Local Focus: Big shake-up for Hawke's Bay's public transport

No one is taking the bus, so Hawke's Bay Regional Council is shaking things up, trialling on-demand vans.

From June 7 Hastings passengers can order a van through an app or 0800 number.

The app will tell them when they'll be picked up and delivered, sharing a MyWay ride with others.

The large vans will operate in and around Hastings, replacing three bus routes passing through Camberley, Akina, Raureka, Parkvale, and Mahora - routes16A, 16B, and 17.

Hawke's Bay Regional Council Transport manager Katie Nimon said the new service would be available for longer than the buses, from 6am to 6pm, and people would likely receive three options for their trip.

"If you call up or if you use the app, you'll likely get a trip in 10 minutes, a trip in maybe 15 minutes, or a trip in 25 minutes," she said.

Hawke's Bay Regional Council Transport Committee Chair Martin Williams said a similar service was a hit in Timaru.

"You basically just pick out your phone, tap the app," he said.

"It registers your current location, you select a destination.

"It will tell you when the vehicle's going to arrive, but basically you watch and you can see when the minivan is coming.

"It will tell you it's two minutes away or one minute away, and you go and stand on the nearest corner.

"It is corner to corner, not door to door.

"But the way the algorithm works, you've got a maximum 15-minute wait and you're dropped off within 200m of where you want to go, whenever you want to go.

"It works brilliantly. I've tried it about five or six times and it was pretty seamless."

Large on-demand vans will be replacing buses in Hastings.

Van fares will be $2 a ride compared with the current $1 fare for buses.

Nimon said the on-demand van trial was costing the Regional Council double what the three buses cost, partly because it was a temporary add-on to the regular Regional Council service provided by Go Bus.

Nimon said children were welcome to use the service, a boon for those living outside school-enrolment zones.

"Kids are a vital part of our public transport network, so if they use the service to get to school that would be awesome.

"They might walk, they might bike, but we want to see a variety of people using the My Way service."

Williams said the council needed to "shake things up" and try something different because empty buses were not sustainable.

"We're going to do something quite radically different and we're confident that it will generate some quite different results around greater uptake.

If the trial is successful the new service will be rolled out to the rest of Hastings and Napier.

Because of Covid-related staffing issues, the Regional Council's bus service has been running a reduced service since February.

Normal service is due to return on Monday, May 23.