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:july-mbr
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. july-patronage 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:capital-works 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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5 comments

  1. Yes this is really encouraging, with integrated ticketing coming and then electrification (done right) the momentum may keep building until the next Labour/Greens government (and lets just hope National has done some serious work in fixing the economy before then)…

  2. Of course the giant unknown factor in this whole thing is what happens to fuel prices. While we all know that they’re going up in the longer-term, the fluctuations in prices will be very interesting to follow. I expect a few more spikes and crashes, and the effect of that on public transport could be some pretty sharp increases in patronage. We just need to ensure the authorities are prepared for that I suppose.

  3. Is there some way to see public transport patronage numbers alongside road trip numbers so that we can see if the increase in public transport is at the expense of road trips?

  4. Yes the systems seem more independent than I thought… PT is all the about the commute and cars for discretionary trips… I think a network when people can use PT to get to work and cars for shopping etc would be pretty good for Auckland and more democratic as people would have a choice… They could choose to drive or take another mode, choose to live a car free life if so desired… Ultimately freedom is about choice…

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