Bikes on Buses Feedback

Article Updated on 15 May 2008 

Thank you for your survey responses. Following the article in the March newsletter, we've had 24 responses. The detailed survey responses are available in the two attachments, but here are a few highlights:

• People find the bike racks easy to use.
• It's been commented on how helpful most drivers are.
• The bikes are quick to load ("Faster than helpful bus drivers can come off the bus and try to help me" was one of the responses).
• People love the system.
• The problem is that it doesn't cover all the services. On most services, the bikes racks are on occasional buses only. Most services don't offer the racks yet.
• There is a unanimous call for the trial to be expended onto other routes.

So in summary, the cycling community appears to be embracing the system, and is eager for it to be rolled out system-wide.

I have also received the following feedback via e-mail:

The racks are great, we reckon based on observation that one in three
drivers does not record on the drivers data sheet the presence of a bike. Also
there is often more bikes than rack space so we have to talk the driver into
letting us on the bus with the extra bikes. They are not supposed to do this
but fortunately mostly they allow the extras on. So the data will be under
reporting by between 20 - 40%.

The under capacity is no surprise, as the ECan survey done several years
ago (before Global warming awareness and gas price increases) showed, I think
80 people who would like to cycle commute. On that basis we would need 40 bus
trips through the tunnel during the rush hours. If all Lyttelton buses where
fitted with racks we would have capacity for 20 bikes between 7.00 and 8.30am.
So we would meet approx 25% of demand.

The original post on this page read:

Have you used the bike racks on some of the (Metro) city buses that are circulating in Christchurch, for example on the service going through the Lyttelton tunnel? If so, we are interested in your feedback. Please click on this link to take the survey [survey now closed - editor]. If you just answer the multiple choice questions and don't provide any other written feedback, it will take you between 1 and 2 minutes only!

If you wish, you could in addition leave some comments on this page. Get yourself an account on our website and you can leave comments with most articles, for example this one.

Please find more details about this trial on the Metroinfo website.