Regional Council chair thanks meeting attendees

Regional Council chair Chris Laidlaw has thanked the people who attended the meeting at St Patrick's College in Kilbirnie on Sunday afternoon to share their experiences of the new Wellington bus network.

About 300 people turned up at the meeting chaired by Rongotai MP Paul Eagle to express their views about how the new network is serving them.

Mr Laidlaw said it is becoming clearer every week about what isn't working, but improvements are being made at a steady rate.

"The problems that people are experiencing stem from a small number of basic issues. These include the difficulties we have experienced getting the right capacity buses to the right place at the right time. We have been working every day with the operators to achieve improvements in that area.

"And there have been problems with information technology from day one, with inaccurate information being displayed on the RTI screens. Again, we have staff working very hard on this, and we are achieving improvement day by day."

Mr Laidlaw said the meeting was a useful way of hearing directly from affected travellers about the issues they are experiencing.

"I understand that these changes have been difficult for people, and I appreciate their taking the time this afternoon to come and share their experiences so that we can better understand the impact that some of these issues are having on people's lives.

"This is the biggest thing that this council has probably ever taken on and we understand that it has caused real problems for some. I can assure them that we are sparing no effort to make the necessary improvements to deliver the bus service that Wellington public transport users expect and deserve."