ORC Drops Ball On Buses

Otago Regional Council chief executive, Graeme Martin, says that Dunedin bus services were a hospital pass but it is more accurate to say that the ORC has dropped the ball. Expenses have been allowed to increase so much that fares now only cover 35% of costs, much less than the 50% required as a condition of Government subsidies. Cuts in bus services and more fare increases will be difficult to avoid.
There has been some increase in patronage , but most of this is due to older people traveling free with their Super-Gold cards (The Government pays their fares).
The Regional Council has not explained why costs have increased so much. Only a small part can be attributed to an increase in services. The main reason is probably new requirements for high-tech buses: "raising standards". But the end consequence may be to lose passengers because of the resulting higher fares.
The full Regional Council document can be found here

	Contract	Subsidy per	Patronage	Fare
	Costs ($)	passenger		revenue ($)
2001/02	932,533	$0.68	1,376,755	1,737,205
2002/03	866,492	$0.63	1,381,760	1,781,244
2003/04	901,937	$0.64	1,403,758	1,890,465
2004/05	1,055,725	$0.88	1,195,783	1,659,990
2005/06	1,931,483	$1.49	1,292,458	1,802,223
2006/07	2,154,129	$1.65	1,305,121	2,005,873
2007/08	3,113,891	$2.17	1,437,341	2,093,360
2008/09	4,823,951	$2.92	1,651,878	2,581,122