shelter has a café and toilets built in.


Maybe........

Posted on 16-07-2022 11:02 | By groutby

......if some funding for them is available for the initial trial, then demand may pick up throughout the country and allow manufacturing costs to be lowered (substantially hopefully). On the plus side at least smaller buses are being considered longer term as most have commented...


Bus sense.

Posted on 17-07-2022 20:11 | By morepork

If you have ever watched one of our current buffalo buses negotiating a roundabout, you will realize how ludicrous it is to run these monsters on the roads we have. Smaller is better, even if it costs more. If you want to see a test, check out Hong Kong. Some parts of the UK also have minibuses serving local communities. There are so many ways you can schedule these units (including customer request) that it is way beyond the old ideas we all grew up with. Within a decade they'll be driving themselves and summoning more units when they need to level loads. The ideas in the article are good for the moment, but there still needs to be incentive for people to use them.


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