Hamilton City

What you told us

• Frequency is valued, but coverage matters. Respondents support more frequent services like Comet, Orbiter, and Meteor, but raised concerns about losing direct routes and longer walking distances, especially for vulnerable users.
• School, hospital, and key destination access is critical. We received strong feedback to retain direct links to places like Waikato Hospital, University of Waikato, and Hamilton East schools, with concerns about safety and reliability at transfer points.
• Flexibility and integration are important. There was interest in on-demand services, better connections to trains and the airport, and clearer signage and real-time info to support transfers and accessibility.

How did community feedback shape the final decisions?

• The Hamilton Gardens (17) service will remain but as an express service.
• All Hamilton coverage (regular frequency) routes will have a 30-minute peak-time frequency and 60-minute off-peak frequency (note that it was proposed to be 60 minutes all day).
• All Hamilton routes will start around 6am rather than 7am as proposed to cater for early commuters and other users (note that timetables will vary slightly between routes).
• We will divert specific trips on the Dinsdale/Uni (3) service to the Frankton Train Station when the timing aligns with train services (all trips were proposed to go past the train station).

What’s coming

Short term

• We will introduce a new high-frequency service for Rototuna.
• We will upgrade the Orbiter, Comet and Meteor services to a more frequent schedule, which the new Rototuna service will also work to:
  • Weekday services run every 15 minutes from 7am to 7pm and every 30 minutes from 6am to 7am and 7pm to 11pm.
  • Weekend services run every 30 minutes before 7am, every 20 minutes from 7am to 7pm, and every 30 minutes from 7pm to 11pm.
• Simplified network:
  • We will retain the Hamilton Gardens (17) service as an express route via Hayes Paddock.
  • The Claudelands (14) and Rototuna (16) Rototuna Circular services will cease when the high-frequency Rototuna service begins.
  • We will combine the Pukete (1) and Te Rapa (18) services.
  • We will combine the Dinsdale (3) and University (13) services.
• Coverage services on all other routes will run:
  • On weekdays, every 30 minutes peak (6am to 9am, and 3pm to 6pm), and 60 minutes off peak (9am to 3pm and 6pm to 9pm)
  • On weekends, every 60 minutes (7am to 9pm).
• We are exploring on-demand services to fill coverage gaps in Hamilton. We are currently studying where and how on-demand transport could complement the 2028 fixed-route network. These services are expected to support more direct, frequent corridor-based routes by meeting localised and niche travel needs. We expect final recommendations by the end of the year.

Long term

• We plan to upgrade our rapid services, Comet, Meteor and Rototuna Frequent, to every 10 minutes from 6:30am to 7pm, and every 30 minutes from 6am to 6:30am and from 7pm to 10pm.
• We plan to introduce new high-frequency services: Northern Link and Southern Link.
• Most (but not all) coverage routes will increase frequency to 15 minutes from 6:30am to 7pm, and every 30 minutes from 6am to 6:30am and from 7pm to 10pm.
• The Orbiter would be removed and replaced with more direct services.
• We plan to add new destinations, extending to Peacocke and Hamilton Airport.

* Note: there may be slight variations to the route frequencies and/or operating hours. This information gives a general guide to how these services will look, but changes may occur on a route-by-route basis. The timings above are indicative frequencies and operating hours.*

View the full report for Hamilton City