This is a guest post from Albert Eden Local Board Member and CBT committee member Graeme Easte
I have serious doubts that we can literally reach the PMs target of 20 million trips (more or less double the current level) before we build the CRL. Surely a key driver of the CRL is that the Britomart bottleneck will prevent us increasing frequencies much beyond present settings. So if that number is taken too literally we have a major problem – unless government can be persuaded that we have increased patronage as far as possible within the constraints.
However, I would argue that there is a “work around” solution that will get us through the next decade if that is how long we have to wait for CRL and which would allow the required major increase in passenger numbers. Six years ago, when the Newmarket interchange was being designed, CBT raised the possibility of Western and Southern services connecting directly, even though this would require those going to and from Britomart to change trains.
Although the main driver for this proposal is the ability to increase frequencies beyond six per hour on all lines, there are other advantages. As 85% of all stations are on the Western and Southern lines there is a significant constituency who would be advantaged by the change. And the “Newmarket Shuffle” would no longer be required.
However, given that there are more people from the West whose final destination is in the CBD than those who want to go to the South, perhaps there could be some services (say a couple of express runs each hour) which would continue to connect to Britomart.
The quid pro quo for those of us who live along the Western Line would be that the connection between western services and the link to Britomart would have to be as painless as possible. There should be zero waiting time for the connecting service. The top priority of the whole rail schedule would be ensuring that connecting services at Newmarket did actually mesh – allowing direct cross platform boarding. And to ensure that the scheduled connection was still realized the outgoing train would be required to pause if necessary to synchronize with the incoming service.
Western line passengers should also have the option of changing to buses at Grafton or Mount Eden Stations (a really attractive option for those with destinations more than a 5 minute walk south of Britomart). Again, if the train was delayed, the connecting bus would pause. In fact, I would advocate a new bus route more or less following the CRL designation – connecting Mount Eden Station with Upper Symmonds Street, Karangahape Road, Albert Street and Downtown.
There are of course variations on this proposal, but the basic idea is to allow us to increase frequencies, and hence capacity, before the CRL is completed and opened.
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Fantastic to see you suggest this Graeme. What will be interesting to see is how many commentators on this blog suddenly change their philosophy that this is an entirely unworkable solution based on it being a post rather than comment suggesting it.
‘the Britomart bottleneck will prevent us increasing frequencies much beyond present settings’
This is only true at the peaks, we do not send 20 trains an hour to Britomart all day. The increase in off peak frequencies when added to extra journeys from people choosing connections from buses plus the existing excess capacity outside of the rush hours does offer a fair bit of space. And the new trains have a higher capacity per train, it is hard to get exact numbers on the current trains as they are such a mixed bag but I have been told by AT that across the fleet the increase is 40%
However, the only way to make sense of Key’s challenge is to get ridership rising again and to show that the network is on target to hit the magic 20 mil in the coming years and that the CRL will clearly be needed earlier than 2025. This I believe will be completely clear from 2016/7 on.
Next year will still be a mess as the new train technology and new bus system are rolled out, but gradually from 2016 on we will see more and more people seeing the advantages in the whole Transit network. And of course fare integration is an important step too.
To take most people away from where they want to go strikes me as an odd way to run a Transit Network. There are better ways of running West/South services which I think we could consider doing if we have the available rolling stock and if the planned network is fully bursting before the CRL is complete, but now is not the time to consider it.
As well as ways to eliminate the ‘Newmarket Shuffle’. Unless your aim is to lobby for additional trains to be ordered already?
Trains that we will certainly use once electrification to Pukekohe is done as well as the CRL, the Mt Roskill line, and of course the Mangere/Airport line…..?
As Graeme says there are various options, all with issues and opportunities, and none, of course offering anything like the transformation that the CRL does. Here’s one based on an old suggestion of mine and a map by commenter Andrew:
I think this would be too confusing for commuters. Patrick once proposed something similar and I made a pretty network map of it (see here (can a blog mod turn that into an image link?).
I think the advantage of Patrick’s old linked idea is it is simpler to understand than having few trains from the West go to Britomart.
What we really need to grow is off-peak patronage. I think weekend West line services are an untapped patronage goldmine.
Ah I see you edited it in above Patrick – cheers for cleaning off Waitakere too 🙂
On second look there’s quite a few changes there. Hm, I wonder how the loss of direct Britomart-Manukau services would go down? It may be better to terminate Crosstown services at Otahuhu rather than Eastern line services, if both can’t be run through to Manukau.
Yup possibly… Otahuhu becomes a big interchange with that model above, there MC riders can even choose which way they want to go to Britomart.
I admit I was thinking of a conversation with Sudhvir about connecting Middlemore and Grafton hospitals!
We need to add the busway going through Grafton to Newmarket too.
The other question remains whether Newmarket junction can handle all these movements; way beyond my skillset.
Assuming say a 6 tph [+2/3 from Onehunga] on all lines. That means putting as many trains through that junction as into Britomart; doable?
Do we have any timeframe on when the Parnell station will open for business? I’d love to take the train to work, but courtesy of the Strand being stranded on the far side of the old station and its switching yard it’s well over a kilometre’s walk to Britomart and my work hours mean I just cannot be arsed with how much earlier I’d need to leave home to be in the office on time. The proposed Parnell station is only about 700 metres away, which is very attractive. I imagine that there’re a reasonable number of potential users who’re in the same situation, too.
