Date: 16 July 2026
There’s been an enormous increase in the number of Aucklanders travelling on buses throughout the city, with a 14% jump in June when compared to the same month last year.
Auckland Transport (AT) recorded a total number of 6.3 million bus trips in June, which is the highest June on record.
AT Group Manager of Public Transport Rachel Cara says a couple of key factors are behind the big bump in bus users.
“We’ve had some fantastic winter weather so far, and we know this make a big difference for people deciding to use the bus.
“We also know that Auckland’s tertiary students are getting on buses in record numbers, with a 46.5% increase last month compared to June last year. We increased our tertiary student discount from 20% to 40% in December last year, and this has really encouraged students to travel to class by bus.”
Since the 40% concession was introduced, 4.5 million tertiary student bus trips have been recorded, bringing a saving of $4.6m to over 30,000 students. This represents $9.1m in total discounts compared with the adult fare over the same period.
“The huge increase in tertiary student bus boardings has offset the additional discount AT is providing,” Ms Cara says.
“While the 14% increase last month was across the entire bus network, our frequent bus services were particularly busy. These services move tens of thousands of Aucklanders to work and back safely every day, and many of our passengers take advantage of our $50 weekly fare cap.”
Weekend bus travel, frequent services and cycling proving popular
And it wasn’t just weekday commuters driving the recent increase, with weekend bus services also experiencing strong growth, recording a 14% increase in the weekend daily average patronage in June compared with the same month last year.
This weekend growth was particularly strong among tertiary students (+48.9%), secondary students (+25.4%), Community Connect users (+20.5%), and SuperGold customers (+17.4%), indicating increased weekend travel across a broad range of Aucklanders.
Adult patronage on weekends also remained strong, increasing by 7.9%, reinforcing the growing popularity of bus services for both leisure and essential trips on weekends.
“We now have 45 Frequent Transit Network (FTN) bus routes throughout Auckland, which we’ve boasted significantly in the last few years,” Ms Cara says.
“These are routes that run at least every 15 minutes, 7am-7pm, 7 days a week. Since June 2025 we have added 5 more of these FTN routes, taking us to 45 in total. Just 10 years ago we only had 7!
“In fact, half of all Aucklanders are now within a ten-minute walk of a frequent bus service from their doorstep, so it’s never been easier to get on board a bus and get to where you want to go.
“It’s now fair to say we have the most extensive bus network of any major city in Australasia, which really shows its recent growth,” she says.
Cycling also continued to boom last month, with an 18% increase in recorded cycling trips in June this year to June 2025. Year on year growth for cycling trips is also high at 4.7%.
AT now operates over 400 electric buses across the city, as part of our Mission Electric plan to reduce emissions in our public transport fleet. By 2035, our entire bus fleet will be fully electric.
The first of our electric hybrid ferries entered service on the Devonport to Downtown route last month, while two fully electric ferries, and another electric hybrid ferry are currently undergoing sea trials and are expected to begin service later this year.
-ENDS-