With only a few days to go of my contribution to this blog, I thought I’d have a look back at some of the statistics of this blog. A few of them can be seen down the left-hand side of this page – as I write we have:
- 1,688 posts
- 1,266,909 words in those posts
- 26,198 comments
- 2,249,494 words in those comments
But some statistics can only really be seen behind the scenes, so for your curiosity here are a few:
- 1,198,579 all time views
- 3,771 views on the blog’s busiest day ever – which was May 31st last year (the day the review of the City Rail Link business case was released)
- Aside from the main page, the most visited post ever is this one on the world’s best rail systems (generally because it is a high result when searching for maps of Tokyo’s rail network).
- Other top posts include those about new train timetables, the Outer Link timetable and the Super City election results.
- Top referrers have been from No Right Turn, the Campaign for Better Transport and, quite interestingly, intranets from both ARTA and now Auckland Transport. Most people still tend to arrive by way of search engines though.
It has also been interesting to see how visitor numbers to the blog have changed over time, going from under 8000 views in July 2009 to almost 66,000 in August last year – the busiest month so far. This post on Public Address, in particular, seemed to really bring what had previously been a generally ignored blog, into public view.
Of course, it is the knowledge that many hundreds of people visit the blog each day, and that many of them take the time to comment and share their thoughts, which has kept me going and keen to post almost every day. I’m sure it’ll take me some time to adjust – but in the meanwhile I am curious about how the various readers of the blog found their way here the first time, which post do they remember (if any) which encouraged them to keep coming back and if there are any particular favourite posts. Because, I’m a curious person too.
Great stats. It is always interesting to me when I see traffic statistics from other “urbanism” blogs. It reaffirms what I have always have believed –there are far, far more people out there looking for good discussion and information on the subject of cities and making them better than we give credit for.
I think the thing for me is seeing the ideas about how we can do things better, I genuinely want this city to be a better place and here is somewhere I can get ideas about that, even if we get frustrated how sometimes obvious things get ignored. The great thing is the city as a whole is improving, there is more awareness out there about transport and urban issues and that is leading to us having a better debate about what we actually want. It obviously had an impact as I am now writing a number of posts of my own and doing so it is always rewarding to get comments and feedback.
My hope is that myself and other contributors can live up to the example you have set and keep the quality of posts and analysis high and hopefully people will stick around and keep engaging with the ideas presented and giving some of there own.
I got here from some blog comment I saw somewhere that said something to the effect of “the only bloggers who really do the hard yards and do serious research into the things they’re writing about are Idiot/Savant (who submits endless OIA requests and apparently has decades’ worth of digitised Hansard ready to grep) and jarbury”. I wondered who this jarbury fellow was and googled the name.
Good old fashioned word of mouth for me. I became interested in the Puhoi to Wellsford motorway project about 15 months ago and while talking to a friend about it over coffee, he told me about Auckland Transport Blog. I’ve been hooked ever since. Hardly miss a day. Admin will be missed greatly on the site. He has been an inspiration and a great help to me.
Um, if you must know, Google. I was looking for a transport blog for New Zealand, and yours is what emerged from the ether :-).
I think I came across it via a comment you’d made on the CBT forum, years ago, can’t even remember what the post was – but the in-depth analysis of the issues rather than a simple copy and paste of s press release which is pretty much all the news we’re typically getting about transport kept me hooked 🙂
Looking for info on the CBD rail tunnel around the time the first plans were being drawn up. Found your post and since then checked it everyday.
I was a poster on the CBT forums from way back, circa Rideline. I remember one young turk appeared on the board posting comments and analysis that were well informed and researched, more so than the usual speculative blatherings. When I found out he had his own blog I followed it with much interest, watching it transform from a personal blog with occasional transport tidbits into the tour de force we have today.
I still don’t know how you manage producing such quality output every damned day, I’m lucky if I can do one piece a month!
I can’t even remember but I think I may have met you first face to face… In fact, I’m pretty sure I did. I second what Nick says – it is amazing how fast you read policy documents. Anyway, just a question – when you say 66,000 views a month that just describes every time somebody clicks onto the blog right? It is not 66,000 individual users who are checking it multiple times.
Im an ex Auckland transport engineer living in Amsterdam and was looking for a good blog to keep abreast of Auckland transport. Found you via Google and my favorite posts are always the ones were you design future rail networks
I’m pretty sure I came here by link from AKT (or Auckland Trains, as it was then), which I discovered at about the same time. I think that either blog appeared on a blogroll somewhere, and I clicked through, curious.
Sitting in an office in Canberra finishing a masters degree, I had plenty of time to wistfully imagine changes, both real and possible, to occur in Auckland. I’m glad that some of them have been realised, and that public and high level discourse has changed significantly in the last few years. You’ve been a part of that, so be very proud.
I found my way here via the CBT forums, although I can’t remember the exact context.
I think we share the same bus route (the Outer Link/005 along Jervois Road) so I suspect we must have been on the same bus at least once or twice without knowing it.
Kiwiscrapers 🙂
I remember when this was your personal blog and how it morphed into a Transport Blog.
I read about your blog on the Public Address website last year and I’ve been visiting transportblog.co.nz every day since
i’ve no idea how i found the blog, but i love it. read it daily and waste far too much time on it. it picks up on all the issues that are close to my heart ( having spent a decade in london working as an architect on a variety of medium -high density housing schemes, cycling to work and living in a 70’s housing estate – http://www.flickr.com/photos/67337573@N08/6159298969/ ). it compares and contrasts my empirical thoughts on why auckland as a city is nowhere near as good as london or barcelona . which, incidentally, i think you ignore too much …
keep going.
Bienvenida! y gracias!
He de decir que tu entrada en el blog page me ha sido ciertamente ventajoso!
Registrador de temperatura