My other option, bus swap at Newmarket, means I pay more. And I’m not in the least bit hopeful that that anomaly will be resolved before Parnell’s operational.
Bad news for you Matt, it has been delayed again. While i agree that there are almost certainly more urgent uses for the small sums of money we have for stations, especially say the new bus interchange at Otahuhu, I do think we have a real problem here with the transport planners not understanding this place at all. Basically they are grumpy with not having a University Station so can only see how this isn’t one. Which is true, but that isn’t what it will achieve.
Blinded by this absence they refuse to see Parnell as either a destination or a place changer, which it will be if done well. More soon.
One further point, Parnell will be much much more valuable when the CRL is open, not that we want to wait that long, but there is some time.
*snarl*
In which case, the useless sods could at least literally bridge the gap created by the old Strand station. Doesn’t have to be flash or expensive, but the disconnection between Parnell and Britomart is not in any way assisted by the kilometre-long detour around the yards.
Are you listening, Auckland Transport? You’re supposed to be about connecting places, not keeping them apart for apparently-unending lengths of time.
Ah, Hi Andrew, above, pimped a little. Clearly you could flip the southern terminus of the Crosstown Line all sorts of ways, I terminated the eastern at Otahuhu so as to not overload that section of the Southern line but obviously if the track space and the demand is there then either it or the Crosstown could go on to Papakura or Pukekohe, the other serving Man City…. various options.
Of course the Crosstown could start at Mt Roskill if we built that while waiting for the CRL to come on line….
More time with the HOP card in action and real integrated fares and we will have more data on current users destinations which would be useful although not the last word as new services can make different journeys more popular especially if they radically improve the time and convenience of a direction.
Main thing is to get the new plans as they stand running but this is a diverting exercise while we wait. Basically a way of adding capacity on the inner west and core south while avoiding Britomart; by and far our biggest destination… so a bit nuts.
I must say that I like the idea of the cross town line. It isnt without precedent worldwide and it would remove a suggestion that the CRL is only for getting into the CBD. It might be used a lot more off peak as well when people are perhaps more interested in cross town movements – i.e. getting to Eden Park/Mt Smart for games from the other side of town.
If there were releatively frequent connections at Newmarket to Parnell/Britomart, I dont really see why it shouldnt be used to get to the city anyway.
What constraints would there be on frequency on that cross town line? As it would now avoid the bottleneck situation at Britomart, why not 5min frequencies? A lack of trains, I guess?
Wasnt there a problem with through traffic at Newmarket though?
Off peak and weekend patronage will never be a goldmine unless the pricing policies change dramatically. E.g. the London model: 1 week travelcard for zones xyz = 5 x 1 day travelcard for those zones. Actually, it’s an even better deal than that: http://www.londontravelpass.com/prices.html
At present unless there is only one of you there is no incentive whatsoever given the cost of parking to use the buses or trains at the weekends.
Indeed. Return train/bus trip from Ellerslie to town for my partner and myself is over $13. Parking is $8-ish in a building. Why would we? And as soon as you add in a family with school-aged children coming from the outer edges of the city the price balloons wildly and you’d need to be parking all weekend at the kerb before it’s financially realistic to take public transport.
There are so many things wrong, in so many ways, with Auckland’s fare structure. At least Lester Levy recognises this, but there’s not a snowball’s chance in hell of hitting 20m trips/year until there’s not a massive up-front financial penalty for using public transport over using one’s car (as opposed to the annual operating costs of a car, which are largely invisible when one is deciding on travel mode for a given journey).
I dont think we haver to look as far afield as London.
In Chch the system is that you swipe your MetroCard and get two hours of travel with unlimited transfers. Once you swipe twice it is free for the rest of the day. Once you swipe 10 times in a week it is free for the rest of the week.
I dont know what the would do to the fare box but it was certainly an easy to understand and popular system in Chch. The buses were actually doing quite well until the earthquake and about to get a big new bus exchange.
Prague also had the option of 30min or 2 hour tickets that you punched. Prague also had a system whereby you sent a text to a number and it sent a text back with a code that was a ticket for 2 hours. If an inspector (no ticket sellers or gates in Prague) asked for your ticket you just showed them the text and was all good. Surely that is possible here?
Of course, in Prague you could buy an annual ticket for the entire metro network for the equivalent of NZ$250. That’s what you can do when you have the most used per capita metro system in the world.
In Auckland two swipes could see you paying $15 for a day, under current fare levels. Cheaper to buy a day pass or a month pass. Which is a big problem, when everything about our public transport is so wildly expensive.
It’s refreshing seeing some thought go into pre-CRL ideas for keeping rail growth going. The truth is, the CRL is still a long way off. The past opening of Britomart is probably closer to today, than the future opening of the CRL is. Just think of all that has happened since Britomart opened. The SX set, the Silver Fern railcars, 23 new SA sets, the DMU refurbishments, the new feature stations, all the station rebuilds, the double tracking, the new signalling, etc. We still have at least the same timeframe ahead of us, and the current AEP works will be complete within a year, and all the new trains in service within three years. After that, there is a long time of nothing new planned. Something will need to change, to better deliver on the growth made possible by all that has come before.
