MyWay taking to Hastings’ streets in June

Hasting’s innovative trial of a new public transport service, MyWay, hits the streets on 7 June this year to make it easier and more sustainable for the community to get around.

The Hawke’s Bay Regional Council is delivering MyWay with ease of use, accessibility and customer experience as its main focus.

Regional Councillor and Regional Transport Committee Chair Martin Williams says it is very exciting to finally be able bring this service to the Hastings community.

“This is a game changer for the delivery of public transport, where people make their own timetable for when they want to catch the bus, and where they want it to go. If the trial is successful and people ‘get on board’ with MyWay, we will ultimately be able to provide a more user friendly and accessible service for a wider range of people over the longer term and region,” says Councillor Williams.

The trial starts this year in Hastings and will be in Napier next year.

The MyWay service will replace routes 16A, 16B and 17 in urban Hastings, and operate Monday to Friday, 6am to 6pm. MyWay will use Ford Transit and Mercedes Sprinter vehicles to transport passengers. Customers can request a vehicle through the MyWay app, or by calling the Regional Council call centre.

Councillor Williams says getting more people out of cars in Hawke’s Bay through ‘mode shift’, is something the Regional Council takes seriously for a whole range of reasons, including environmental, access to better transport options for people, and health and wellbeing.

“We want more people using our buses, riding their bikes, or walking, particularly  to make shorter every day trips around town. MyWay is our first step on the journey, to change the way we think about and use public transport in Hawke’s Bay.”

Regional Council Group Manager Policy & Regulation Katrina Brunton says the new service improves the current offering of public transport by giving Hastings residents better connection to the people, places, and activities they love.

“We’ve worked hard to meet the needs of our local community and provide flexibility and connection across Hastings.”

“MyWay uses technology to match customers travelling in the same direction and works out a flexible route to pick you up and drop you off close to your destination. Using the app you can track the vehicle and get updates on when you’ll get to your destination.”

 “The fare for a trip to go anywhere in Hastings under the trial is $2. We’ve set up the system so you should not have to wait more than 25 minutes from booking your trip, and you will be picked up and dropped off within 200m of your travel source and destination.

 “Ahead of the service launching on June 7, we’re asking for people from across the community to trial the service for two weeks to iron out any issues and give us time to make changes before it opens to the public. This means you may see the buses driving round Hastings from 23 May.”

 To sign up to trial the service for free and get a $25 Bee Card top up, or for more information on the service head to mywayhb.nz

29 April 2022

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