Fare free buses end in Tauranga with new Bee Card

The Tauranga City Council has ended it’s fare-free buses. As well as this, the new way to pay for your bus ride, Bee Card, is now available.

All existing bus cards, like Smartride and Cityride cards, will need to be replaced with a Bee Card Monday 27th July.

Travelers will be able to top-up online, protect their balance, manage their accounts, and more with the new Bee Card! Passengers don’t have to wait in line to pay the bus driver.

For concession holders’ e.g. SuperGold cardholders, school children, they won’t have to show their ID.

The easiest way to get your new Bee Card is to go online at beecard.co.nz and have it posted to you free of charge Alternatively, pick up your Bee Card from a bus driver and register the card online at Beecard.co.nz, or pick up from a Bay of Plenty Regional Council office.

"You can transfer balances to your registered Bee Card up to the end of October 202," says BayBus. "We will process balance transfers as quickly as we can, but please be aware that this could take up to 10 working days. It’s likely we will have around 25,000 to process, so there is quite a bit of work to do."