More than 5000 passengers have utilised the free Wi-Fi service being provided by Bay of Plenty Regional Council on buses in Rotorua and Tauranga in the last two months.
Six buses in each city have been part of a three-month trial, which finishes at the end of February.
At Friday's Public Transport Committee meeting councillors recommended to council to extend this trial until the end of June.
Public Transport Committee chairman Lyall Thurston says feedback from customers has been overwhelmingly positive, with over half the users saying free Wi-Fi would improve their journey.
'The majority of users were connected to the service for more than five minutes, with 30 per cent connected for more than 20 minutes,” he says.
'We found 70 per cent of users were aged under 30 years, with the majority using the Wi-Fi for leisure rather than work or study.”
A total of 2166 passengers accessed free Wi-Fi during their bus journey in December and over 3000 in January across the two cities. Nearly 25 per cent of Wi-Fi users have connected to the service more than once.
In addition to the twelve units on the Rotorua and Tauranga trial, two units are also being used on the Katikati and Te Puke services operated by Reesby Rotorua.
Wi-Fi access is limited to one device and 40MB per day (24 hours) for each device.
6 comments
how about...
Posted on 11-02-2018 13:25 | By Captain Sensible
Why not give every passenger a free ipad and a $50 voucher and see the numbers using these buses increase even more? It's only ratepayers money....plenty more where that came from!
That is great....
Posted on 11-02-2018 16:38 | By GreertonBoy
Everyone must be able to see what is happening on farce book or insta groan every second of the day.... otherwise they might feel left out or something nasty like that.... I mean, how bad would that be?[sarc]
What money
Posted on 11-02-2018 17:32 | By Sg1nz
Where does it say it costs the rate payer? Plus given the costs to expand the reading network (hundreds of millions), it would actually work out cheaper to give people a bike, iPad, phone, new kitchen on top of the wifi.
SORRY, NOTHING IS FREE !!
Posted on 11-02-2018 20:02 | By The Caveman
If the BOPRC is paying for this, then it is actually the BOPRC RATEPAYERS that are paying - and that it includes the TCC RATEPAYERS......................................
Is it food and beverage service next?
Posted on 12-02-2018 07:19 | By Murray.Guy
Is it food and beverage service next? ... At Friday's Public Transport Committee meeting Councillors recommended to council to extend this trial until the end of June. Public Transport Committee chairman Lyall Thurston says feedback from customers has been overwhelmingly positive, with over half the users saying free Wi-Fi would improve their journey ... SPARE US the the bollocks! Surely the BOPRC didn't need a 'trial OR extend it? If course it's popular, it is FREE to the user, as is the ride, at the expense of others. There is ONLY ONE MEASURE I am interested in, being, has it resulted in more bus passengers, reduced cars on the road, and does the cost / benefit stack up?
Oh this is funny
Posted on 12-02-2018 18:07 | By astex
Many of the people here complaining are the same people that complain about the traffic and the lack of numbers on public transport and then as soon as there is some initiative shown to attract more passengers what do they do???? Yep, complain again.
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