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Bus passengers have described nightmare journeys as rising fuel prices spark cramped conditions. Many complained of overcrowding, with some and standing for an hour in each direction.
At least one company has reached capacity on several routes, but there are no firm plans to increase services.
Auckland Regional Council (ARC) chairman Mike Lee criticised the lack of action and said operators got huge public subsidies but failed to deliver.
Latest Auckland Regional Transport Authority (ARTA) figures show bus patronage rose by almost 2 per cent this year.
That's helped overall public transport use to surge to its highest level since 1989, with almost 55 million journeys in the year to May.
Director of West Auckland-based Ritchies Andrew Ritchie said his company had seen an 8 to 9 per cent increase in passengers.
But standing passengers did not mean buses were overcrowded because his fleet was legally allowed 32 people on their feet.
"When 10 people are standing people often think you're loaded but 99.99 per cent of the time they're not."
Howick & Eastern Buses chief executive Bill Dalbeth said his East Auckland-based company may extend the Botany to Britomart service to every 10 minutes at peak times to cope with a 6 per cent increase in growth.
Jonathan Knox of New Zealand Bus, which runs Stagecoach, said the company had increased capacity on several routes.
The number of passengers from Auckland's Western Bays has jumped by up to 30 per cent.
Passengers on Mt Eden Rd buses are up 17 per cent, and on Orakeiservices, which cover the Sylvia Park shopping complex, by 20 per cent.
The biggest increase is from the North Shore's Albany to the Auckland CBD, with patronage up by 78 per cent since May last year.
The increases aren't confined to Auckland alone.
Latest figures for Hamilton show passenger trips in May were up 9 per cent on the corresponding month last year, from 268,177 to 292,000.
Environment Waikato launched three new services last Monday to counter the growth, with free travel for the first week.
Plans for increased services in Auckland have yet to be confirmed, and ARC's Mike Lee said that it wasn't good enough.
His council will this year spend $51.4m of ratepayers' money on bus subsidies, while the total amount of public money spent on Auckland's bus, train and ferry services is more than three times that.
"There's a large amount of public money sloshing around out there. In my view the bus companies are failing to deliver," said Lee.
"I cannot put my hand on my heart and tell the Auckland people they are getting value for money."
Lee said the situation was compounded by the difficulty the ARC has getting information out of the bus companies and said there was a "large suspicion" they were trying to compete with rail services.
Campaign for Better Transport convenor Cameron Pitcher said he feared the situation would get worse before it gets better.
"We will be looking at petrol at $3 a litre and it's a real concern that we don't have public transport to cope with that."
ARC councillor Christine Rose has seen the increase in demand first hand on her hour-long daily commute on a Ritchies bus.
"You end up with people having to stand for a very long journey."
Rose, chairwoman of the ARC's transport and urban development committee, said the city was seeing a renaissance in public transport.
She hoped a review of West Auckland bus services due next month would lead to improvements but in the meantime told commuters they had to persevere.
ARTA did not respond to Herald on Sunday requests for comment.
