As Mr Anderson said on Saturday, patronage results for November are out and they don’t look pretty, which in the case of rail is being largely blamed on the introduction of HOP. Here are the ‘highlights’:

  • Annual Auckland public transport patronage for the 12-month period to end-November 2012 was 69,873,178 boardings an increase of +1.1% (+767,096 boardings) compared to the 12-month period to end-November 2011.
  • The previous 12-month period to end-November 2011 against which the +1.1% growth rate relates included significant additional public transport use between 9 September and 23 October 2011 as a result of the Rugby World Cup 2011 (RWC2011). Estimated underlying growth normalised for RWC2011 shows an improved positive trend at +3.6%.
  • The introduction of the new integrated ticketing system on rail from 27 October has seen a change in the way in which patronage is recorded. Legacy 10-trip and monthly paper tickets sales ceased on 27 October 2012 and will not be accepted for travel from 1 January 2013. Under the legacy manual paper-based system, passenger journeys were accounted for at time of sale while under the new ticketing system patronage is recorded at the time the trip is made. As a consequence, for the period 27 October 2012 to 31 December 2012 there will be trips made on the rail system using legacy 10-trip and monthly tickets previously recorded at point of sale. This will result in an artificial negative impact on the reported patronage during November and December 2012.
  • The 12-month results include a decrease in rail patronage of -6.9%. Accounting for RWC2011 in the 12-month comparison period and a reduced patronage count in November 2012 due to the patronage count methodology change, the estimated underlying rail patronage trend is a minor growth at +0.8%.
  • The 12-month results include a flattening +0.1% Northern Express bus growth, an increasing +2.4% for other bus and an increasing +5.4% for ferry.
  • November 2012 patronage compared to November 2011 saw a -5.2% change including rail at -17.2%, Northern Express bus at +1.2%, other bus at -3.4% and ferry at -1.3%. The large rail reduction is primarily explained by the change in patronage counting methodology (-16%) and a significant number of service disruption incidents in November resulting in a small underlying downturn

I’m not sure why AT are still talking about the RWC considering it finished at the end of October 2011. Here are the numbers and graphs

Nov - 12 - Breakdown

Nov - 12 - Total by Mode

Once again the bus companies have managed to report 99 punctuality. And here is the cycling numbers which continue to show growth.

Nov - 12 - Cycling

I also wonder if perhaps an easing of petrol prices, or at least an easing in news stories about it, is starting to have an impact on patronage as people get used to a higher general rates. The reason for this is there has interestingly been a huge jump in the amount of traffic across the harbour bridge in the last month as shown below.

Harbour Bridge Traffic November 2012

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16 comments

  1. Can’t believe the spike in car travel in the last month or two, with the weather better you’d think people would be getting out of their cars and public transport / cycling a more appealing option.

    1. Christmas shopping? Christmas parties? School’s out? It’s bedlam out there at the moment anyway, whatever the underlying reasons.

  2. November does tend to be a high month if you look at the results year by year but yes it is much higher last month that it has been at any time since 2007

  3. What’s this with 10 trip tickets being not accepted from Jan? I’m an occasional train user so have a few different types. They don’t have an expiry date. Can I trade them for Hop credit?

      1. Are there any instructions or publicity about this? You go to the maxx/AT site and all the AT Hop introduction links are dead despite this being work in progress…

        1. I have some Literature for you on AT-HOP and all things 10-trip tickets

          http://www.scribd.com/doc/108892273/AT-HOP-30001 <<<< this one especially as it has when the 10 trips and Monthly Passes (paper) expire

          http://www.scribd.com/doc/111385862/At-HOP-Fare-Guide0001

          http://www.scribd.com/doc/111504560/At-Sv-Fares0001

          This was been handed out at stations across the network starting August.

          Electronically we have the following: okay that is a dead duck but I did see this: http://www.maxx.co.nz/info/service-updates/rail-network-closures-over-christmas-and-new-year-holiday-period.aspx#content in which this was noted "From 22 December to 6 January, Ticket and Top-Up machines will not be operating at stations where trains are replaced by buses. Single trip cash tickets can be purchased on board rail replacement buses."

      2. Another balls up? The website has been hopeless right from the start. Like the information on rail replacement buses has absolutely nothing about use of the AT Hop Card on the services.

        1. Can I nominate this for a transport blog kick-up-the-butt post for AT? Their comms are useless. This is 101 stuff, and doubly important given the generally complex way they go about doing things. The HOP programme itself is at the point of needing the trio of Obama, Mandela and Kim Hill on a full-time speaking circuit to get whatever message across they’re trying to send to their customers.

          (Note to editors: if you are running some sort of single transferable vote for reader nominations I’d still have guest posts from Gerry Browlnee, Nikki Kaye, Cameron Brewer, etc. as my 1, 2, 3…)

        2. (Note to editors: if you are running some sort of single transferable vote for reader nominations I’d still have guest posts from Gerry Browlnee, Nikki Kaye, Cameron Brewer, etc. as my 1, 2, 3…)

          I’m sure the blog admins would be happy to allow such posts, but unfortunately Gerry and Cameron rely on people’s ignorance to transport issues, and Nikki is keeping quiet as I think she secretly disagrees with the ‘party line’.

        3. Nikki is keeping quiet as she’s too busy attempting to get AT to waste money on allowing taxis into bus lanes and thereby mess then up even further as well as further endanger the lives of cyclists who use them.

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