The Campaign For Better Transport

Katie from NZ Bus has responded to my complaint about overloading on the 005 in the morning:

RE CASE 2011/01820

Thank you for your feedback regarding the recent heavy loading issues experienced by the 7.57am 005 service.

The Metrolink team have now addressed this issue by assigning a larger 3 axle bus to this duty and will continue to monitor the passenger loading on this service.

Please accept our apologies for an inconvenience and thank you for bringing this to our attention.

Nice one, NZ Bus… hopefully Auckland Transport will be able to come up with a plan to have at least one additional service between 7:57 and 8:37

I’m not sure if having a blog helps or not, but I got a response to my request for improvements to the 005 this after noon from “Feedback Co-ordinator” at the Maxx Contact Centre.  He / she writes:

Thank you for your feedback regarding the 005 Metrolink service.

With regards to having a larger vehicle for the 7:57am 005 Metrolink service, I have processed your feedback as a formal suggestion to NZ Bus on your behalf, as they are responsible for the vehicles used to operate the 005 service and will respond to you directly.

Their email address is

The reference number for your suggestion to NZ Bus is 2011/01820.

With regards to having an additional 005 service between 7:57am and 8:37am from Westmere, I have processed your feedback as a separate suggestion to the Public Transport Operations unit at Auckland Transport, as they are responsible for bus network planning in the Auckland region and will respond to you directly.

The reference number for your suggestion to Auckland Transport is 2011/01956.

If you have any feedback or enquiries in the future, please do not hesitate to contact us again.

You can also speak to a Maxx Customer Service Representative, 6am-9pm Monday to Friday, 7am-8pm Saturday and 8am-6:30pm on Sundays and public holidays; phone (09) 366 6400 or call free on 0800 10 30 80 from Franklin and Rodney District. Alternatively, you can email us at .

Regards,

Feedback Co-ordinator

Maxx Contact Centre

So far so good. I’ll keep you posted on the responses from NZ Bus and Auckland Transport respectively.

I’ve submitted the following via the feedback page of the maxx website.

Could we please have a bigger bus for the 005 7:57 service on weekday mornings.  Tuesdays service was a full standing load (only an 1800 series bus was provided) and the St Marys and Ponsonby Intermediate school kids aren’t even back until tomorrow (Thursday).

There also needs to be an additional 005 service from Westmere in the mornings.  Current services depart 7:57 and 8:37 – this gap is too large. Perhaps extending the current 8:10 or 8:25 004 services to originate from Westmere instead of the Herne Bay terminus would help here.

It took a week for the last feedback I gave via the website to be acknowledged, lets hope we get some faster feedback this time. Incidentally, even though I haven’t had it confirmed at all via the feedback process, I rode on bus 1801 yesterday and it looks to be producing far less emissions than shown in this video here.

Josh Arbury also has a request in to reroute the 005 in the evenings to go via the Albert St bus lanes rather than Hobson St. Let’s hope we see some progress on that one too.