ARTA has released the performance statistics for trains in February, and the result is predictably pathetic.
Things have improved slightly in some areas compared to the January statistics, when punctuality on the Western Line was a mere 36%. However, in other respects the February results are even worse than January, as the system operated throughout the whole of February (as opposed to the last couple of weeks of January only). Furthermore, Eastern Line punctuality in February was below that in January.
The above poster says that “Veolia Transport, KiwiRail and ARTA are working together to deliver solutions to these issues”. Well quite frankly I see absolutely no evidence of that. Anecdotally it would seem that so far in March the trains on the Western Line in particular have continued to operate late, there continue to be breakdowns, regular signal failures, regular points failures and the like. Come on ARTA, please tell us exactly what you, KiwiRail and Veolia are working on to solve these problems. I would really love to know.
As an interesting point, a while back someone mentioned to me that in many overseas countries rail contracts are cancelled if punctuality falls below 90%. Crikey if we ever reach 90% in Auckland it’d be a miracle!
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The key to achieve “decent” levels of punctuality and “service delivery” is finding who to squeeze.
At the moment the users are the ones being squeezed (we still have to pay the same fare regardless of how long it takes to get from A to B) but we have very limited options to help the trains keeping to the timetable (like skipping brakefast and run a few red lights to be at the station 20min before the advertised time and then jump on the train as soon as the doors start to open.
What about putting some pressure on OnTrack, KiwiRail or Veolia for a change?
Imagine that ARTA pays KiwiRail on “running services” basis (i.e., no train, no money) or that OnTrak gets its share in inverse proportion to the number of failures (i.e., more failures, less money).
Or perhaps we can be subversive and refuse to pay for a train that doesn’t comply with the advertised timetable?
No one seems to see that there could be a much worse reality underneath here – that our train system is really so rundown that these folks ARE working hard, but it isn’t helping (enough). With the added issues of decaying trains and massive works occuring on all lines, and planning for future works taking up all their admin/planning staff capacity, while cuts in budgets throw all their work scheduling out of whack, this may well be the reality.
I wouldn’t be surprised if in a few years we get some history book or journalist telling an inside story of how they kept the system running (barely) while everyone was pissed off at them: the government, the punters, and even their old allies, the public transport nerds.
I do think March has been better so hopefully the result will improve. I wonder if in the future ARTA / AT could take over the contract and run the service themselves, that would cut out one party forcing them to be more accountable and likely also save money.
Matt L, in the privatised model of the new super city, there is no chance at all that Auckland Transport will take over running the service themselves.
Keep publishing these every month please Josh, hopefully we can shame some people into doing their jobs right…
Service delievery is pathetic too, I think if it falls bellow 99% than thats a major issue
I wonder if we will still get monthly updates on performance from Auckland Transport?
Simon: I agree with you in that having close to 3% of the trains not arriving at their destination is unacceptable.
Perhaps that’s the really scary statistic… trains are regularly being canceled (or they get eaten by the Britomart tunnel?)
Matt, I doubt it.
Matt L: Of course we’ll get monthly update performances from the new super secret transport body. They’ll always all be 100%. It is the matrix they use to come up with their figures they’ll keep a secret…
We will get updates. Maybe once a year. Come on, putting them out once a month would be much too much of a bureaucratic hassle. They are busy, you know? All this admin crap is really why the existing Councils never managed to make the trains run on time.
They’ve said they will release information once every 3 months IIRC…
They are required to report to council once every three months. That’s about it.