Greater Christchurch’s bus woes are almost over, according to the regional council, which manages the Metro bus network.
Environment Canterbury (ECan) has declared an end to the bus driver shortage, announcing the last of its disrupted services would resume its regular schedule on July 3.
The Orbiter would return to running every 10 minutes between 8am and 6pm weekdays, instead of every 15 minutes, as it had been since December 2021.
Express services 1X, 5X and 95X are also back to normal after drivers had to pick up passengers from non-express stops.
Figures provided by ECan showed more than 15,000 bus trips were cancelled throughout greater Christchurch between October 2022 and January 2023 – an average of 127 a day.
ECan general manager public transport Stewart Gibbon said cancellations peaked in October 2022 when 4300 trips were cancelled in a single month.
Cancellations had dropped rapidly “over the last few months”, with no missed trips since mid-May, he said.
