Bus & train fares increase from 1 September 2011

In order to meet increasing public transport costs, Greater Wellington Regional Council has agreed on a 3% increase in fare revenue from 1 September 2011. Some fares on buses and trains will be increased to provide this additional revenue.

Schedule of fares from 1 September 2011

Peter Glensor, Chair of Greater Wellington’s Economic Wellbeing Committee which oversees public transport, says the focus of this year’s fare increase is on multi-trip or stored value card (e.g. Snapper) fares. Approximately two thirds of all public transport trips are made with multi-trip tickets or cards. “These fares will increase generally by about 5 percent, which will give us an overall increase in revenue of about three percent.”

He said the Council decided a few years ago to try and increase different fares in different years to ensure the impact of fare increases was spread as fairly as possible. “Last year, for example, there were some quite substantial increases to single trip cash fares and for trips of more than 11 zones. This year there will be modest increases for multi-trip fares on trips of up to 10 zones.”

Some historic Johnsonville train fare anomalies will also be removed from 1 September. “There is no real rhyme or reason for these fares so from September all fares on the Johnsonville Line will be standard three-zone fares.”

Special stadium train fares will increase by $2 per round trip for adults and $1 for children.

Day Rover, Three Day Rover and Group Rover train fares and after midnight bus fares will not increase.

Cr Glensor said the surcharge on the Wairarapa train for passengers to/from Upper Hutt and Waterloo will be removed permanently. “This surcharge was removed temporarily earlier this year when we were experiencing serious overcrowding problems on the Hutt Valley Line. Clearly the change was well received and does not seem to have caused any problems for Wairarapa passengers so the surcharge will not be reinstated.”

He said fare increases were never welcomed by passengers but they were needed to meet ongoing and increasing costs of Wellington’s public transport network. “We know, and have had this stressed to us recently through submissions on the proposed annual plan, that one of the things people in the Wellington region want most of all is a high quality, modern and convenient public transport network. As a Council we are absolutely committed to providing this but for a relatively small population such as Wellington’s the costs are huge. We try, through regular fare increases, to share these costs as fairly as possible.”

He said the fare increase was also in line with the Council’s farebox recovery policy which aims to ensure that about half of the costs of public transport are met through fares. Council ratepayers and central government make up the other half. This policy is now being made compulsory by central government.