WESTERN PACIFIC NEW ZEALAND

摘要

ARTA says a lacklustre 0.4% increase in patronage for the six months to 31 December 2009 is almost entirely the fault of an industrial dispute between the Infratil subsidiary NZ Bus and the bus unions, which culminated in a lockout in October. That result will make ARTA's annual growth target of 4% hard to achieve, having stalled the momentum raised by a 7.7% increase in patronage to 58.6 million boardings of buses, trains andrnferries in the year to June 2009. In its half-year report to ARC, the authority recorded a 1.7% decline on bus services other than the Northern Express which was not involved in the dispute.