A new strategy from the Greater Wellington regional council is another step towards public control of the bus network.
It will be “back to the future”, said chairperson Daran Ponter. Some Wellingtonians would remember the “big red buses” run by Wellington City Transport, which were publicly owned until the 1990s.
Rather than the buses themselves, Greater Wellington would begin with control of depots and electric bus chargers. Those assets required scarce inner-city land, which the council did not want to see “swallowed up” by a bus company.
Under the current system operators like NZ Bus own the assets required for the network, including bus depots and buses themselves. If Greater Wellington chose another operator to run the buses, those operators were within their rights to “pick up everything and move on”, Ponter said.
The council could be left having to start all over again and invest in expensive infrastructure, like bus chargers. It could also prevent the council from meeting its target of having a completely electric bus fleet by 2027.
The paper to council recommended the best option was the council eventually owning both the fleet of buses and the bus depots, which would provide the “greatest value” in the long-term.
