As an interesting counterpoint to Auckland’s booming rail patronage, it’s interesting to look at NZTA’s data for traffic numbers throughout September 2010. The graph below shows the general trend in traffic growth over the past 20 years – a pretty steady increase until the last few years when it has really levelled off (perhaps due to rising petrol prices?)
NZTA’s methodology for measuring traffic change is reasonably robust, with a number of sites throughout the various regions recording vehicular numbers. This is briefly summarised below:
So how do the statistics look for September 2010? Well quite interesting actually:
So let’s get this straight. Rail patronage in Auckland increased by 27% compared to September 2009, state highway traffic volumes in Northland and Auckland decreased by 4% over the same timeframe.
Interesting.
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ta-da – its working then. building more roads is cutting car use. so if we keep building more roads, we’ll see less cars on them!?!??!
maybe its because “buses need roads too”, and so more roads = more buses = less people driving.
Joyce will surely be horrified with these statistics. “What, I build all these new roads and people don’t want to use them. What’s going on!?”
Well in any business [let’s, like the government, just pretend that it’s not actually a service], the clever thing to do is to invest in the growing areas of that ‘business’ not in the fading or flatlining areas. ‘Going forward’ is the great fatuous phrase of this government, well ‘going forward’ it’s pretty clear where the investment is required…
Love your optimism, Admin, I can hear the justifications from here: ‘Just wait till my lovely RoNS are finished’, ‘It’s just the world economy’, ‘Damn that Crusher Collins, she’s ruining my figures again.’ ‘Must close more rail lines, Stat.’
The graph at the top shows a 50% increase in heavy traffic (presumably “heavy” equals trucks) over the term of the last Labour government, but a reduction since National took over. But, oddly, it is common here to talk about Stephen Joyce as being influenced by the truck lobby.
I suspect the gradual upward trend will continue once we’re clearly out of the recession.
I’m interested if there are any figures for vehicle journeys per day in Auckland? We can obviously tell bus and rail journeys pretty easily from ticket sales, but it should be possible to get a good vehicle estimate based on a sample using either log books or GPS loggers.
Joyce won’t give a damn.
He doesn’t care that the National Party mantra “Roads, Roads, Roads” is out of step with reality!
And he doesn’t care if National get voted out next year because he is high up on their list so he will be back on his over-inflated salary and expenses.
Being kicked off the Treasury benches is still pretty expensive. Especially when you’re only on the list, so don’t get any of the allowances that come with having an electorate.
Plus, he should care if National get kicked out, because it’ll mean he’s no longer the man in control of the national train and truck sets.
Must improve roads to lure people back. Simply cannot have endless dollars tied up in roads with fewer people using them.
Align it to population growth, GDP growth and motor vehicle ownership and you might have something interesting. Inbound tourism isn’t exactly taking off either, so that is a factor (particularly for rental cars).
The effects of higher oil prices tend to be longer term. Interestingly it also puts paid to the “induced traffic” mantra that everytime new roads are built suddenly lots of new car trips emerge. Auckland has just about completed its biggest ever motorway building spree since the 60s (Hobsonville will be the last for a while until Waterview) and traffic is NOT growing to fill it up. No doubt the money poured into public transport is having a modest impact as well.
More interesting will be revenue from road use, if (adjusted for increases) fuel duty revenue growth is flat and RUC growth is flat, then it is reflected in the NLTF, which will naturally put pressure on spending plans as the roads are generating less surplus revenue.
Interestingly in the first 6 months of this year there were moderate increases in traffic over the same month in 2009. It’s just in the past three months that it’s started to go negative. I don’t think there’s been any particular fall-off in population or GDP or anything else over the past three months compared to the first six months of 2010. Petrol has gone up a bit, but not that much…
I guess the figures probably always bounce around a bit.