Review Of Regulation Of Commercial Urban Bus And

Abstract

In 1989 legislation was passed in New Zealand giving public transport service operators the right to register and operate commercial services and to deregister such services with 21 days’ notice. Regional councils have limited information on or control over these commercial services. The councils’ principal role is to plan public transport and to contract “specified” services that are not provided through commercial registrations. Among other things, the 1989 legislation was based on the principle that there should be competition within and between transport modes with minimal central and local government involvement and influence in the commercial environment, so as to promote the improved efficiency of the land transport system. Currently some 40% of bus patronage in New Zealand’s largest city, Auckland, is carried on commercial services. The figure for the capital city of Wellington is 21%. The New Zealand Transport Strategy set a new direction for transport in New Zealand, with a goal that by 2010 New Zealand will have an affordable, integrated, safe, responsive and sustainable transport system (Swain, 2002). The Land Transport Management Act 2003 provides the legislative framework to implement the strategy by enshrining the objectives sought for land transport (to be an integrated, safe, responsive and sustainable land transport system) in law. At Cabinet’s request, the Ministry of Transport, supported by Land Transport New Zealand, led a joint working group of central and local government officials and public transport operators in a review of legislative provisions regarding the control over commercial public transport services and their relationship with contracted services. The review considered information provided by consultants Booz Allen Hamilton on public transport trends and performance, and a financial analysis of bus operations in major New Zealand cities compared to Australian cities undertaken by LEK Consulting. The review drew upon this information to assess the performance of the current legislative regime in terms of the new broader goals for transport. The review included a public consultation phase. This paper describes the content and findings of the review.