News

Time to pick routes!

11 October 2024

We've taken the feedback you gave us during Part 1 of our Moving Manawatū review of Manawatū District public transport, put it together with other data we have, and come up with proposed route options for services.

You can head here to learn more about those options (two new routes for Aorangi Feilding, anyone?) and do a survey to give us feedback on what we're proposed.


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How did Part 1 go?

Part 1 went extremely well. We got feedback from a range of people, both young and old from Aorangi Feilding and beyond. Select the titles below to learn more about what we heard.

Most drivers are awesome, friendly and patient. You also told us they were helpful, which we always like to hear.

This was a bit of a mixed bag. Some of you said the buses were mostly on time with reliable timetables. We did, however, hear that if a bus is late it can impact travel if you're transferring to another service.

While buses are clean and tidy, we did hear they could do with upgrading as they were a bit old and looked tired.

You also gave us feedback on operational things, such as timetables or how routes should run.

Many people said the current service was functional and worked. We got mixed feedback about if we should no longer offer the loop of Aorangi Feilding this service does before going to Papaioea Palmerston North. Some appreciated the speed this would give, but others liked the convenience of not having to get to a transfer point (e.g. Feilding Railway Station) to get the 311 out of town.

Aorangi Feilding is growing, with a lot more housing going into the north-east part of town. We heard we need to think about where housing is going so we can ensure people who move into those homes have public transport options.

We constantly heard there was a need to run services later in the evenings and more often on weekend days.

What now?

Once people take the chance to rank routes (you have until Friday 22 November 2024), we'll take that feedback and come up with final routes.

That doesn't mean we'll have new routes running by the end of 2024. We'll have to tender a contract to run the services, then give the operator who gets the contract time to hire the right number of drivers and buy any new buses they need. We'll also need to work with Manawatū District Council on any infrastructure needs (e.g. new bus stops and shelters).

At this stage, any network changes will likely take place in mid-2026. We will do plenty of promotion ahead of then to ensure you are kept in the loop.

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Connect - Horizons Regional Transport