The December PT patronage report has finally been released and things are pretty much as expected considering what happened during the month. Here’s the summary:
Auckland public transport patronage totalled 69,401,126 passengers for the 2-months to Dec 2011 an increase of 5,850,715 boardings or +9.2%.
December monthly patronage was 4,751,111 an increase of 368,554 boardings or +8.4% on Dec 2010.
Rail monthly patronage for December is 580,064 an increase of 8,355 boardings or +1.5% on Dec 2010.
Northern Express bus service carried 2,233,943 passenger trips for the 12-months with a growth in Dec 2011 compared to Dec 2010 of +15.9%.
The most interesting thing in here is that despite the fact large parts of the rail network was closed early for what was probably the biggest shutdown in recent history patronage still managed to rise. Here is the view of total PT patronage.
And here is a breakdown of the numbers
As mentioned above the rail network managed to see patronage continue to rise despite the effects of the shutdown and impressively it was the Western line that managed to grow the most even though it was probably the most affected. The Northern Express also continued decent growth however if there is one thing I would like to see on here is not just the NEX patronage but the busway in total. Impressively bus patronage in other areas continued to grow strongly which seems to be mainly in the isthmus which is likely to be still be the result of the new Link services introduced in August.
Lastly the other thing that caught my attention was this comment about causes of delays on the rail network:
There has been a noticeable increase in disruptions to passenger services as a result of freight train operations during December. While many of these resulted in minor delays to a single service, there were three incidents in the month involving freight trains that had a severe impact on commuter trains.
This seems to have been a strong theme in January from what I am hearing so something that definitely needs to be addressed. Hopefully we will get the results for January soon and we won’t have to wait till after the next board meeting which isn’t for over another month.
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Freight will continue to have a major impact on passenger rail, until passenger rail has a major impact on freight by forcing it out of peak commuter hours and into low volume timeslots, or until the freight line is built. Only the last of these is satisfactory. Hence, we’re going to have an unsatisfactory situation for years and years, as we’re not even in the planning/design phase yet. As the Manukau line opens and we receive our new electric units, the situation will become even more acute.
And I understand that some shutdown has to occur, but I’m still not impressed with how frequently and extensively it does. Last year it seemed that you could hardly travel on a weekend at all. It doesn’t seem to be the case elsewhere, as upgrades and improvements are made.
The main reason for shutdowns has been for removing bridges and to install new signalling. You have to remember there has basically been a new rail system installed in Auckland over the last few years whilst running a regular train service. I agree shutdowns are not ideal but I’m guessing we’re pretty much at a point where they no longer need to occur – it’ll all be worth it as the EMUs come onstream.
Shutdown every second weekend so far this year, including this weekend. No posters on the train for next month, so maybe nothing until Easter?
Interesting that the annual growth shows the Southern and Eastern as fairly stagnant at 4%, with the Western at nearly 30%. For the Western to grow 7% in December, when the others shrunk 1%, is a good indication of how much services have improved out West.
Hopefully the new timetable will allow that growth to continue, and boost it on the other lines. 🙂
This is a pretty ominous sign, a train delay text this morning said the train was delayed by approx 10 mins at Kingsland due to heavy passenger demand. With it almost certain that we won’t be getting a new timetable for March things are going to be pretty busy and crowded on some services so March’s stats should be interesting to see.
Also AT says
Could this mean that peak rail services are already pretty much at max capacity and that any further improvements are unlikely until the EMU’s?
No I wouldn’t say so as the message was for the western line which still only has 4 trains per hour, we are meant to be going to 6 per hour with the new timetable but as per usual AT are pissing around and not ready for the biggest month of the year with improvements only set to happen afterwards when the opportunity has already been lost. In fact I would almost guarantee they would try to spin it along the lines of them not wanting to ‘test’ a new timetable on such an important month.
Welcome to the next few years… Opponents of transit will claim that this proves it doesnt work, or even better why no one wants it. Reminds me of one of those famous Yogi Bera lines: “No-one goes there anymore, it’s too crowded”
“No one ever drove in New York. There was always too much traffic.” Phillip J Fry, Futurama.
New timetable starts April 15 along with Manukau apparently.
Are there any reported numbers for weekend users when the trains are running, and those weekends when the buses replace them?
When they closed the Newmarket viaduct to move southbound traffic over to the new bridge back in 2010 it was claimed that weekends usually saw about 25,000 trips of which about 15,000 were on a Saturday. This compares with about 40,000 on weekdays. I haven’t seen any indication of patronage numbers on bus replacements.
What’s really interesting to see is the huge growth of isthmus bus patronage from around September onwards. Upwards of 10% in every month.
This gives us a clue about how the Link service changes and the introduction of the Outer Link have been a pretty stunning success, it would seem.
Interesting – Auckland’s rail patronage is 10.8 million; Wellington’s is 11.2 million. Give it another year or so and Auckland’s trains will be carrying more passengers than Wellington’s (although fewer trips per capita), then you can brag that Wellington has less patronage but more tracks (4 vs 2) into its central station.
May well beat it this March, but it certainly won’t take another year. Probably August.
It would be interesting to compare the proportion of trips in Wellington that begin or end at the central station versus the proportion of trips in Auckland that do the same. Auckland has many more destinations along the rail network and I think is less dependent upon Britomart, which is a good thing as potentially it means the system could be more cost-effective than Wellington’s.
Just imagine how much of a transformation it will be when Ak has a metro system and not a terminus one; ie when we have the existing lines all connected via the City Rail Link. It’s just so hopeless having that artificial end of the line setup…..