Darran Ponter: Greater Wellington Regional Council Chair says higher revenue targets will hike public transport fare prices

Public transport leaders say increasing fares is counter productive.  

NZTA's ordering councils take a higher revenue share from users and agree to new targets by December 19.  

As an example, the move would mean a Wellington commuter currently spending $10 on buses a day would have to spend $17. 

Greater Wellington Regional Council Chair Darran Ponter told Ryan Bridge the amount coming from users has slipped, but there needs to be a compromise.  

He says this has a lot to do with the Covid-19 period and operators trying to get people back onto buses.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Public transport prices could be on the rise and there's
a furious war of letters going on. NZTA has written
to councils saying basically, increase your revenue share from your
users so that we can support the record level of
public transport spending by the government. Greater Wellington says it
could see a seventy percent high can fear prices as

(00:22):
a result. The move has prompted all public transport authorities
aside from Aalkan Transport, to request a meeting with the
Transport Minister, Simeon Brown. Darren Pontes, the Greater Wellington Regional
cherries with me this morning, Darren, good morning. Really has
he written back? Is he going to have a meeting
with you guys?

Speaker 2 (00:40):
No, But we've talked and look, I think we both
agreed that the meeting is required. This as quite a
significant issue for New Zealand, for public transport users, for
any transport users that for that matter.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
Are you serious when you say, on average, if you're
paying ten dollars at the moment you'd per day for
public transport in Wellington, you would be paying seventeen from
next year if this goes through.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
We're only using in New Zealand Transport authorities figures to
come to that conclusion, correct.

Speaker 1 (01:14):
And that would need to happen next year.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
Well, they are saying, they're saying, for example, in the
Wellington region that they want us to move from twenty
point five percent fairbox recovery to thirty five percent of
fairbox recovery by twenty five twenty twenty twenty five, twenty
twenty six, So that starts on the first of July

(01:37):
next year.

Speaker 1 (01:38):
Right, So first of July next year, if you're paying
about ten bucks, you'll be having to pay seventeen unless
you can come to some kind of compromise.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
Correct, correct, Yeah, and look I think we will. There are,
as you probably are aware, ry, and there are many
moving parts in public transport. The Minister is effectively saying,
or that New Zealand Transport are effectively saying that the
amount that comes from the actual users has slipped over
the over the years. And that is true, and that

(02:08):
is true across the country and a large part of
the reason for that is the whole COVID period and
the fact that most public transport operators have been very
focused on getting people back onto buses.

Speaker 1 (02:23):
And so you don't want to hide fair. Yeah, you
want to keep the first as as possible.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
So what will be Why is product?

Speaker 1 (02:30):
Why is Wellington so high? Because you look at Auckland,
they're only required thirty percent I think next year thirty
four percent, the year after forty percent the year after that.
Why is your one seem to be so high? Are
you paying less? Are your users paying less? As a proportion?

Speaker 2 (02:46):
Historically we have been able to recover more from the
from the farebox. It's it's largely because we provide a
more intense public it's a more mature transport network RYAN
that has more reliable services, more frequent services, et cetera,

(03:07):
et cetera, and as a consequence, we are able to
extract a little bit more from the user. If you
go out into provincial areas, even historically, you'll find quite
a lot of areas that are only at about twenty percent,
seventeen percent some of them.

Speaker 1 (03:24):
Right, can't you just can't you just cut the services
that aren't that full.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
And we will and we will, we will look at
those services. All public transport providers will look at those services.
But the reality is that public transport is growing quite significantly.
We are on our bus network in Wellington. We are
getting close to one hundred and ten percent of where
we were prior to COVID, so we only need more services,

(03:51):
not less.

Speaker 1 (03:52):
Yeah well yeah, but but I mean someone's got to
pay for it, I guess, Darren is the point. We'd
love to hear how that meeting goes with the minister.
Do let us know Darren pons a the Great Wallington
Regional council Ship.

Speaker 2 (04:02):
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