Getting the “QTN” right

As I noted in a recent post about ARTA’s “Regional Public Transport Plan“, I support much of the thinking behind their three tiered hierarchical route structure that they are seeking to achieve, which has three main levels:

1. A backbone Rapid Transit Network (RTN) which is comprised of railway lines and busways;
2. A middle-level “Quality Transit Network” (QTN) which supports the RTN by providing high quality public transport in areas the RTN can’t reach – in short extensive bus lanes with high frequency services (in my mind at least);
3. The supporting Local Connector Network (LCN), which are our more typical buses, but probably running shorter routes to feed into the RTN or QTN.

However, as I also noted, I worry about the implementation of this plan, and in particular of the “middle level” of the hierarchy: the Quality Transit Network or QTN. As shown in the map below (the green lines) the QTN is fairly extensive, comprised of many of the higher-quality bus routes feeding the CBD in the isthmus, a cross-town route or two on the isthmus and then a sparser, but still fairly extensive network linking parts of North Shore, Waitakere and Manukau cities that are not so well served by the RTN. I think when ARTA came up with the idea of a Quality Transit network, the anticipation was that it would be something of a “superior bus route”, perhaps with specifically branded buses, better quality information when the buses were coming, top quality vehicles, more bus priority measures and so forth. But while there has been talk of QTNs for a number of years now, we actually haven’t seen any implemented: although it appears as though a couple are in the works. Perhaps some of the problem with implementing QTNs has come down to the difficulty of establishing exactly what they are. The Rapid Transit Network is fairly obvious to define: a railway line or a busway to the quality of the Northern Busway (yes that’s right AMETI transport planners, bus lanes do NOT constitute an RTN), while the LCN is also a reasonably easy one: a bog standard bus service. The QTN has to straddle a potentially challenging middle point between the two.

In my mind, a QTN should be a high quality bus route that is easy to make sense out of, has plenty of bus priority (bus lanes along most if not all its length at peak times) and comes at high enough frequencies for people to not have to worry about timetables: no matter what time of day it is. ARTA’s description of the RTN/QTN/LCN hierarchy, in terms of their minimum service guidelines, do not seem too different to this: The frequency aspect of the tables deserves a bit of comment I think. For a start, it’s disappointing to see 60 minute frequencies proposed for anything, even the Local Connector Network. I always thought the purpose of creating an LCN was to turn many of the long-haul low-frequency routes that currently exist (like the 135 from Swanson to Britomart for example) into feeder bus routes into the nearest transport hub (like say a Swanson to Henderson bus serving the areas of that part of West Auckland that don’t have good rail access) with a much shorter route. If the feeder bus now did a route that took 20 minutes to complete, instead of an hour, theoretically one could triple its frequency compared to the old long-haul buses for the same “cost”. So I don’t actually think the LCNs should have such low frequencies: I think they should be short routes, mainly feeder buses, but with reasonably decent frequencies.

Also seeing 60 minutes in the frequency column of the QTN, even if it is just for ferry services (somewhat understandable I guess) and new services (an outright joke, surely you would want to make your new services particularly attractive to drive new patronage), is extremely disappointing. Overall, actually all the minimum standards for QTN frequencies are disappointing. A service that operates only every 20 minutes during the inter-peak and every half hour in evenings and at weekends is hardly “quality” in my opinion. They’re certainly not “turn up and go” in any way, shape or form.

I do wonder whether the low minimum service frequencies for QTNs outlined in the table above result from a potentially misguided consideration that the RTN frequencies need to be better than the QTN ones. Obviously the RTN is the “backbone” and in many ways “best” of the public transport system, but because it is largely rail based it is simply not feasible economically to run the kind of frequencies that are possible to do so on a bus-based QTN route: both at peak times and other times. While I would ideally wish to see trains running at 15 minute frequencies during all off-peak times, I realise that economically it simply doesn’t make sense for us to do that for a great number of years yet. However, on the Quality Transit Network, such frequencies aren’t an impossibility: and probably Auckland’s only current QTN (Dominion Road) already has 5 minute inter-peak frequencies on weekdays, 10 minute frequencies on Saturdays, 20 minute frequencies on Sundays (and late at night on weekdays and Saturdays) and only ever goes down to 30 minutes late on a Sunday night.

In short, I think that for QTNs “frequency” is actually one of the most important things to get right, along with having good bus priority during peak hour (and if possible at other times too). The QTN will never be as fast as the RTN, because it doesn’t have its own right-of-way, so perhaps there’s a little more leeway for the RTN to have slightly lower frequencies than the QTN: where its comparative slowness needs to be “made up for” by ensuring the buses come along frequently enough so your wait isn’t too long.

I do look forward to seeing how the first few QTNs go – to see whether ARTA can find that “middle ground” effectively between the RTN and your “bog standard” bus route. Getting the QTNs right, largely through a huge expansion of Auckland’s current bus lane network and the application of “the network effect” to the QTNs on Auckand’s isthmus, is a pretty critical part of what I think Auckland needs to focus on in the next five years, if we want to get the most “bang for our buck” in trying to improve public transport.

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