1 May 2018

Bus passengers on two popular bus routes can access free Wi-Fi from today.

Two bus passengers use their smart phone.

Bus passengers on two routes will soon be able to read the news, scroll through Facebook and send iMessages to their friends as part of a Wi-Fi trial on two routes.

Environment Canterbury (ECan) is offering free Wi-Fi on a three-month trial basis to all passengers on the 29 Airport-City and the 85 Rolleston-city routes.

“We’ve had a large number of requests asking us to introduce free Wi-Fi on buses so we thought we’d trial it for three months to see if people use it, how much they use it, and also figure out what the value would be to roll it out across the network if it proved successful,’’ says Stewart Gibbon, ECan's senior manager public transport.

“We’ve chosen to put it onto one of longer commuter routes, the 85, and the Airport, the 29, to target those who are heading to and from work, and the airport, respectively.

"Bus users on these routes will also be encouraged to fill in a survey about the Wi-Fi so we can find out what they think of it,’’ Mr Gibbon says.

The information gathered from the surveys will be shared with the Public Transport Joint Committee and used by ECan to help plan future onboard bus services.