IS GO BUS SET TO RETURN?

Australia's largest bus network Kinetic — which now owns Christchurch-based Go Bus — is in exclusive talks to buy Next Capital's urban bus line business NZ Bus, at a sale price is understood to be just north of $400m, the Australian Financial Review said.

The paper said the deal would entrench its position as the largest Australasian operator.

The 30-year-old NZ Bus is one of New Zealand's biggest bus operators with more than 700 buses across 13 depots. The company serves Auckland, Wellington and Tauranga, mostly operating on behalf of local governments.

Go Bus,which was sold by Ngai Tahu Holdings to Australia's Kinetic, currently has 29 depots throughout New Zealand, according to its website.

A deal on the sale of NZ Bus to Go Bus, would see the return of Go Bus to the ownerdhip of the Tauranga City Bus contract, which runs the Bay Hopper buses.

Report on $100m new Te Huia rail passenger service casts doubts on viability

Source: NZ Herald, 20 Feb 2022

Hamilton-Auckland passenger rail service Te Huia continues to use an "extravagant" amount of taxpayer funding to do the job and is not achieving any of the financial environmental goals it was intended to, says a new analysis. Hamilton-Auckland passenger rail service Te Huia continues to use an "extravagant" amount of taxpayer funding to do the job and is not achieving any of the financial environmental goals it was intended to, says a new analysis.

"Even when ignoring the $68.7m of capital expenditure to date, the project continues to use an excessive amount of government funding in order to carry out its operations, an extravagant amount when compared with the costs of alternative modes of transport." The service, which is being run by the Waikato Regional Council on a five-year trial, had a total subsidy budget for the next three years of $23.3m.

The report found commuter (during the week) trips averaged 30 passengers per journey for a 20% load factor. Weekend trips averaged 146 passengers per journey for a 74%

load factor.

A report commissioned by the Waikato Chamber of Commerce on the viability of the service, introduced last year with $85.8 million funding from NZ Transport Agency and $12.2m from Waikato local government, concludes if this year continues the trend of modest patronage, the project's future viability "should come up for extensive debate".

The study, by final year Waikato University school of management student and chamber intern Nicholas Farrell, found that per trip from Hamilton to Auckland, the cost of travelling by diesel vehicle was $48 compared to $294 on Te Huia - made up of a $12 fare and a $282 subsidy. (The $48 was before last month's fuel price hikes. The study used IRD figures for diesel cost given KiwiRail also uses diesel on the service.)

The report, which acknowledges that with Covid and stop-start operations, the service can argue it is still to get a fair opportunity to show its viability, said using current trends alone to analyse its financial and environmental performance "displays the clear fact that the service in its current form is not achieving any of the goals that it was intended to".

TRAINS A 20th CENTURY SOLUTION

Source: Sam Stubbs, Stuff, 4-Feb-2022

Sam Stubbs is chief executive of KiwiSaver fund Simplicity and a regular Stuff opinion contributor.

I totally agree with Sam's article in Stuff.

I continually hear advocates for returning rail as a primary method of commuter transport. Yes, trains do have a huge role in mass transit of commercial goods like containers and timber, but this country just doesn't have the population to justify the huge cost of fixed rail lines that rail requires.

We need to start thinking 21st Century, and look to technology to resolve our public transport issues. Yes, driverless vehicles are quite here yet, but within the next ten years they will be a reality. This is a solution worth waiting for.

However, we shouldn't think that we can be "the first mover". Uber tried that, and after investing US$2 billion, they have walked away from their driverless technology. We just need to be patient. It is coming, but let's be a fast adaptor, rather than a first mover.

In his article on Stuff Sam Stubbs said “The reality is, while our politicians and planners are wedded to the idea of trains, they are not the future of public transport. Globally, research and development are focused on electric and hydrogen cars and buses, electric bikes and new forms of air transport. Trains are a 20th-century solution for a 21st-century problem.”

And trains are very inflexible. Most people have to drive or cycle to a train station, and drive home. Trains work in dense environments where people can walk home, but that is not Auckland [and definitely not Tauranga]. By landmass, Auckland is one of the largest cities in the world and forever expanding outwards.

“As a KiwiSaver manager, nothing would please me more than to have more New Zealand-based infrastructure to invest in. Yet I fear we will be now be hobbling ourselves to a single massively expensive option, which is more a nod to a romantic past than a leap into the future,” Sam said.

“The future of public transport is probably going to be electric driverless vehicles that will pick you up at your door and drop you off at your destination. You’ll share them with half a dozen or more other people. It definitely isn’t going to be trains or trams.”