Mt Eden or Grafton could be made much more important than they presently are. There is the potential to get Western Line passengers into the upper and central CBD quite a bit faster, via a high-frequency bus connection. I think the bus central corridor from Grafton to the city, should be added onto the rail network map, with a “railbus” service operating between Grafton and Britomart. Really drive Western Line patronage, through an offering of faster journey times.
But the really easy way to drive up patronage is to get weekend trains to Pukekohe and Swanson, and the Western Line up to at least a 30 minute frequency all day Saturday and Sunday. This shouldn’t be left until post-EMU. If we want to reach 20m passengers within a timeframe to speed up CRL construction, such changes need to be made now, with the existing trains.
For those interested in a little more detail on the Mt Roskill link/loop/line (all these “l” words, so confusing) Patrick mentioned, here it is; http://greaterakl.wpengine.com/2011/11/21/the-avondale-mt-roskill-spur/ cheers
Another workround I’ve suggested before would be a working from Westfield-Newmarket-The Strand-Glen Innes and return (an extended pendulum working, to Stu Donovan’s term). There is far more development round the Strand station than ten years ago; and the junctioning could just manage it because the major constraint (the Britomart tunnel) would be avoided. The reverse working would give people living in the Eastern suburbs a direct link to Newmarket. Passengers from south of Newmarket wanting to get to Britomart could change at Newmarket to a Western Line train heading directly into the Britomart catchment. This train could also be used for carrying the high school students whose end destination is Newmarket; a train from New Lynn to Newmarket and points south would have a similar role.
If we are talking about 20m passengers per year, it might be helpful to distinguish the share of that for Britomart from the share of that elsewhere. In the Wellington system, 90 percent of the passengers are going to or coming from Wellington station; the share of Britomart is a lot less.
Newmarket is clearly the second busiest destination on the network, but from west and south much more than from anyone close to the Strand. Anyway as with my suggestions above it could all be limited by the capacity of the Newmarket junction, not the station itself, but the junction just to the north of the station.
For the weekend crowd, in Newmarket it would be helpful if shops who currently validate parking would give validated HOP cards as an alternative. At the moment if i shop at 277 i get free parking. What about smaller parking minimums for shops that validate hop cards. Same with my city dentist who rents a park and validates. This could support weekend use of public transport.
GI and Eastern to Newmarket and round to Penrose in 20-25 mins.. Could have significant patronage upside??
With or without the “pendulum” adding the Strand could be interesting, as will Parnell no doubt, but of course more stops extend journey times as well as add to patronage..
I also don’t think we should underestimate the upside from the end of weekend service disruptions. Actually so bad that even when the trains are running you don’t even bother to check because you have assumed they may not run and organised your weekend around the car.
Or go the other way round via Panmure if the link was built round the corner at Westfield, that was suggested a couple of weeks ago..
Just on the Mt Roskill link/loop (or any other additional lines), does the delay in the CRL give us the opportunity to add one of the cheaper options in the interim?
Presumably the Mt Roskill option won’t put much strain on Britomart but potentially adds significant trips to the total? Whats the budget and/or cost?
More on this and other network extensions both rail and high quality bus lines coming soon: The Congestion Free Network.
What are the logistics of passengers transferring on the platform, and would it be safe? Ideally in the morning the Western would connect to an Onehunga orginating train, as i guess these would have more room on them than trains originating from the south. Onehunga passengers wanting to exit at Newmarket would also best exit on the other side of the train to the passengers wanting to board, which I think should be doable off memory if the centre track is used.
Is it an option to:
1. Maximise services on the current service pattern, which provides Britomart connections for all lines; and
2. Then run additional direct West to South trains as you have indicated?
could run extra services Henderson/Swanson to Panmure via Parnell. The Western lines trains to Britomart would then bypass Newmarket, speeding them up by nearly 5 minutes. Once AMETI Panmure interchange up and running should see big patronage boost at Panmure. Eastern buses timetabled 40 mins from their to Britomart, train 25.
As an aside, one way you could run this model is to complement it with vastly increased frequencies on peak express buses originating out west/south to provide the direct connection to the city for those pass that are more adverse to connecting than they are to catching a bus: Have one every 15 minutes leaving from Swanson, Henderson, Glen Eden, and New Lynn.
Kind of undermines the direction of the New Network though!
It would undermine the new network, yes, but doesn’t that entirely depend on a reliable frequent train network for it to work properly? If that key ingredient is missing then the new network’s value at least around the rail corridors is badly undermined. I find the new timetable on New North Road to have yielded no net benefit as a regular user of those services, other than to make me use the train more – which typically increases my door-to-door journey time. I think there is certainly room for flexibility in the introduction of some aspects of the new network design pending the full availability of the key missing link – the CRL.
We can easily double rail trips with the current service pattern and trains. It’s going to happen anyway, we just need to complete the integrated bus and train network and the integrated fares. It’s really just a case of running decent frequencies all day and across the weekend. The first step is running a proper weekend pattern and avoiding shutdowns.
Who cares about the weekeday peak to and from Britomart, it’s the other 140 hours a week we need to worry about.
