Bay of Plenty Regional Council to determine fate of Tauranga's free school buses

Parent Lee-Anne Taylor (right), pictured last year with Aquinas College deputy principal Kurt Kennedy and students Sam Way and Ben Sokimi, says free school buses have been invaluable. Photo / File

The future of Tauranga's fare-free school buses, which have saved some families hundreds of dollars, will be decided today. Bay of Plenty Regional Council's Public Transport Committee will meet this morning to determine whether to extend the scheme, which has been overwhelmingly popular with local families.

In a report expected to be presented to the council, urban team leader Ruth Feist recommended the council consider extending the free buses for students into and for the duration of the 2021 school year.

Feist said the trial should be continued in alignment with the council's Long-term Plan 2021-2031 and funded through public transport targeted rates reserves.

In July last year, the regional council agreed to fund a year's trial of a citywide free school bus fare scheme for students travelling to and from school.

The decision, adopted into the regional council's Annual Plan 2019-2020, followed six months of a free school bus trial for Welcome Bay students. It also followed years of lobbying by parents.

On December 12, the regional council agreed to include the cost of continuing the trial until the end of the 2020 school year as part of the Annual Plan 2020-2021.

Feist said any financial risk of extending the fare-free school buses was mitigated by staff who had already found funding from reserves that would cover the additional cost.

"However, if the decision is not to extend these trials, then there is a risk that there will be a six-month period (January to end of June 2020) where fares are changed twice.

"This may cause confusion for customers and there will be significant practical difficulties for operators as they will likely be required to downscale and then upscale services in a short space of time."

Parent Lee-Anne Taylor said the buses saved some parents $1000 per year for two children and she often heard parents refer to how fantastic the service was.

"They are also instrumental in getting our children to use public transport and carry on into their adult lives to help with the traffic and infrastructure issues we have," she said.

Taylor, who is also head of the Aquinas College Parent-Teacher Association, said the fare-free buses were a great financial help, especially for marginalised families in Covid-19 times.

She hoped the council would vote to extend the service.

"You can see how much the school buses alleviate traffic congestion when the traffic flows so well in the school holidays," she said.

Figures collated by regional council show student travel on buses increased by about 75 per cent in February this year and 100 per cent in the first two weeks of March, compared with the same time periods in 2019.

However, the success of students using school buses was thwarted in late March with the arrival of Covid-19 restrictions.

In April, when children of people employed in essential service roles were the only children attending school and bus services were in place on a request basis, there were 72 boardings. This increased to 27,030 students catching the bus in May despite social distancing and bus capacity restrictions.

In June, school bus patronage returned to pre-Covid-19 numbers of 60,280 boardings - an increase of 30 per cent compared with June 2019.

The regional council also introduced more standalone school buses adding to a total of 57 buses providing services to Tauranga schools.