‘Ghost buses’ haunting Auckland’s public transport system

‘Ghost buses’ are among the biggest issues with public transport, according to commuters on Auckland’s North Shore.

The public spoke out about their gripes at an open meeting in Mairangi Bay hosted by the East Coast Bays National MP, Erica Stanford.

One woman said her son’s bus is “not in existence” during school hours.

“It just does not turn up. It’s not on the [Auckland Transport] app saying it’s been cancelled – it’s like a ghost bus.”

A student said she was late to school about 3 times a week.

“Sometimes I will call mum, but she just can’t take us to school all the time because then she’ll be late to work.”

It isn’t just school students on the shore affected by the disappearing buses. One man said his bus into the city frequently vanishes.

“You check the app; it says there’s a bus coming at 6:40 am. So, I get there 5 minutes early and it just doesn’t show up.”

Another man shared his frustrations with AT’s app.

“It’s a little bit like playing the lotto.”

Auckland Transport metro services manager Darek Koper says the leading cause of the 'ghost buses’ is Aotearoa’s bus driver shortage.

“The best solution for us is to get more bus drivers as soon as possible.”

One member of the public disagreed with Koper’s solution.

“Start with your app. That would be most useful,” she said.

“The frustration is when [commuters] are at the bus stop and there’s no notification of when their buses aren’t coming… if they know in advance that their buses have been cancelled, they can make alternative arrangements.”

AT currently has over 800 vacancies for bus drivers around Auckland, and with one in three buses on the Shore without a driver, the impact has been felt community-wide.

In 2019, 1.26 per cent of bus services were cancelled. In 2022, this number increased to 8.6 per cent.

Stanford says Aotearoa’s difficult immigration processes are to blame for the bus driver shortage.

National’s Transport Spokesperson Simeon Brown says the transport networks need improved growth in both size and efficiency.

“It’s not just our bus network, it’s our ferries, trains, the Interislander, the airlines – they’re all facing the same issue… we need to continue to invest in better public transport, whether that’s new busways, helping to look at other options around public transport… but the number one priority has to be around reliability.”