The Bay of Plenty Regional Council isn't ruling out changing school bus routes as it looks to deal with passenger numbers on its Schoolhopper service sitting below the anticipated target.

This year council took over the city's school bus service after the Ministry of Education withdrew its funding for Tauranga's urban school bus routes.

Photo: File.

According to the MOE, up to 4500 Tauranga students are now travelling to school either via the Schoolhopper services or another means of transport – a figure down from 7400 when the Ministry provided school transport assistance.

In total, there are more than 23,000 students in the Tauranga region.

Council cannot provide figures for term one as the new ticketing machines are not installed in the buses at this time, but the opening week of term two saw 14,832 children use the Schoolhopper service.

And that's a number council's transport policy manager Garry Maloney is pleased with despite it sitting below the anticipated 3000 per day.

He expects to see the number rise in the coming weeks, crediting a number of issues in the first couple of days to the small number.

These include the delay in some trips caused by the crash on Takitimu Drive on April 20 when not all passengers were charged fares, two ticket machines failing in the first week and teacher-only days for Mount Maunganui College and Bethlehem College.

Garry says: 'We'll be keeping an eye on the figures as the term continues to see if there are any opportunities for improving the services we're currently providing, whether that be in extra stops or changes to the routes the buses travel on.

'We have had similar comments to term one from parents and schools in regards to requests for stops and suggestions for route changes. We'll continue to look at these as part of our usual work to ensure the network is running well.”

Garry says council is aware some of the students have moved to the Bayhopper network, which students can travel on for the same fare - $1.60 cash or $1.15 with a Smartride card.

Figures for the week March 23-27 show 7608 Schoolhopper passengers used the Bayhopper network, and for the first week of term two there were 8743 Schoolhopper passengers.

Once again, these figures may also be lower than usual due to the teacher-only days last week, adds Garry.

Since its introduction, the Schoolhopper has had a number of blights on its record with council dealing with a number of incidents where children have been left stranded on the road side.

In February the 411 service, which runs from Ohauiti and Welcome Bay to Otumoetai Intermediate and Otumoetai College, failed to show up at all.

'Miscommunication” between the bus company and its driver in relation to the route was attributed to the fault.

Then, just last week, a similar issue occurred with a bus running three-quarters-of-an-hour behind schedule.

But as students and drivers became familiar with the new system council has seen dramatic improvements to timings in the past week.

'While initially most routes were running behind schedule as students paid for their fares, either with their Smartride cards or cash, most routes are now running to schedule,” says Garry.

He says council is aware of some routes which had timing issues at the end of term one, and they have waited to see if the introduction of fares also affected the timings before making any changes.

Any announcements about changes to routes will be communicated to passengers, their schools and changes made to the website before they are implemented.

Otumoetai College senior administrator Iain McGregor says from the school's perspective, the new system is working well in what is a 'relatively smooth” transition from the MOE.

The school's biggest fear wasn't for the secondary students but the younger levels and how they would cope given the change.

But making the shift from a free service to having to pay will always be an issue for some, says Iain.

'The prices will always be an issue for some families,” he says. 'Over a period of time it does mount up.

'They [council] were very fair and gave all the kids a Smartride card with $10 to get them started. They have made a very good job of a very difficult and complex operation.”

Very few complaints have made it on to Iain's desk, but he hopes once the new ticketing machines are installed it will help get children on to buses faster.

'Every other city in New Zealand operates like this, so I just think it is part of Tauranga growing up,” he adds.

'After a year or two we will all wonder what the fuss was about.”