NZ Bus is New Zealand's largest bus company, operating in

Auckland Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The most populous urban area in the country and the fifth largest city in Oceania, Auckland has an urban population of about I ...

Tauranga Tauranga () is a coastal city in the Bay of Plenty region and the fifth most populous city of New Zealand, with an urban population of , or roughly 3% of the national population. It was settled by Māori late in the 13th century, colonised by ...

and

Wellington Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by ...

. Formerly a subsidiary of

Stagecoach Group Stagecoach Group is a transport group based in Perth, Scotland. It operates buses, express coaches and a tram service in the United Kingdom. History Stagecoach was born out of deregulation of the British express coach market in the early ...

and later

Infratil Infratil Limited is a New Zealand-based infrastructure investment company. It owns renewable energy, digital infrastructure, airports, and healthcare assets with operations in New Zealand, Australia, Asia, the US and Europe. Infratil was founded ...

and Next Capital, it is now owned by

Kinetic Group Kinetic Group (formerly known as AATS Group) is an Australian-based multinational bus company that wholly owns a number of bus operations in Australia and New Zealand, including the SkyBus business, which operates bus services to a number of ...

History

In October 1992

Stagecoach A stagecoach is a four-wheeled public transport coach used to carry paying passengers and light packages on journeys long enough to need a change of horses. It is strongly sprung and generally drawn by four horses although some versions are dra ...

purchased Wellington City Transport (WCT), the largest bus-operator in

, from

Wellington City Council Wellington City Council is a territorial authority in New Zealand, governing the country's capital city Wellington, and ''de facto'' second-largest city (if the commonly considered parts of Wellington, the Upper Hutt, Porirua, Lower Hutt and ...

with 270 buses. WCT had recently purchased the

Hutt Valley The Hutt Valley (or 'The Hutt') is the large area of fairly flat land in the Hutt River valley in the Wellington region of New Zealand. Like the river that flows through it, it takes its name from Sir William Hutt, a director of the New Zeala ...

and north Wellington suburban bus operations of

New Zealand Railways Road Services The New Zealand Railways Road Services (NZRRS) was a branch of the New Zealand Railways Department and later the New Zealand Railways Corporation. It operated long-distance, tourist and suburban bus services and freight trucking and parcel ser ...

, then branded ''CityLine''. Stagecoach expanded its Auckland operations in 1998 by purchasing Transportation Auckland Corporation (trading as The Yellow Bus Company) from the

Auckland Regional Council The Auckland Regional Council (ARC) was the regional council (one of the former local government authorities) of the Auckland Region. Its predecessor the Auckland Regional Authority (ARA) was formed in 1963 and became the ARC in 1989. The ARC ...

with 538 buses. in November 2005

purchased the business. As part of the deal, Infratil had the right to use the "Stagecoach" name and livery for five years from the sale. In January 2008 the company bought Whangarei school and charter business Adams Travelines (later rebranded as NorthBus), which has since won the tender to provide the urban bus service for Whangarei as Citylink Whangarei, using super-low-floor buses. In May 2013 NorthBus was sold to

Ritchies Transport __NOTOC__ Ritchies Transport is a New Zealand private bus operator, owned by KKR. It was established in 1972 and describes itself as "the largest privately owned bus and coach transport operator in New Zealand" with a fleet of over 1500 vehicles sp ...

. In April 2016 NZ Bus announced that it would repower several buses with

Wrightspeed Revo Powertrains is an electric vehicle powertrain company based in Alameda, California founded by Tesla co-founder Ian Wright. The name Revo Powertrains is a Fictitious Business Name filed with Alameda County, California by Wrightspeed, Inc. (a ...

gas-turbine

hybrid powertrain Hybrid vehicle drivetrains transmit power to the driving wheels for hybrid vehicles. A hybrid vehicle has multiple forms of motive power. Hybrids come in many configurations. For example, a hybrid may receive its energy by burning gasoline, but sw ...