Vancouver has a network of very similar length and number of stations as ours, and they run a hundred million trips a year and their city is less dense and less constrained geographically, most come from bus connections. We can do it no worries.
Couldn’t agree more, there is a lot of untapped potential with what is currently there and a lot (relatively speaking) of capacity there. Electric trains, 15min all day frequencies on the main lines, 30min all day frequencies on the Onehunga line, higher frequencies from Manukau and higher weekend frequencies and later services + intergrated fares + new bus network and the small things yet to be done (outstanding station upgrades/improvements, Parnell station etc) will add up quite comfortably to 20million per year. It’s just making the most out of what is there.
With what I’ve seen on the new bus network for South Auckland, aside from 2 services from Mangere, there will be NO other buses going into the city. That in itself will see LOTS of people spilling on to the rail network. If that happens out West and from the East/South East then that will be large additional numbers of people on rail. I have a feeling most buses from the South East will terminate at Panmure.
The service pattern above would be disastrous for PT in general and would put a lot of people off, as you’re effectively ‘cutting’ off direct access to the busiest station on the network and most people would not tolerate that.
That’s not quite true. There will be buses from the East and the Isthmus going into the city. Buses from the West, South and Southwest will terminate at interchanges at places like Henderson, New Lynn, Onehunga, Otahuhu, Panmure, Manukau and Papakura. At these interchanges people will have the choice of continuing any trips to the city by train, or by an isthmus bus. Most will probably pick the train as it will be faster.
From the North and Northwest buses will continue to enter the city, however these will largely be BRT style mainline bus services coming off the Northern Busway and Northwestern motorway. Most people will still be required to connect from their local bus to the mainline bus.
I think you are overestimating how much people dislike connections. There seems to be a real mood against it but I dont agree.
I have to hark back to Prague (apologies but it is by far the best designed PT network I have ever used and a city the same population as Auckland). Connections never worried me either metro/metro or metro/bus or metro/tram because the frequencies were so good. If the system is designed so I just have to cross a platform or walk up some stairs and jump on the next service, connections are no worries.
It is just that we see the frequencies now and expect to wait up to 30 mins for the next one.
If that cross town line is operating at high frequencies (5 mins) and (I wait to be shot down on this) the only constraint on frequency is number of trains, I see huge potantial in that line. If only to demonstrate to the average Aucklander what life is like with high frequency PT, something people are only just now experiencing on the busway.
Train availability and capacity of the flat Newmarket junction.
Anyone with technical knowledge about this? Rough numbers?
Thats what I suspect Patrick. SFLauren is saying he was shot down on this concept and I believe I was as well.
The reasons were that the Newmarket station as currently configured cant handle this as there is no smooth throughway?
Train availability is of course a problem, but cant we just buy more trains? The Spaniards have got nothing else to do with 25% unemployment!
Ben it’s less the station at Newmarket than the junction beyond it (heading into town) as even with my patterns above the direct west to city service has to share this junction with both the crosstown line and the two southern line services.
My question to the technical types is: What is the functional limit to this junction? Can it handle, say with the patterns I have shown above, 20tph?
Goosoid, when I last looked at this issue in more detail it seemed all that was needed was some minor track work on the city bound line from Newmarket. Something that would cost about $5 million that would then let you run trains at what ever frequency our current signals can handle.
Don’t forget that connections incur a financial penalty under our current “system”. I have no particular aversion to them if I’m not standing in the cold for 10, 20, 30 minutes, but I very, very strongly object to paying more to travel the same distance.
As I observe above in my question about Parnell, I could train to Newmarket and then walk up to catch a bus to take me down Parnell Rise (don’t get me started on the lack of integration in Newmarket!), but that would bump my daily fares up by 58c in each direction and I simply refuse to pay that much more.
I must admit I havent done many transfers with the new ATHop card, but arent you just priced for the distance/zones regardless of transfers? Or are you referring to the current system without the ATHop on all transport?
As I understand, if I currently go from Ellerslie (zone 2) into Newmarket on the Southern line, then switch to the Western and go to Mt Albert (I think also zone 2?) then I would only be charged a single zone fare.
Is that right or am I not understanding the whole tag on/tag off system?
I suspect you would be charged for the one stage Ellerslie-Newmarket and then two stages Newmarket-Mt Albert. Or, potentially (and very likely given the shambolic, transfer-hostile nature of fares in this city), charged a penalty fare for your Britomart-bound journey before being tagged on at Mt Albert and subsequently charged a penalty fare for not tagging off there either. What I do know for certain is that if there’s a mode change there’s a full fare paid for however many stages are used on each mode. So I would tag onto a train at Ellerslie and off at Newmarket, and get charged for one stage. Then I’d tag onto a bus in Newmarket and off at the bottom of Parnell Rise and also get charged for one stage. That will not change with the completion of the HOP roll-out, either.
We don’t have zones we have fare stages, and you have to pay for each stage boundary you cross (or stage you travel within).
Ah ok I see. Yes if you chnage modes by going through a gate then yes you kind of start again.
What about if I dont go through a gate? If I tag on at Britomart, get off at Ellerslie and then on to a bus at Ellerslie and then tag off when I get off the bus. How am I charged? Do I get a penalty fare for the train ride?
Yes it would be better if tagging on/off gave you a set amount of time for transfers as well as charging for the fare stages so that I am charged one fare for my whole journey.
