Tauranga Bus Contract a disaster

A personal view from a sitting Regional Councillor.

An NZTA requirement of co-funding is that Bus Contract be for 9 years. In early December a new contract was let with the winning tender coming from Infratil's NZ Bus. NZ Bus has previously run the bus services for both Auckland and Wellington Councils.

What a disaster it is proving to be, with a shortage of bus drivers, and inadequate training, being only part of the problem. The Hopper Bus Service has been in trouble for at least 5 years. Patronage was growing at around 20% per annum from 2005 to 2010 (incidentally the time when I chaired our public Transport Committee at BOP Regional Council), and since 2013 it seems to have been consistently dropping.

Returning to BOPRC in November 2016, I warned staff and Councillors that the Bus Blueprint for change was flawed. The problem is that I got minimal support around the Council table, and staff never recognised my views.

The long and the short of it is that we have failed many (but not all) in our community, and we have to urgently address any shortfalls. NZ Bus also may have breached their contract (but that is for management - BOPRC staff, not Governance) and that could possibly give us leverage to alter the contract without penalty. Let's hope so.

Either way we need to revisit routes and timetables, as well as a total review of our reduced school bus services. We need to be customer centric. This has been a systemic failure, and is unlikely to be an easy fix. Our Tauranga BOPRC Councillors have taken ownership of the problem, and we have to get it right. Tauranga City is getting totally gridlocked, and it is worse during the school term. That tells me that the quickest fix is likely to be to focus closely on our school bus services. As I said - be customer focused...

BITCOIN PRICE PREDICTIONS: WILL THE CRYPTOCURRENCY RECOVER IN 2019?

Bitcoin prices currently sit at US$3,800 per coin. Bitcoin investors have seen billions of dollars wiped off this cryptocurrency’s total value over the past year - but some are hoping for a recovery of fortunes in 2019. Its rise since 1st January 2017 (then US$836) has been spectacular, and reaching an all-time high of US$19,127 in December 2017. Bitcoin began 2018 with a value of around US$17,500 per coin. However, by April the cryptocurrency has plummeted to around $6,800 and then continued falling to hit a low of $3,200 in December.

Several factors have been blamed for last year’s slump, which saw the total value of all bitcoins sinking from US$327bn to US$66bn - taking bitcoin from the size from the size of Exxon Mobil to about the size of FedEx. These factors include the announcement in September that investment giant Goldman Sachs was axing plans to launch a cryptocurrency trading desk. A hard fork in the bitcoin network - where the digital token splits to form two new currencies - then triggered mass sell-offs in November, says Forbes.

However, while the cryptocurrency market is currently in a “bearish” state, meaning more declines are predicted, some experts believe the cryptocurrency is set to claw back some of the value lost in 2018.

Sonny Singh, commercial head of bitcoin payment service BitPay, said that he believes the digital currency may bounce back to around $20,000 by the end of the year. But Calvin Ayre, founder of bitcoin spin-off bitcoin cash, suggests the cryptocurrency may “plummet to zero in 2019”. That isn’t to say that the cryptocurrency market will collapse in 2019, but that bitcoin will be superseded by a superior alternative, adds David Thomas, a director at London-based cryptocurrency broker GlobalBlock.

There is very little clarity for the future of Bitcoin. However, given the current global uncertainty, it would be a high-risk strategy to invest more into Bitcoin than you can afford to lose.

Light rail on tracks is so yesterday. Welcome to the brave new world of driverless vehicles

Current BOP Regional Councillor

Please note that views expressed in my column are my personal views and do not necessarily reflect Regional Council policy.

Trackless trams which run on virtual rail lines have been tested in China. Singapore and the United Kingdom Governments are very much on the front foot trying to plan for this. Political, legislative, regulatory and economic issues are going to be much more important than the technological issues.

Autonomous trackless trams will be operating commercially around the globe within the next year or so. Heavy rail will only make sense for heavy haulage, and even then, maybe not for that much longer. Building roads is infinitely cheaper than building (or replacing) rail lines. Driverless trucks and cars just require the ethical issues to be resolved. Autonomous vehicles are almost here as the norm – rather than just being trialled.

This will change the way we think about public transport (and private transport too). Tauranga has the opportunity to be a world leader in this. We need to rethink our Transport Blueprint to ensure that we capitalise on these exciting technologies.

If you have a view on these or any other local government issues, I invite you to email me at andrew@vond.co.nz , or visit www.vond.co.nz