Aucklanders will be shocked to learn that more than 269,000 bus services have been cancelled in the first nine months of this year, National’s Transport spokesperson Simeon Brown says.

“This amounts to the cancellation of 8.6 per cent of Auckland's public transport bus services this year. This is a significant increase from previous years, which data showing that 0.57 per cent were cancelled in 2021, 0.67 per cent were cancelled in 2020, and 1.26 per cent were cancelled in 2019.

“Every cancelled bus service could mean that someone is late for work or misses an appointment which is stressful and undermines their faith in public transport. People start to believe that they must drive a car if they need to be somewhere on time.

“While Labour talks big about public transport, their track record is a system that doesn’t have enough drivers, hundreds of thousands of cancelled bus services, and a rail rebuild, leading to even more commuter chaos in Auckland.

“All this will happen while Labour continues wasting tens of millions on light rail working groups which are going nowhere.

“Labour needs to ditch their failed light rail project and focus on getting the basics of public transport right, while also listening to Auckland Council and Auckland Transport’s pleas for immigration policies which could allow for more bus drivers to come into New Zealand and fix the desperate driver shortage.

“The Government needs to be focussed on ensuring that public transport is reliable so that people trust it and will use it. Instead, Labour continues to forge ahead with its $29.2 billion light rail vanity project, which few Aucklanders actually want.”

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