Another milestone for Northern Busway

The Auckland Regional Transport Authority (ARTA) is pleased to announce that contracts for North Shore and Hibiscus Coast bus services, that will serve the Northern Busway, are now being awarded.

Following a comprehensive tender process in 2004, ARTA has today notified all preferred tenderers and looks forward to finalising contract details in the coming weeks.

"This is another important milestone in improving the region's rapid transit network and for the Northern Busway project," says ARTA CEO Alan Thompson.

"We received tenders from a number of bus operators and we believe that the successful bidders will provide a robust service for the North Shore," he says.

As a Northern Busway project partner, ARTA is committed to securing long-term and effective services for the Northern Busway and local feeder routes.

The new services will add approximately 475 trips a day to the North Shore's existing bus network, giving an increase of more than 25% in total services. The total North Shore network will include over 1200 local and loop services, and 945 daily trips across the Harbour Bridge.

"There are some areas, like Stanley Bay and Beach Haven, where we have made significant changes or discontinued services," says Mr Thompson.

"Our responsibility is to provide the best value services - based on cost, performance and public demand. This has required some rationalisation of the existing contract services but we are confident that the new services will meet the needs of North Shore bus users and fulfil ARTA's obligations to the Busway Project," he says.

Funding for these services has been approved by the Auckland Regional Council (ARC).

"This is the first major budget decision we have made with ARTA this year, and it is not a decision we have taken lightly," says ARC Chair Michael Lee.

"ARTA has carried out an extremely comprehensive tender evaluation and we support their proposed approach," says Cr Lee.

New services will begin on 3 July 2005.

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