Post Location: <span>Wellington Region</span>

Published 06 Sep 2020

Wellington City Cheated by GWRC run Public Transport

Wellington City has the worst PT services yet pays the highest fares and the highest Transport Rates.

* About 20 cents in every dollar of fare paid by Wellington City Bus riders actually goes to help fund poorly used bus services in the rest of region
* About 40 cents in every dollar paid by Wellington City, Lower Hutt City and Porirua city residential ratepayers goes to subsidise expensive rail and poorly used bus services in Upper Hutt, Kapiti and especially the Wairarapa
* In 2017/18, Wellington City ratepayers outside the CBD paid 20% of the region’s Transport Rates and this more than pays for Wellington City public transport (PT) services. … Read more ...

Public Transport

Bus Cost Bus Funding Fares Rail Cost Rail Funding Transport Tax

Published 23 Feb 2020

Estimating PT Revenue and Rates for Wellington Bus and Rail Services

The Greater Wellington Regional Council (GWRC) 2019/20 Annual Plan Public Transport (PT) collects revenue of $304.4M to fund the cost of providing the regions PT services.  The GWRC calculates Metlink funding by subtracting fare revenue from the cost of the service and then allocates government subsidies and other revenue (such as loans) against the cost of providing each line item of PT services and the final deficit being the amount to be funded through the GWRC Transport Rate as outlined below:

NOTE1: All figures in this analysis are to the nearest dollar. … Read more ...

Public Transport

Bus Funding Fares Rail Funding

Published 23 Feb 2020

Wellington City and Lower Hutt Cheated by Public Transport Rates

* Understanding the funding of bus and rail services is an essential part of understanding the value of spending $301M on bus and rail services to different parts of the Wellington Region

* Greater Wellington Regional Council (GWRC) collects about $70M in Transport Rates to help make up the difference between fares and bus/rail costs – but not all ratepayers are being charged equally.… Read more ...

Public Transport

Transport Tax Wellington Bus Wellington Rail

Published 23 Feb 2020

Rail Cost Allocation Modelling

Passenger Rail PT services are very expensive due to high capital costs.  But because so much of the capital infrastructure is shared across multiple services cost allocation is more difficult than bus services.

This does not mean that the rail costs cannot be estimated for different services sharing tracks, stations and network systems. … Read more ...

Public Transport

Rail Cost

Published 23 Feb 2020

Estimating the Costs of Wellington Bus and Rail Services

The Greater Wellington Regional Council (GWRC) 2019/20 Annual Plan Public Transport (PT) estimates it will cost $304M to provide Metlink PT services which are funded by fares, subsidies, loans and Transport Rates. This is a lot of money … in fact the GWRC spends more on providing public transport than all other activities combined. … Read more ...

Public Transport

Bus Cost Rail Cost

Published 17 Jul 2019

Wellington City Cheated by Public Transport Fares

* Wellington City Bus Users pay a much higher percentage of the cost of their bus service than the rest of the Greater Wellington Region
* This means Wellington City bus users are being overcharged by millions every year to support bus services in other cities
* Wellington City bus fares are too high and could be reduced by changing from 3 zones to 2 zones for the city

Wellington City has High Public Transport Fares

[Note: The information in this post is the basis for the DomPost story “Wellington City bus commuters ‘ripped off’ by new bus network and higher fares” also published today.]… Read more ...

Public Transport

Better Metlink Fares Review Fares Wellington Bus

Published 02 Jul 2018

GWRC quietly robs Wellington City Residents of Million$

  • The Greater Wellington Regional Council (GWRC) has finalised its Long Term Plan including key decisions on rates funding
  • Regional council final decisions on Transport Rates and rates funding for flood protection mean a multi-million dollar increase in their rates demand for Wellington City … Wellington City residents are worst hit
  • The GWRC will now increase the average Wellington City Household rates bill by over $200/year … and no-one noticed!
… Read more ...

Public Transport

Transport Tax

Published 12 Jun 2018

Winners and losers from the Change in the GWRC Transport Rate

  • The GWRC is changing how the Transport Rates that fund the regions PT service is allocated to ratepayers. They claim that this change means “Hutt Valley, South Wairarapa and Porirua pay a bit less toward public transport than they do now, while residents in Wellington city, Kāpiti and Masterton pay a bit more”.
… Read more ...

Public Transport

Transport Tax

Published 12 Jun 2018

GWRC 2018/19 Transport Rate (Changing Rates Allocation Model)

Public Transport

Transport Tax

Published 01 Jun 2018

Have PT costs really gone up to justify the July Fare Increase claimed by the GWRC ?

The Greater Wellington Regional Council (GWRC) claims Wellington public transport commuters needs a fare increase to fund cost increases.  So what happened to the many millions in cost savings they previously announced when they awarded the rail service to TransDev and most of the bus services to Transit ?… Read more ...

Public Transport

Fares