There’s an interesting article in today’s Herald about the progress of sorting out the mess Steven Joyce left Auckland’s public transport in when he cancelled the Regional Fuel Tax a couple of months back. There’s some good news, some frustrating news and some potentially good news.
On the positive side, “Money has been assured for new Auckland railway stations.” These include Newmarket, New Lynn, Manukau, Onehunga, Grafton and Avondale – some of which are already under construction (thereby making the need to sort out funding for their completion rather urgent.) The money looks like it will come from a variety of places, including higher ARC rates, an increased subsidy from NZTA and – here’s the killer – cutting back on the costs of Auckland’s integrated ticketing project.
I really don’t know why the government is so against integrated ticketing for Auckland’s public transport. Maybe they realise that simplifying the ticketing in Auckland, and creating something as up-to-date as the smart-card systems we see in London (Oyster Card) and Hong Kong (Octopus Card) will lead to a surge in patronage on Auckland’s public transport system, thereby undermining their view of public transport as something only for the poor and carless. Or maybe they’re being pressurised by Infratil (the owners of most of Auckland’s bus service providers) into delaying a project that Infratil doesn’t like. Either way, it’s pretty depressing to hear that funding has been cut to Auckland’s public transport to the extent that the ARC has had: “to try to scale back the integrated ticketing project, which previously carried a capital cost of about $80 million, including a 60 per cent Government subsidy. Mr Lee said the council would try to find ways of halving that cost.”
These most recent developments mean that the best Auckland can really hope for is to get our version of Wellington’s Snapper Card. Now this is a great outcome for Infratil – as they own Snapper Card – but is no guarantee that this smart-card system will be equally available for all public transport operators in the Auckland Region. Therefore, there seems to be no guarantee that the ticketing system will, in fact, be integrated. When this lack of money for integrated ticketing is coupled with the Ministry of Transport’s decision to review the Public Transport Management Act (the very piece of legislation that gives ARTA the power to impose integrated ticketing), it’s hard not to be suspicious that this critical step in the future of Auckland’s public transport is going to be delayed at best, or possibly even cancelled.
There is a light on the horizon about Auckland’s electric trains though – with Steven Joyce saying “he would report to the cabinet next month on options for buying an electric fleet and that, despite Mr Lee’s nervousness, “we remain committed to electrification”. I can understand Mike Lee (head of the ARC) being nervous though, and I’ll believe that we’re getting electric trains when I see the contract signed.
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If integrated ticketing is soo good, then surely, why don’t the bus companies get together with whoever owns Auckland’s trains, and the ferry company, and launch their own integrated ticketing independent of the the government. If its going to increase public transport patronage hugely, it makes good economic sense to them.
My own views on integrated ticketing is that while it can be good for regular comuters, for irregular ones it’s not so good.
I live in Wellington and am not a huge fan of the snapper card, as it costs money to buy, and I only use the busses occasionally when the weathers real bad. I use to buy 10 trip tickets which cost great value for money, but now pay more money at the door. If intergrated ticketing is introduced and people can no longer pay the fare to the conductor or bus driver, it could be very bad for oua visitor to the city.
We are quite a small country, and public transport is largely funded by the taxpayer, right?
Wouldn’t it be a whole lot easier if we just bought one integrated ticketing system for Wellington, Auckland and anywhere else that needs one?
(Or even better, we just had free or fixed rate public transport, which would remove the need for a complex integrated ticketing system).
Nick, the Snapper Card is NOT an integrated ticket. Can you use it on the trains? No. Can you use it on all the bus services? No. Integrated ticketing is when your ticket can be used on all bus and train services. It can be either a smart-card system (like Snapper Card or Oyster Card) or just a simple paper-based ticket that’s accepted all across the city on a variety of bus companies and train companies.
Why haven’t the individual companies done it themselves? Well I personally think they’re too concerned about “protecting their patch” to actually think about trying to grow public transport in general. Furthermore, they don’t want to have to replace all their ticketing machines as it would be really expensive. Integrated ticketing also involves a sharing of information (so that revenue can be passed back properly) that the different companies don’t want.
The PTMA (if it’s not ruined by Steven Joyce) would lead to a situation where – in Auckland at least – ARTA would decide what public transport routes and services to run and then contract them out. ARTA would pay the operator a particular amount to run the service, but all the money from fares would go to ARTA and help off-set the amount they paid NZ Bus or Ritchies or whoever to run the service. To be honest I can’t understand why the bus companies don’t love this idea – as it takes most of the risk away from them and places it onto ARTA. I suspect the reason they don’t like it is because they won’t be able to gouge ratepayers and taxpayers for subsidies anymore.
Rich, good idea. Problem is that Wellington has already gone with Snapper Card. Snapper Card is owned by Infratil who also own NZ Bus. This is incompatible with the idea of full contracting in my opinion, as it gives Infratil – rather than the Regional Council – control over the ticketing side of things. Even without the PTMA, if I were Ritchies bus company I may be a little cautious of having my competitor running the ticketing system that I’m meant to be getting paid from.
Amazing really, Hong Kong has intregrated ticketing (the Octopus card) since 1997, which is the earliest on Wikipedia’s list of Smart cards. Mana Coaches in Wellington has had smart cards (not integrated) since 2002. So, 12 years after the first introduction of the technology Auckland and National are STILL sitting on their collective a..es… and here I thought NZ was a modern developed country.
One of the funnier descriptions I heard of NZ was as “the only third world country where you can drink the water”…accordingly as our ‘premier’ city, Auckland must take a good share of the finger-pointing.