Frustrations with Otago Regional Council’s under-performing Queenstown bus service are shared by local-based ORC councillor, Alexa Forbes.
Blaming a driver shortage, ORC recently announced its reduced Queenstown timetable, implemented last July, is continuing till June.
Compounding this, Orbus operator Ritchies continues to cancel various runs, frequently and with little warning.
Local mayor Glyn Lewers last week blasted the regional council for maintaining its reduced timetable, especially as it didn’t discuss it with his council, which co-funds the bus service.
‘‘At present, Queenstown residences are paying the full rate demand for a service that cannot be met,’’ he wrote in his Mountain Scene column.
Forbes, a bus user herself and keen public and active transport advocate, agrees the situation’s ‘‘really bad’’.
‘‘It is a very difficult situation around the buses at the moment … it is very troubling.’’
She confirms the driver shortage is the problem, though that in turn’s been driven in part by the accommodation crisis, she says.
However, she’s ‘‘pretty’’ confident the revised deadline will be met.
‘‘Ritchies have told us they have the staff coming in from various parts of the world … and those people will be trained up and ready to go by June.’’
As for bus services continually being cancelled, due to driver unavailability, Forbes says ‘‘it’s unbelievably annoying and frustrating when a bus doesn’t turn up, and if you miss a flight because of that, even more so’’.
‘‘And of course it’s not taking us in the right direction where we need to go in terms of mode shift.
‘‘I know ORC isn’t paying for the bus services that don’t run, how that is calculated through to affect the [ORC] ratepayer directly, I don’t know.’’
Forbes says her property’s targeted rate for the service is $58 per year, which she says is ‘‘not a hell of a lot’’.
‘‘It may be we are prepared, as a community, to pay a lot more.’’
If there’s light at the end of the (bus) tunnel, she notes ORC now has for the first time a public and active transport committee, which met for the first time yesterday — she’s co-chair and directly responsible for Queenstown.
‘‘It gives us a governance foothold to actually make some governance decisions and changes which will be helpful.’’
Forbes adds the public will also be consulted on a ‘business case’ that’ll give people a say on bus and water ferry routes and schedules.
Meantime, she intends pushing for ‘real-time’ information on electronic billboards at bus and ferry stops to tell passengers exactly when their next bus or ferry’s due.
‘‘Of course it’s expensive … but I also think if people could see what they were getting, we could start to make a real difference.’’
Bus service loses popularity
Otago Regional Council’s released figures showing a major falloff in Queenstown bus patronage between 2019, the last pre-Covid year, and
last year, when the resort started shrugging off pandemic restrictions.
During 2019, monthly patronage ranged from, at lowest, 118,000 (May) to, at highest, 136,766 (July).
Patronage for each month last year was down on the equivalent month in 2019 — the worst month was March, which was only 40% the level it reached in March, 2019, and the best months were August and November, when patronage reached 78% of the same months in 2019.
Business during the first half of last year would have been affected by many events being postponed or cancelled, due to Covid crowd restrictions, and continued border closures.
Though visitors — and events — returned in the second half of last year, that’s also when ORC reduced its timetable.