As I say, the system in Chch is great as it is time based with daily/weekly caps. I know Chch is much smaller but people really liked the system. I guess that horse has bolted in AKL though.
Still supposed to tag off at Ellerslie when you leave the platform, even though there’s no gate to force the issue.
Auckland must move to a system where transfers incur no penalty, regardless of whether there’s a mode change, and at some stage it will happen, but for now every shift costs. You will pay more for your Ellerslie-Newmarket-Mt Albert example than you would travelling three stages on the same line, even though you’ve only travelled three stages in total.
AT HOP does not yet support fare neutral travel options.
If you travel Parnell-Newmarket and Newmarket-Mt Albert you will be charged for both trips. With no fare reduction. free transfers is the next project after the go live.
SB, integrated fares are coming after integrated ticketing. Zone based.
Yup, that’s exactly what I just said Patrick…
Agree with the many above.
The network needs:
Better weekend services – more frequent and further out West.
Onehunga could be exploited more – again on weekends but off peak too.
Direct non-Britomart services: in addition to existing ones, for example from the West to South or indeed to Onehunga
Push for incremental improvements supporting CRL to begin early – like duplication to Onehunga and some level crossing removals
Could Mt Roskill spur be funded by another source and brought forward?
Better ticketing and PR
Get bloody Parnell opened – ridiculous!
The new trains and quicker journeys will have a massive impact too – look at London Overground patronage.
The express bus from Grafton to Aotea or similar could be interesting – free to rail ticket holders only, with priority the whole way.
I think it’s doable with the right attitude and taking action. Currently stagnation is due to a loss of momentum and the calm before the next big thing – people are used to the network and organic growth isn’t enough to double patronage.
But it’s a fair challenge, and one which I believe could be met.
If the target is trips and not revenue, a cynical AT might be tempted to offer very cheap off-peak fares to acheive one at the cost of the other 😉
A plan with no drawbacks!
There are two ways to make money: charge a lot of people a little bit, or charge a few people a lot. AT is currently charging about as many people as will bear the crush about as much as they will bear for the commuting peak – and more than they will bear for the off-peak. If they go from getting an average of $1 profit (numbers sourced from a fundamental orifice) from 100 people during a train’s off-peak run to getting an average of 50c profit from 250 people during the same run, they’ve increased profit by 25%. More profit from each run increases the fare-box recovery because it costs pretty much the same to run a train with 100 people as one with 250 people.
Cutting off-peak fares to get more bums onto existing seats makes money provided the patronage increase generates more total profit, and it increases the patronage generally which is good all round. There’ll be some modelling which can determine the sweet spot between cutting too much to make up the lost revenue from any number of passengers, and not cutting enough to bring in enough passengers to make up the lost revenue, and provided that it doesn’t make stupid assumptions about uptake (best keep it away from NZTA!) it should be easy to work out how to get more money through people paying less.
Cutting on-peak fares when there’s not much slack capacity is probably a bad idea right now, but once the electrics arrive and are both larger and cheaper to run there should be very serious consideration given to some wanton butchery of fares.
Oh this is a very interesting post, this is actually a proposal I came up with about 5 years ago for a way to increase frequencies on the existing network.
Each time I made such a notion either on here or the better transport forum I was assaulted with abuse and ridicule.
Its good to see someone else being able to discuss this topic without being attacked.
No, you were abused and ridiculed for your trolling. Try to keep up.
I still think it is a daft proposal, see my comments above that it is not at all necessary to change the running pattern to increase boardings.
Yes I saw that post of yours, it was primarily around increasing services during off peak hours when people don’t really want to take PT. I suspect this will help to an extent most notably after the new PT network is in place to funnel people onto trains.
What my and the authors suggestion does is increase peak frequencies, which unless you are wanting to discredit the CRL is rather important.
Beats ‘forcing’ people into cars by offering no quality alternative.
Sorry Patrick but we were talking about Auckland, there are currently plenty of viable transport options.
I think maybe you should try a little international travel with all your motorway designing earnings so you can see just how good Transit can be in a city.
And, as usual this is just your opinion, the low mode share for Transit in Auckland shows that the offering is very poor; why don’t people in Auckland choose the Transit option to a similar level as comparable overseas cities; because it’s mostly crap, or because we Aucklanders are genetically special and ‘just love our cars’?
It’s the former. But we’re fixing that, and those figures will and having been reflecting those improvements.
Patrick, it certainly is my opinion that I have never been forced to drive in Auckland, I’m sorry if this happens to you.
One thing I will ask however, who are these comparable cities you talk of. If I recall correctly the last time you listed some compatible cities you listed a bunch of cities that were not even remotely compatible and then ran away.
You’re boring me again; how short is your memory?, This blog [that you follow so closely while drawing curb and channeling] is full of overseas comparisons, I have better things to do that list them all here for your trolling nitpickery.
Interesting Patrick, I didn’t know posts about Vancouver were banned on this site.
And buying extra trains to run a high frequency crosstown pattern where ‘people don’t really want to take PT’ either is a better idea?
If you are concerned with peak commuters to the CBD your plan achieves nothing anyway, it doesn’t get any more trains into downtown.
