The June public transport patronage report has been released by Auckland Transport, and the results are once again pretty spectacular. Here’s the headline information:
For the last couple of months we have seen really high percentage increases from the same month in 2010 – both on the rail network and also for PT patronage in general. The 12 month rolling total for all patronage is nearing 66 million:
Breaking down the details of where the patronage increase is happening, once again the Western Line on the rail network, and perhaps a bit more surprisingly – the ferries – are enjoying some pretty big increases from this time last year:
Looking at patronage trends over the longer term, we can really see the upswing in the last couple of years in particular. It’s interesting to think that while June is not really a bumper month for PT patronage generally (university is on holidays or at exams, it’s a shorter month and so forth), the patronage figures for June 2011 were higher than those for March (typically the busiest month of the year) in 2006, 2007 or 2008.
The 12 month rolling patronage data for the rail network shows some pretty exciting results, that we are basically almost at having 10 million rail trips a year. This is quite an achievement – particularly as we only hit a rolling total of 9 million a few months back.
With June rail patronage almost 25% up on the same month last year, we saw the second biggest month-to-month leap over the past 12 months. After a relatively low increase in rail patronage in April, it has been encouraging to see such massive increases over the past couple of months:
While bus patronage grew a bit slower in June than May, it was still a respectable 4.8% up on last year. The days in which rail patronage grew by largely cannibalising bus patronage are well behind us: both modes are growing at very respectable rates.
As per usual, most of the bus patronage growth is from the outer areas: particularly to the north and south:
These are some pretty exciting results. While I do regularly give Auckland Transport stick for not doing things better, they do deserve some credit for ensuring that the PT system is obviously of a good enough quality to keep on attracting more and more people to it.
Let’s go for 70 million trips in the 2011/2012 year.
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Trains all times of day seem to have around 40% loading at a minimum. People are responding, and the city is growing. Sylvia Park is wonderfully busy stop as well – we need more like it, train stops with access and significant amenity value.
Now, if we can get a sane transport minister, we’ll get the money needed to run proper frequencies and then use will skyrocket.
I hoper TPTB are reading this, and I suspect they are.
One day they’ll admit that one size doesn’t fit all, and just as people will drive, equally people will not for many reasons.
Auckland needs a better CBD – more jobs, more vibrancy, more civic pride and occasion – and PT is what will bring them in.
Would be great to have some posts or guest posts about the Auckland economy, jobs, CBD developments etc… and see if there are correlations between PT usage and new CBD jobs, for example.
Good idea, might work on that.
If you look at the absolute increase (as opposed to the % growth), you see that out of the 5.14 million extra trips generated across all modes, 1.39 million were on the rail network and 0.21 million were on the ferry network. So that leaves approximately 3.54 million trips that were generated by the bus network, despite pretty much no major investment aside from the Northern Busway and the Central Connector.
This growth suggests there is a lot of latent demand for bus travel – and directly challenges those people who suggest that buses suffer from an image problem that reduces their attractiveness to new customers. So if I was Len Brown I’d stop talking about rail all the time and instead spend some energy improving bus infrastructure, especially out east and around upper harbour. There’s some really low hanging fruit out there.
Not quite, Stu, the correct conclusion is: ‘it shows there is a lot of latent demand for public transport’. In Auckland if you get out of your car quite often the only option is a second rate bus trip, it doesn’t mean we don’t want a much better option.
We can not choose a service if it isn’t there, in the same way that if we drive, especially in the absence of any other option, it does not prove that that would be our preference.
There is more than enough opposition to the Mayors great plans for high quality PT from the forces of regression without PT advocates drawing false conclusions to also undermine it.
Is this a politicals/technicals divide again?
I agree that we shouldn’t get into bus/train arguments, we need to focus our energy on the fact that most of the transport budget is wasted on unnecessary roads.
At the same time, Len Brown should say more about improving the bus network.
Onewa Rd, which was once a traffic nightmare, has for the past few months been nowhere near as bad as it has been traditionally, and buses are generally pretty full at least at peak times.
There has been some investment in both the ferry terminal and the transit lane on Onewa Rd – I have to say I think this is making a big difference.
I think that 70m trips is selling it short, to be honest. We’ve gone from 60 to nearly 67 in the space of 8 months and there’s no sign of growth slowing. I think that 72 or even 73 is realistic, and I’m daring to hope, quietly, that we’ll hit 75 if the election goes favourably and we get a minister who actively supports public transport.
Based on current growth trends we’ll be through 70 before the end of the calendar year.
Looking forward to these figures being reported in the Herald….. [Tui moment]
Actually, the Herald is pretty good at reporting these figures. I know of easily at least 10 articles in the last couple of years reporting, quite matter of factly and without any sneering, on the strong increases.
The issue is that some (obviously with the blessing of the paper’s board) are happy to write emotional articles about issues like bus lane “fury”. They aren’t so blinkered that they don’t report on pro-PT stories, but they seem to reserve the true passion or the “stirrer” stories.
Max, not a word in the Granny yet…. Not so sure you’re right about this. Looks like they don’t want to complicate their great ‘campaign’ against bus lanes with positive PT news….
How about that growth on the Western line…. imagine what the directness of the CRL will do for those journeys….. 34%! Those trains are going to get awfully packed…. it’s going to be an interesting few years until those EMUs are up and running
Re: Rail pax: Well clearly we can expect Sept & Nov to crack the million trip mark this year too (so long as the counting is good- especially during the cup) but maybe even July, August, and Oct too. Incidentally what was with the Oct rail numbers last year?
I do hope those old trains can operate reliably for three more years….
interesting March patronage was only 17,000 lower than Wellingtons, in subsequent months the gap has gone up to 70-80,000 again. I guess students are a higher proportion of Auckland’s patronage hence, the higher variation.
Considering the high level of fare evasion maybe Auckland was actually higher?
Today was the forth time this week that my evening Dominion Road bus has been at crush capacity.
I note the comment about comparisons to Wellington or other international systems in the report. It suggests that perhaps Auckland is out of alignment perhaps with other systems, maybe it is time that this was remedied so meaningful comparisons can be made?..