Hawke’s Bay Regional Council manages public transportation for a diverse region: two adjacent cities, a rural boundary in between, and a mix of fixed-route and on-demand services.
When the time came to overhaul their Regional Public Transport Plan (RPTP), the team wanted to bring planning in-house and build something better—for both riders and decision-makers.
1. Shift from static to dynamic planning.
In early 2025, the team began a major redesign of the bus network. Their last redesign (in 2022) had been led by external consultants and did not get into specifics. This time, they wanted full control: stop-by-stop, street-by-street planning that would incorporate community feedback, data-backed decisions, and better service design.
“Without Remix we would have had to either employ consultants, or use Google My Maps, which would have lacked any kind of rich data. It would have taken ages and we would have had to do a lot of manual work between Excel and Google Maps.” explained Russell Turnbull Manager Transport at Hawke's Bay Regional Council.
In Remix, the team ran multiple workflows in one tool and had the flexibility to:
- Quickly duplicate and adjust route versions
- View coverage gaps and walking distances
- Identify new stop locations and export data
- Use Remix Blocking to see hours, kilometers, and vehicle requirements
- Get live cost implications of potential changes—on the fly
“If we had used consultants to undertake the amount of derivatives we looked at, the cost would have far exceeded our Remix investment.” said Turnbull.
As they worked through the planning process—from drawing new routes, to building timetables and analyzing costs—they created presentation exports of timetables and routes to share with the public and gather feedback.
2. Bring the public into the process.
Remix’s visual and collaborative planning tools made public consultation far more transparent.
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Remix public map where residents have placed comments along routes for the planning team to consider.
Through signs at bus stops and QR codes linked to Remix maps, residents could see exactly what was being proposed—and place pins and comments directly on the map.
Check out their public maps here!
“Our goal was to create a far more legible network. We gave people the best opportunity to contribute. They could see the finer detail of what we were proposing and leave comments in context.” said Turnbull.
“We received a comment from a wheelchair rider explaining that a change would increase their 'wheeling' by 300m. This inspired a deliberate change to keep the route for that very rider.” explained Turnbull. “We had the visibility through this process to make key decisions like this one.”
Politicians, too, were brought into the fold early and were impressed by the level of community feedback. Seeing visual route plans, public comments, and data together gave elected officials confidence in the proposal.
3. Collaborate live in Remix to build a better network, faster.
One of the Council’s main goals was to remove outdated one-way loops and create a bi-directional network with better coverage and frequency.
With Remix, they:
- Evaluated different versions of each route
- Measured walk distances and access for new developments
- Designed a network that reached 75% of residents within a 400m walk (+21% from the previous network)
- Adjusted plans on-the-spot during workshops with operators
“We’d sit with our bus operators and look at a live Remix project together. We’d hear a suggestion like ‘don’t go down that road,’ make the change in Remix on the fly, and instantly see the cost change. The instant feedback was invaluable, this would have taken a considerable amount of work without Remix.” Turnbull explained.
They also relied on Timetabling and Runtime suggestions to fine-tune schedules and ensure the new network stayed within their budget.
5. Use data to defend decisions—and improve them.
To prepare for feedback from politicians and municipalities, the team used Remix to load stop-by-stop boarding data and visualize who would be affected by each change.
“With Remix, we can say: this change affects this many people per day—but here’s the bigger picture. We have hard data to back the change, gain political support, and we can tweak it easily if needed.” Turnbull explained.
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Ridership data for March 2025 highlights popular stops and travel patterns. The team can use this to inform planning decisions.
And beyond the redesign? Hawke’s Bay Regional Council is now using Remix to teach surrounding communities how to reach some of the same objectives—importing custom data to make better plans and decisions that get stakeholders on board to drive results.
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