Actually nick I’m concerned about the network frequency like I said before, I’m not overly stressed about how many trains I can drive and out of britomart.
Ok so your concerned with train frequency on the network rather that moving people and generating boardings. Fair enough, if your goal is moving trains around then you’ll do just fine.
Nick, do you care to explain where you came up with that conclusion? I’m sorry but I wasn’t with you during that dream or adventure to another dimension where I made that claim.
No not really, in my experience explaining things to you doesn’t help.
So you prefer to just make up fictional claims as to what I said and the argue against them? That sounds rather similar to the definition of a strawman.
It’s not a fictional claim, you said it right there yourself “Actually nick I’m concerned about the network frequency like I said before”.
Concerned with network frequency, no mention of boardings, demands, desire lines or anything related taking people to where they want to go when the want to go. You want to run a whole lot of trains on a pattern that avoids key trip generators to boost train frequency, I understand that. Like I said, if you’re interested in frequency then you’ll have no problem.
Anyway, please prove me wrong about the futility of explaining things to you…
Ah and there you have it nick, I said “I’m concerned about network frequency”. You decided all on your own that I didn’t care about moving people or generating boardings. Why you did that I don’t know, you felt the need to troll maybe.
Anyway, as you well know from your current work network frequency is a very important aspect, you will also know from your current work that not every single person in the city wants to go to britomart, you will also know that people don’t mind transfers if it’s part of an improved overall trip.
Now given you know all this I don’t know why your playing dumb, just to troll again I guess.
Richard, we’ve been through this several times. If you run high frequency on the west to south pattern you cannot run high frequencies between Newmarket station and Britomart, it’s either one or the other. The junction cannot handle high frequencies on both patterns at the same time.
The only outcome of your proposal is to slash capacity between Newmarket and Britomart down to about 6 trains an hour. Whatever you say about not everyone wanting to go to Britomart and not minding transfers, if you slash the existing train capacity from twelve tph to six to the main city terminus you are going to lose a whole lot of patronage.
I’m not playing dumb, I’m just thinking through the full implications of the proposed scheme. My only conclusion is you’ve gone off to try and up frequency wherever you can without any though to the implications for existing travel patterns.
And thanks for proving my point that explaining anything to you is futile, I explain myself to answer your query and you accuse me of trolling.
Nick: if Newmarket can’t handle high frequencies to both Grafton and Parnell, how is it going to cope with the post-CRL running pattern? That has high frequency services in both directions.
Quite right Nick, we have talked through this many times before, and like those many times you have told me that Newmarket is a constraint, to which many times I have explained to you that we can spend about $5 million changing the track to resolve that issue, to which many times before you have agreed that if we spend some money we can fix that issue.
This inherently is why I have to repeat myself so often. We talk about the same issue over and over again and every time any contenders come in apparently oblivious to the previous 50 times it’s been explained to them.
Regarding your last point, that made no sense. What you explained to me last time was that because I didn’t say something you chose to imagine I did. Thats trying to say I don’t like chocolate icecream for the simple fact I never mentioned icecream or anything icecream related.
Different movements Steve, and there are improvements to the junction at Newmarket.
By the way SF I am glad to see that you have at least moved of from trying to say that your solution was effectively free. You have now recognised that trains cost something.
Yes I understand that it confused some people saying it was effectively free in comparison to the CRL. In reality its less than 0.2% of the cost of the CRL and so “effectively” free but not “technically” free.
Patrick complains about me being nitpicky but debating the difference between 0.2% and 0% seems real nitpicky to me.
And just like that you take 2 steps back. As demonstrated below, you need 16 trains. They aren’t free.
Wow, I know SFLauren rubs some of us up the wrong way but he is actually being pretty reasonable here and only supporting what the guest post says. Some pretty knee jerk vitriolic comments here.
Anyway – SFLauren, the only point I have is that I actually think this cross town service could almost be a better option off peak. A lot of people would like to get across town for certain events (weekend sport, big games at Eden Park/Mt Smart stadium) where the CBD is not relevant and this might give them a better option. As we all know weekend traffic can actually be just as bad as weekday and we are all less patient about it.
What did your $5m work at Newmarket involve out of interest? Did that include new trains – I think they would be needed.
However, I suspect AT wont be interested (anyone from AT here?) as it would involve a huge amount of rescheduling.
I like the idea personally and can see the value.
It isn’t kneejerk Goosoid, it is a learned reaction from months of this nonsense.
The short answer is that we can’t run that operating pattern by the way.
The longer is that we can if we do a fair bit of work. We need to do a fair bit of rebuilding at Newmarket, possibly including an extra platform. We also need to buy a load of trains.
I agree that this is probably a good idea, but it won’t be cheap. Few hundred million on new trains and extra stabling, rebuilding newmarket junction driver training, and possibly rebuilding some other stations.
In my plan goosoid I had a shuttle train running back and forth between Newmarket. In order to reduce delays I had the double track to the city setup exclusively for the shuttle on the eastern platform with the switch as close as practicable to the platform.
I had also thought you could run every second or third western to the south keeping the current frequency on the britomart section. This would boost the frequency for trips all over the city excluding britomart (staying as existing).
I agree though, there was some real venom being spat before for no particular reason. Maybe thats the reason some people like to run such discussion sites.
