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Auckland Transport changed the timetable of the Kowhai Connection in May and started using a bigger bus, but passenger numbers continue to decline.
The Kowhai Connection bus service is in trouble.Passenger numbers on the Warkworth based service have halved over the past year. Transport campaigner Bevan Woodward, who was instrumental in establishing the service in 2013, says changes to the timetable earlier this year are to blame.
“I’m really disappointed,” Mr Woodward says. “Passenger numbers were increasing and things were looking good. Now it’s unusable for a lot people. It’s a disaster.”
Monthly passenger numbers have been steadily declining since reaching a peak of 1589 in September last year to 794 last month – the third lowest since the service started in March 2013.
The Kowhai Connection initially had an on-call service for passengers in Whangateau, Omaha and Point Wells, but in May, Auckland Transport (AT) ended the on-call service and started an expanded fixed route to include the towns.
This has drastically increased travel times for some passengers – the trip from Point Wells to Warkworth can take over an hour in the new schedule, compared with 15 minutes by car.
“We know a fixed route doesn’t work in rural areas where populations are small and spread out,” Mr Woodward says.
“We tried to offer a balance of a fixed route and an on-call service for towns further afield. Now the bus drives to Omaha, Point Wells and Whangateau even when there are no passengers. It’s incredibly inefficient and it has lost the service a lot of customers.”
There has also been no marketing or promotion of the service for the past year.
“There needs to be a local person managing and promoting the service.”
Snells Beach resident Martin Tomars, who recently moved to the area, has been using the bus service to get home from work in Warkworth. He says the bus is usually nearly empty and the service would be improved if the timetable had a commuter focus and had more pick-up points.
“There’s only one pick-up point in each town and Snells Beach is so spread out it’s a 30 minute walk to the bus stop in the morning,” Mr Tomars says. “It would be great if they put on an extra bus in the morning to offer more times for commuters. At the moment, the only buses to Warkworth arrive at 7.50am and 9.50am.”
AT media relations manager Mark Hannan says AT is committed to the Kowhai Connection and will be marketing it over the summer to grow passenger numbers.
The new timetable has had an impact on passenger numbers, but the on-call system was inefficient, he says.
“The original scheme gave people a taxi-like service for almost no cost, so removing this has had an impact on patronage. The new timetable is more efficient and predictable.”
An AT survey conducted last year found 22 per cent of the nearly 400 respondents used the Kowhai Connection.
The main reason selected for not using the service was that it doesn’t serve the destinations respondents wished to get to (23 per cent). About 32 per cent of respondents selected ‘other’ and gave their own reason for not using the service. Of these, 75 people said the main reason they didn’t use the Kowhai Connection was they chose to drive instead.
