July 2009 Patronage – another pleasant surprise

Around a month ago when ARTA released their June 2009 monthly business report, I commented how I thought the seemingly modest increase in patronage was actually a pretty significant achievement. This was for one simple reason – petrol prices. In June and July last year petrol prices were well above $2 a litre, everyone was freaking out about the cost of every car trip, and taking to public transport in record numbers. Yet if we look at the price of petrol now, it’s around the $1.65 mark – a whopping 50c a litre cheaper than this time last year. And yet, public transport patronage is still higher. That’s surely a good sign.

Anyway, let’s have a look at some of the highlights in ARTA’s July Report:
If we have a look at what’s happened over the last few years, you can really see from the ‘rolling average’ line how things have increased in the past year and a bit. Perhaps what’s most interesting is to look at where the increase has come from for July. The jump in ferry patronage is possibly largely due to a promotion for free ferry rides, but it’s actually quite unusual to see bus patronage having a higher percentage increase than rail patronage. I’m not really sure what would have caused such a trend, but in a way it could be seen as a good sign, as there has been a lot of criticism in recent years that the only increases in patronage were coming on the train system and most of that increase was just bus passengers shifting to rail. So perhaps a rise in bus patronage means that those new people using the bus system are those who used to drive.

Of course the ARTA monthly business report tells us much more than just patronage statistics for the month. There are some interesting updates on rolling stock (we should have another train or two in operation by October) and progress on various capital works projects. These are summarised below: When I think about it, this year has been a pretty quiet one in terms of actual improvements to our public transport system, especially our rail system. A lot is under construction at the moment – particularly the Onehunga branch, the Newmarket station, the Manukau branch and the New Lynn project. But because it’s all ‘under construction’, nothing has really opened at all this year. Once these improvements have been completed and opened, it will be interesting to see what happens to public transport patronage. I think the Onehunga Line could give things a real boost.

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