Sailor boy, how many new trains are we buying and how does this compare to existing?
From memory I thought we were getting about twice as many new trains as what we currently? I not sure hence why I ask.
If this is not the case is it just coincidence that our current number of trains is also the same as the capacity of britomart and that the electric trains will not provide and performance gains in this respect?
SFLauren – yeah I had the same idea with shuttling trains.
Dont feel persecuted – when I suggested this I was also shot down on technical grounds.
Although I see the merit in it in principle especially with the potentially high frequencies – I think we need to have it accurately costed. And that must include new trains and all the other costs outlined above by Sailor Boy.
If it’s is only $20m, then maybe worth discussing. If $100m, forget it.
Of course, we can do that until the cows come home, but if AT arent interested (and I assume they arent) then it doesnt really matter, does it?
To be honest goosoid, I doubt anything anywhere ever will happen on the ground due to a discussion on here. Although it is all very interesting to read the decisions made by council, NZTA or the government are not moved in the slightest by what is talked about here.
Well that’s not quite true, a few of those “piece of cake” improvements around the CBD have some real potential.
Agreed – but more interesting than working!
Well you are wanting to run the same number of trains into britomart, and on the Eastern line. For every tph you want on your cross town service beyond 6 you need to add 4 trains as it is a 4 hour round trip, plus probably 10% more for safety. So if you want to go to 10tph on the Western and Southern and leave 2ph on the Onehunga line, then you need 16 new trains.
How many trains are we currently buying however sailor boy? The same or more than existing.
You also don’t necessarily need to boost frequency on the outer parts of the network.
Those 16 are on top of what we are buying now.
Thanks for not answering the question again sailor boy. As before, how many trains are we buying? Is this the same as existing?
57 three-car sets, as you could have found in 30 seconds on Google:
https://www.aucklandtransport.govt.nz/improving-transport/auckland-rail-upgrade/electric-trains/Pages/electric-trains-questions.aspx
Oh I forgot to ask, is this the same ad existing?
The message I’m getting is that we currently have 57 three car sets and we care going to replace them with 57 three car sets. Is this correct?
SF: have a look at today’s post: http://greaterakl.wpengine.com/2013/07/04/electric-trains-will-significantly-boost-capacity/ and Matt’s comment here: http://greaterakl.wpengine.com/2013/07/04/electric-trains-will-significantly-boost-capacity/#comment-74845
We’re going from 148 cars to 179, and each of those cars is larger, too.
We currently have a cobbled together mix of trains in two, four, five and six car configurations. That totals to 148 cars (not sure how many individual trains actually), however there are four main varieties so the exact size and capacity of a car varies also.
We are buying 57 three-car EMUs, so 171 cars in total. However as Matt points out here: http://greaterakl.wpengine.com/2013/07/04/electric-trains-will-significantly-boost-capacity/ the new EMU cars are significantly longer and hold about 1/3 greater capacity per car.
So we are getting a fleet that can handle a little less that double the peak capacity as what we have now, with the same service frequency as we run today (i.e. 6tph on the three main lines and 2tph on the onehunga line). I hope that more or less answers your question.
BTW It’s a little hard to compare with what we have at the moment because there are four different types of train at the moment, with different capacities. Anyway, there are an absolute maximum of 43 sets at the moment: 19 2-car sets that can be joined up and separated, and 24 locomotive-hauled trains that only run in their fixed configurations of 4 to 6 cars.
Nick: we don’t run 6tph on the main lines at the moment. We run 4tph on the Western, 2tph from Onehunga, and 9tph split through the Southern, Eastern and Manukau lines. So the electric trains will be delivering better frequencies as well as higher capacity on each train – 20tph total, instead of 15tph.
Very good thankyou that gives me the information I’m looking for. So we are pretty much going from 49 trains to 57 trains giving and extra 8 trains to help boost frequency.
43 to 57 giving an extra 14, but yeah.
Fantastic, I was told I needed 16 more trains but it seems we are already getting 14 extra. So given I’m 2 short I’ll just have to cut back on my frequency slightly.
Sounds like the plan is more than achievable.
I think Sailor Boy meant 16 more trains than the 57 we will have, not the 43 we have now. The extra 14 trains we’re getting are only enough to increase frequencies to 6tph on each of the three main lines + 2tph on Onehunga, which is the maximum capacity of Britomart on the current routing.
Just one thing to consider Richard, that is 57 single units. The leftovers would need to be used to form six car trains for the busiest peak runs, otherwise some of them will be singnifixantly smaller than our current largest trains.
Well I think we are getting near the end of this. To summarise.
The new bus network will feed more passengers onto the trains.
We are getting more trains and so the frequency is going up.
If we run more off peak serviced we will attract more demand.
And if we revise the track layout in Newmarket we can increase frequency further by changing operational patterns and potentially adding some more trains to our current order. Which given the approval of the CRL we probably should.
Agreed with above.
If AT want to get this done the main thing that they need to do is drop weekend fares. Maybe half price, or full family for the price of a single ticket (but make it as four tickets).
I think that Double tracking to Onehunga will not help on it’s own, but if you built the Mt Roskill spur you could then run Mt Roskill to Onehunga at 10 minute frequencies.
