Chapter / Clause / Subclause – General 22 submitters - Waikato ...

Submission summary
however Saturday patronage is flat at 0%. Why is this?
Decision
Our experience is that we fail to provide a reliable timetable on Saturday, and
customer satisfaction is poor. The service needs more buses on a Saturday to
maintain a reliable timetable as outlined in the draft plan – a 35 minute headway.
Council would be wise to invest where the growth and gains are being made, and
to ensure strategies outlined through this plan, support the ability of operators to
provide a robust timetable that meets the needs of users. Our point here, is that
growth on The Orbiter, requires either Bus Priority measures or more resources.
Council cannot expect the same growth levels to continue, with ever increasing
transit times.
Submitter: 51 Livestock Improvement Corporation
Matter: PTP11-51.1
Summary: LIC and DairyNZ occupy the property on the corner of Ruakura and
Morrinsville Roads. Working hours are primarily between 8:00am and 4:30pm
and at present there is no bus service that passes close enough to the site for the
approximately 490 staff that work on the site to use.
We would like the council to consider extending the Hillcrest/gardens or Orbiter
bus routes to travel to Newstead to enable staff to reduce their reliance on private
transport to get to and from work. Although some staff work outside the regular
hours we are of the opinion that a 2 or 3 times a day service would suffice.
LIC have approx 370 permanent staff & 30+ seasonal workers from Sep-Dec
DairyNZ have 120 staff
A high level poll of LIC staff on our intranet has shown a good response with 68
people having indicated they would be interested in using the bus instead of
driving all the way out here. Other results included 67 people live out of town, 22
would consider it depending on costs and 24 work irregular hours.
Requirements - we propose the following, but are open to different options.
Accept in part.
Rerouting of any existing service cannot be considered currently, given the
distance involved and the current timetable of services. Moreover, a thorough
analysis of the most appropriate coverage route, which services can be
redeployed or re routed, the associated costs and funding plan for providing
these services needs to be completed prior to extending a route. Such
assessments are better carried out with a ‘whole of network’ approach so that an
optimised network is achieved.
The WRPTP also notes the challenge of constrained funding and competing
demands and clear indication from NZTA as to capped funding at current levels.
Given this, providing additional services will need to be prioritised on greatest
need at least in the short term.
However, Council is committed to growth of public transport and will explore
opportunities for service provision and new services. Service requests will be
considered annually as per action A5 in the WRPTP. An annual approach is
important to avoid a piecemeal approach to network changes which could
compromise network efficiency.
Amend Action A5 to read
“Council will assess suggestions and requests for new services or change to
services, and report any significant requests to council for a decision, as part of a
regular an annual service review process.”
Doc # 2072711 Page 150