Greater Wellington Regional Council: Rising costs trigger fare increases
10 June 2008
Increasing costs, in particular rising oil prices, are the key factor in Greater Wellington’s approval today of a 10% increase in revenue from public transport fares.
The revenue increase, provided for in the 2008/09 annual plan, will mean an increase in train and bus fares from 1 September.
Greater Wellington Chair, Fran Wilde, said the increase in fare revenue would not translate to an across the board fare increase. “Some fares may rise significantly more than 10% while others may not change. It’s necessary, for example, to retain the 50 cent increment on fares so staff on the trains and buses don’t have to carry large quantities of small change.”
She said today’s decision was a very difficult one to make in light of the general rising costs people faced. “However, given the dramatic increase in oil prices, I believe we are simply unable to do anything less than the proposal for next year.
“We are being burned by oil prices. They are the single biggest factor in our rates increase. If they go up further, we will need to run at a deficit and pick up the increase next year.”
Public transport passengers foot 50% of the cost of public transport and the balance is split between ratepayers and central government. Greater Wellington ratepayers paid $34.9 million for public transport last year; in the next financial year they will be paying $38.9m.
Fran Wilde said Greater Wellington was currently exploring, through discussions with the Ministry of Transport the possibility of increasing the central government public transport subsidy. This subsidy is called the Financial Assistance Rate (FAR). “We would like them to raise the subsidy from 50% to 60% for buses; it is already 60% for trains.”
Details of fare increases will be available at the end of this month.
Fran Wilde
Chair, Greater Wellington
Press Release
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