With bus drivers set to strike tomorrow and throwing travel for thousands into potential chaos it’s worth remembering that not all buses are affected. After my post was published yesterday AT published a list of all routes affected. You can see them here:

NZ Bus routes

School Buses

Howick & Eastern where some but not all services are affected.

Reader Stephen Davis has helpfully put together these maps showing the routes that will have services (green), the ones that don’t (red) and the ones with partial service (orange).

As you can see, a lot of Auckland is going to be affected. The areas that aren’t are mainly the North Shore (except for the East Coast bays), the Northwest, and the areas around Titirangi/Green Bay, with a few other pockets around.

Bus Strike 16.02.19 - Auckland

And some more detailed versions:

Bus Strike 16.02.19 - Isthmus

Bus Strike 16.02.19 - East

Bus Strike 16.02.19 - SouthWest

Bus Strike 16.02.19 - Papakura

Bus Strike 16.02.19 - West

Bus Strike 16.02.19 - Upper North Shore

Bus Strike 16.02.19 - Lower North Shore

Looking at these maps, one of the things that sticks out is just how much we need the New Network rolled out to simplify the route structure. There are quite a few places that look like they have service but actually don’t due to all of the overlapping patterns. Something that would be nearly impossible to display well on any sort of legible map.

Great work Stephen.

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29 comments

  1. Hi, maybe I am reading this wrong but it appears ( green line) that buses out West e.g. Te Atatu Peninsula are operating. According to AT’s website this is not correct

    1. Yeh the map shows where people may have alternative options. In areas that are green some services would still be cancelled, but people still have other options.

      1. I can imagine that single service from Te Atatu Peninsula to Henderson is going to be packed lol, thats if anyone realizes its running.

        Are there any plans to have other bus companies running some busy routes? Like last meeting/strike?

  2. The green routes don’t mean that every bus on that route is running, just that there are some buses. I’m currently removing some very infrequent services, night buses, school buses etc. that I missed.

    1. Might be good to include HC too, all their services are cancelled with exception of the NEX. I really don’t want to see the HC station carpark tomorrow…

      1. Yes, I’m removing the school bus services on HC (the only ones showing up green). Unfortunately AT’s GTFS data doesn’t seem to break down buses by school vs not-school, so I’ve had to do a bit of dirty hacking, and missed a few.

        1. For the record, I eliminated all buses with the complete word “School”, “Schools”, “Boys”, “Girls”, “College”, “Primary”, “Intermediate”, “High”, “Westlake” or “Grammar” in the title, plus a few more manually.

  3. The bus strike has been a PR disaster.

    Nobody seems to know exactly how services are going to be affected. For instance what does “limited service” mean? One in two buses? One in four buses? Which timetabled buses are going to be running?

    That a reader of Transport Blog has to go and do this to try and explain what’s happening says it all.

    1. Yup. Surely the first thing to do when the strike was announced was work on an alternate timetable (and alternative options) and get that out to the public well in advance.

      Will be interesting to see if most people just jump in their car and brave it.

    2. The other thing that causes confusion with the name “NZBus” is people think all bus services are not running. They often don’t know that NZBus and City/Inner/Outter Link, MetroLink, GoWest, WakaPacific and NorthStar are one in the same.

    3. Agree. Last time there was a big strike from memory they were all under the Stagecoach brand, which made it easier. This is something AT are going to have to allow for with a system of one brand and multiple companies. I’m hoping my train isn’t too packed tomorrow!

      1. I’m taking a bit of a detour tomorrow to drop my partner at a train station further from downtown, to give her a chance of a seat.
        I’m not looking forward to driving out to friends in Papakura tomorrow evening

  4. while you say ECB is affected, don’t forget Ritchies 880, 886 and 887, which will coonect a fir bit of the bays to a busway station

  5. Quite amusing that AT haven’t updated the JP (Journey Planner), you can just filter out the affected services in advanced search. Surprised AT hasn’t done this instead of just putting a stupid red banner. For the H&E perhaps a red banner with a link to the canceled services PDF would be OK, but the NZBus why not just filter them out rather than leaving it up the user…

  6. Also why do AT keep referring to the strikes as “industrial action”, why not use the term “strikes” which most kiwi’s would be able to immediately understand. I actually had to look it up last time. I previously disregarded it as something else.

  7. PTOM contracts are a hiding to no where. Worse conditions and pay for bus drivers in this day and age makes no sense. AT should man up and tell all operators the pay and conditions cannot change. I fully support the unions on this and I will walk to my office with a smile on my face knowing AT are fair and square to blame for that side of things.

    1. I disagrew with this. AT design and fund services: they’re not a bus company. This is solely between drivers and their employers. Of course if a companu consistently fails to deliver due to industrial action then AT may consider that as part of their contract performance assessment.

      1. Well if AT are encouraging companies to be so competitive that it affects their employees, then I see a problem. Perhaps AT should be defining a minimum standard of treatment and pay of drivers rather than leaving it up the companies who by nature are going to be as competitive as they can to try and win the contracts.

  8. AT micromanage everything way too much and then say ‘nothing to do with us’! It’s between employer and employees. The piss poor machinations of AT act as a catalyst for these situations to occur.

    1. Lots of people at my work took leave, worked from home or used alt travel (train, ferry, cycling or non-strike buses) due the scare. If it would of been a strike without notice then I imagine things would of been a lot worse.

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