Off-peak buses to stop as drivers consider pay offer

Auckland bus services will stop today between 10am and 2pm while drivers and cleaners attend a stop work meeting to consider a revised pay offer.

NZ Bus, which runs 70 per cent of the services and carries 70,000 passengers a day, has lifted the notice of indefinite lockout to staff and amended its offer after mediation.

Unions have withdrawn their notice of strike action for 900 drivers and cleaners in the dispute.

The Auckland Regional Transport Authority said no replacement for main services would be provided to ease disruption on NZ Bus routes as had been done during previous stopwork meetings.

The authority's general manager, Mark Lambert, said this was because the meeting would be in off-peak time and would last only a few hours.

"It is not practical for other bus operators to cover one-off short service disruption," he said.

Metrolink, North Star, Go West, Waka Pacific, Link and City Circuit buses will not run between 10am and 1.30am but NZ Bus advised passengers to prepare for a 2pm resumption "to be on the safe side".

All rail, ferry and other bus services would run as normal, and extra capacity would be provided on trains.

NZ Bus said school bus services would not be affected.

Contact MAXX on maxx.co.nz or call 3666-400 with queries.