300 new bus drivers aimed at filling Auckland driver shortage

Auckland Transport hopes the recruitment of hundreds of new bus drivers over the next several months will bring the city's bus system back from the brink.

Ryan Carumba and Garry Ortiz, who moved to Auckland from the Philippines two months ago, are among the dozens of drivers preparing to hit the road in the coming weeks, and the hundreds being trained this year.

Carumba was a driver in the Philippines for six years, but he was still being trained to drive in New Zealand. 

"The training is hard," he said, "because we're driving on the opposite side of the road."

But, day by day, he was becoming just as confident on Auckland's roads as he had been at home, he said.

Bus drivers received multiple pay boosts over the past year, up to more than $27 per hour for drivers in Auckland. 

Read more on the issues facing the sector in RNZ's investigation 'Buses in Crisis:

• Bus drivers keep quitting even as conditions and pay slowly improve
• Revealed: Auckland's most cancelled bus routes
• The 'crisis' of our urban bus networks: Hundreds of services cancelled every day
   

Carumba said that was what had attracted him the most. 

"Number one is they have a good salary. Better in New Zealand than they have in the Philippines."

Ortiz said he had enjoyed his time in New Zealand so far and hoped he could bring his family over to live here one day.

Carumba and Ortiz had been learning from experienced drivers like John Harvey, who had been a working bus driver for 38 years.

"They're experienced bus drivers, but they've been used to driving on the right hand side of the road instead of the left," he said. 

"So we don't have to teach them to drive a bus, we simply have to teach them how to drive in New Zealand." 

He said New Zealand drivers behaved a bit differently. 

"It's getting them used to the driving culture, I guess you could many New Zealand drivers aren't as courteous as they could be."

Auckland Transport chief executive Dean Kimpton said the extra drivers would do wonders for the city's timetables.

"The fact that we are just on the cusp of getting back to a full cohort of bus drivers is a really important part of the solution," he said. 

"So we get them in, we'll have them trained. You'll see that around late September and to the balance of the year, and then we'll have our schedules restored."

Metro optimisation manager Richard Harrison said patronage was steadily improving and making its way back to pre-Covid-19 levels. 

"Patronage has recovered really well, we're still at around 80 percent of the 2019 level and it's holding stronger at that level," he said. 

"Getting new drivers into the workforce means that we can make services more reliable, and we know that's going to encourage people to use public transport."

Harrison said the new drivers would be essential to improving Auckland's bus service. 

"New drivers are the key to making services more reliable," he said. 

"The new drivers we're talking about today, the ones that are going into Ritchies, will be assigned to the NX1 services from next week, and that's going to start bringing the NX1 service closer to normal service."

Harvey said the time had come to hand the wheel to a new generation. 

"We tend to be slightly older," he said. "That's why these young guys coming on board are really, really welcome. Hopefully they'll continue to drive for us and for the public of Auckland for a considerable period of time, that's something I'm looking forward to."

He said he was impressed by the skill and work ethic of his trainees. 

"I'm at retirement, I'm actually past retirement age," he said. "I'll continue for a little while, but eventually I'll have to give it away."

Harvey said Auckland's commuters were in safe hands. 

"They're lovely drivers, they're keen to be here, and probably most importantly they're keen to provide a service to the public," he said.

"What more could you possibly ask?"