I really don’t think that we will get 20m, it is possible, but AT and the Council don’t have the necessary drive, I doubt even more that we will get the 25% employment as well.
We will be able to show that we are on track to 20mil, and that the CRL is urgent.
It will be begun before 2020.
I agree it will be begun before 2020 but I only think that because I think Grens Labour will win 2017.
I just don’t think that AT or AC will actually do the things that they could do to increase patronage.
Once HOP is bedded in to the buses later this year the next vital piece is to get no-fee transfers, off peak special rates (single stage off peak like Vancouver?) and daily fare caps introduced asap.
One zone off peak is genius. That would really encourage patronage.
Isnt it better to have full trains with people paying half the money than 1/4 full paying full fare?
Anyone from AT watching this and care to comment?
I really like this, like much else those clever Canucks do in Vancouver. Fantastic for equality of access across the whole city.
Cheaper off peak rides is sure to be revenue neutral at least and passenger number fabulous.
Exactly. Like most heavy vehicles, fuel consumption on buses and trains does not change much between running with no load or with a full load. The big cost is the initial fuel burn (ie: to move the empty vehicle), other running costs (ie: maintenance) and wages. If you’re already running a service, and you have capacity (off peak), you might as well reduce the fare price and fill it up.
With the Airport line canned for the time being do we even need to double track to Onehunga?
It’s 12 minutes return journey time from Penrose to Onehunga and back, plus four minutes at Onehunga for the driver to change ends. Even allowing for the electrics to cut the journey time down to 10 minutes, and halving the Onehunga dwell time to two minutes, that’s a maximum of four return trips per hour with only three minutes headway between trains (4×12=48, + 4×3=60). Since we run at much higher headway than that (five minutes? but even four minutes would blow things out to beyond an hour), it’s a maximum of three return trips per hour.
Onehunga is a major part of the DUP, with very liberal proposed height restrictions. It’s simply incompatible with its place in an intensified Auckland for it to have a maximum of three return services per hour.
Would need to improve the proximity of the platforms at Penrose to enable bulk transfers there, too up and down for anyone with stuff, with prams, in wheelchairs or when it rains as it is now.
Yes, Penrose is in need of serious redesign if Onehunga is to fulfil its full potential. Not entirely sure how it would be done, though.
Fair enough. Was just thinking out loud :-). Thanks for the feedback.
I’m late to this discussion, but I’m currently using the Western Line and have no issue with interchanging at Newmarket. Bear in mind we already have to wait 3 mins with the doors open (a bit chilly at the moment!) while the driver walks to the other end of the train. Presumably this will still occur with the EMUs, and the longer trains mean a longer walk? If you can get my interchange train to arrive within 3 mins, I’m no worse off.
The main issue would be the vast majority of passengers would all get off the Western Line train and walk across the platform to the interchange train, potentially overloading it. Although if every second train bypassed Newmarket altogether that would resolve a lot of issues.
Exactly. See maps above; actually speed up the trains going to Britomart by skipping Newmarket, if nothing else to compensate for the added delay of stopping at Parnell, as well as to prepare Western line riders for the direct journey they’ll be getting with the CRL. And give those heading on from Newmarket more options.
This also frees up Newmarket Station for the extra services from west and south, if not the junction itself.
Patrick, perhaps Parnell is actually the answer: if the Western Line bypasses Newmarket, the journey time to Parnell must only be about 90 secs longer than currently stopping at Newmarket. Passengers wanting to go to Newmarket and the Southern Line alight at Parnell to await a train in the opposite direction, rather than going all the way to Britomart and back out. Eliminates all the time going round the painfully slow Vector curve into Britomart and back out again. Passengers going all the way to Britomart are no worse off time-wise, and probably slightly better off.
The goal of 20m passengers per year should be easy goal to meet if it’s a frequent reliable service at a fair price, and serves shorter distance trips than just Brittomart commutes. Melbourne’s 109 and 48 trams have a combined annual patronage of 26m with trams holding no more than 180 passengers each. Peak frequencies are 6 minutes, and weekend daytime every 10 minutes. During the weekend there is sometimes hardly even sufficient standing room. The trams are used for many short distance journeys, so the seats and standing room have a high “churn” with many people able to use the same space during a single service. Auckland has plenty of intermediate destinations on its network, such as Sylvia Park, Middlemore, New Lynn and Henderson, all of which would become attractive PT destinations are a high frequency. Even Los Angeles now has high frequencies on its light rail lines, with a 10 minute frequency from 7pm until midnight.
Information on how important Britomart is in our current system here: http://greaterakl.wpengine.com/2013/01/15/analysing-station-rankings/
Yes Newmarket is clearly the second most important station but second by a long way. These numbers do not support large scale transfers at Newmarket over direct trains to Britomart.
2012 boardings
Britomart 12,000
Newmarket 3,100
Direct trains to Britomart still need to be by far the main focus of the network
Interesting to compare to 2003
Britomart 1,765
Newmarket 1,088
So build it and they will come. Post CRL Aotea will grow fast, and take so users from Britomart, but Britomart will probably dip at first then quickly recover as the whole network grows each time we substantially invest in it.
Here is my network map of basically the above ideas. (This is a pre CBD Link map, though I have including some stuff not yet built)
http://imageshack.us/f/46/njj8.png/