s. In February 2017 NZ Bus announced it would begin the trial of a

BYD K9 The BYD K-series bus (sometimes just referred to as the BYD ebus or BYD electric bus) are a line of battery electric buses manufactured by the Chinese automaker BYD, powered with its self-developed lithium iron phosphate battery, featuring a ty ...

electric bus in Auckland and Wellington. In 2018 NZ Bus planned to reduce the size of its Wellington operations from 73% to 28% of the city's bus routes following a re-tender; many bus-route services passed to Tranzit Group. In September 2019, Infratil sold NZ Bus to Australian equity buyers Next Capital for A$218–240 million, including a vendor loan of A$20–30 million. At the time of the sale, NZ Bus operated 720 buses and had 1,400 staff. In March 2022, the business was purchased by the

Company rebranding

From late 2015, plans called for all buses operated by NZ Bus in Auckland to gradually begin to appear in

AT Metro AT Metro is the public transport brand in Auckland, New Zealand, managed by Auckland Transport. It was launched in December 2014, following the decommissioning of the MAXX brand with updated bus and train liveries, staff uniforms, wayfinding sig ...

colours as part of Auckland Transport's initiative to create one brand for the Auckland transport network. Link services continued to operate in their red, green and orange branding. Similarly, Wellington buses operated under contract to the regional council are now branded in Metlink livery, rather than in GO Wellington or Valley Flyer livery.

Smart card ticketing

On 20 April 2008 NZ Bus confirmed that it would start using a new ticketing system to make bus travel quicker, easier and simpler for passengers in Wellington. The new system, called Snapper, builds on

RFID Radio-frequency identification (RFID) uses electromagnetic fields to automatically identify and track tags attached to objects. An RFID system consists of a tiny radio transponder, a radio receiver and transmitter. When triggered by an electromag ...

technology embedded in cards or in portable devices such as USB sticks. Use of the system started on 4 April 2008, being piloted on

Go Wellington GO Wellington was the brand name of Wellington City Transport Ltd, the Wellington subsidiary of NZ Bus, in New Zealand. The company was branded ''Stagecoach Wellington'' by its previous owner, the Stagecoach Group. The current name and a new live ...

bus route 17 over the following two months. The supplier of the technology is Korea Smart Card (established in 2003), a joint venture between Seoul Metropolitan Government and LG Group, which has introduced T-money to six major cities in Korea. NZ Bus fitted out its Auckland fleet with Snapper-capable equipment in 2011, despite losing a contract to provide

smart-card A smart card, chip card, or integrated circuit card (ICC or IC card) is a physical electronic authentication device, used to control access to a resource. It is typically a plastic credit card-sized card with an embedded integrated circuit (IC) c ...

ticketing to all public transport services in the Auckland Region. NZ Bus went ahead with their Snapper roll-out in Auckland despite no other public transport providers signing up for it.

Auckland Transport Auckland Transport (AT) is the council-controlled organisation (CCO) of Auckland Council responsible for transport projects and services. It was established by section 38 of the Local Government (Auckland Council) Act 2009, and operates under ...

rolled out their own smart-card ticketing system, the

AT HOP card The AT HOP card is an electronic fare payment card that was released in two versions on Auckland public transport services, beginning in May 2011. The smart card roll out was the first phase in the introduction of an integrated ticketing and f ...

. All public transport operators in Auckland, including NZ Bus, were required by law to accept smart cards issued by Auckland Transport. NZ Bus suggested that their Snapper system would be able to accommodate Auckland Transport's smart cards. As of September 2017, the use of Snapper has been completely phased out in Auckland. In Wellington and Whangarei, Snapper cards can still be used by NZ Bus customers; Snapper is the interim region-wide bus ticketing system for the Metlink network in Wellington.

References

External links

Company websiteSnapper ticketing system
{{StagecoachGroup Bus companies of New Zealand Companies based in Wellington Kinetic Group companies Stagecoach Group Transport companies established in 1992 New Zealand companies established in 1992