As Auckland Transport explain in their video on Auckland’s New Public Transport Network , the goal of integrated ticketing is that you pay one fare, no matter how many transfers you make.
Indeed, it is going to be absolutely critical to have this in place before the new bus networks are rolled out, starting with South Auckland in early 2015. This is because the new network places more reliance on people transferring between services than we do now, with the trade-off that more frequent services are able to run. Having to pay an additional bus, rail or ferry fare every time you transfer is a sure fire way to make public transport patronage plummet.
As the rollout of the AT Hop card progresses, it has become evident that the existing passes that enable this connectivity are being phased out and replaced with the AT Hop Monthly pass option.
Take the Northern Pass, for instance. AT have announced in the flyer for Birkenhead bus customers that the Northern Pass won’t be accepted for travel on buses after the 17th August. This hasn’t been widely publicised and may come as a surprise to students currently on holiday.
The Northern Pass has many of the attributes that encourage PT usage. It can be used on North Shore buses and on the rail network as far as Kingsland, Ellerslie and Glenn Innes.
It is available as a 2 hour pass, a day pass, an off-peak pass and a 7 day pass and it doesn’t penalise users that transfer between services at the busway or railway stations by making them pay twice.
You can see from the pricing that this there is also a considerable concession for students.
For AT Hop card users, it is becoming evident that the only “integrated” pass available will be the Monthly Pass. It will be great to simplify all of the passes currently in use, but so far the communication from Auckland Transport on this has been fairly poor, in particular if you are looking for it on the Maxx or AT Hop websites.
Originally AT Hop Monthly Pass only applied to the rail network. A lot of the AT information on Monthly Passes still only refers to the rail network, such as here and on the AT Hop site where you purchase monthly passes (don’t get me started on this page – what a mess! ), but if you look hard enough , you will see that all of the North Shore is now included as Zone B for the AT Hop Monthly Pass.
For many, pricing for the AT Hop Monthly Pass will be more expensive than the Northern Pass.
Current Lower Zone Northern Pass users pay roughly $173 for a month’s worth of travel, but now the same user must purchase an A and B Zone AT Hop pass for $190 a month. Of course they are now able to travel throughout all of the North Shore and on the rail network as far as New Lynn and Otahuhu, but many may not want this option.
On the other hand, Upper Zone users currently paying about $218 will be better off with the AT Hop A and B Monthly Pass for $190, again with the benefit of an extended rail zone.
However, students are going to feel ripped off – from what I can tell there aren’t any concessions for AT Hop Monthly passes.
Of course as the AT Hop card rolls out, one can simply use “Hop money” to pay as you go, but you have to pay the full fare every time you transfer – there doesn’t seem to be any mention of a discount for transfers between services from what I could find, so paying by Hop money can hardly be considered integrated.
All in all a very confusing state of affairs for hard-core users of the public transport network – one that I hope Auckland Transport can get on to pronto to clarify.
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AT has staff to do this job on good salaries so where is the accountability . It amazes me every day how poorly run AT is. If you try and contact them you just get the runaround. They are hopelessly disorganised
Agree. This is very poor form. Transfers should have been set up from the very start, even if they dont work properly due to all providers not using AT Hop yet.
Ans surely the Norther Pass should continue to be avaliable until all Northern buses are on AT Hop.
Auckland Transport are, after all, the people who chose to have two totally separate smartcards, both called Hop.
yeah…two different cards called Hop. What moron thought of that.
We finally had the opportunity last weekend to use PT for the first time in years. (We live about a quarter of an hour further out from Westgate where the trains are inconvenient and the buses are…well…inconvenient). Teenage daughter was dropped off at Britomart to use the recently acquired Hop card only to find out vendor had supplied the wrong type of card. So not only did we not know about the two cards, nor did the vendors. The plonker…err…conductor on the train yelled at her and she had to go and buy a ticket. (Yes, he yelled, obviously attempting to humiliate her on the platform…dick head. The whole incident was reported to AT and the phone chap was very polite, but I doubt much will be said to the conductor.)
Paper ticket to the rescue. That single train trip from Britomart to halfway up the western line has cost $23 (youth fare, remember), missed connections and the associated stress of shuffling a bunch of carefully timed activities. I hope the credit on the card doesn’t expire, because there isn’t much of a bus service out here.
I later did a google search on Auckland Hop card and it still was not obvious there was a difference. This is simply appalling communication. How many other people are confused by this?
I was getting all excited reading about the developments in PT, but that excitement has taken quite a holiday.
Rob
(seriously grumpy about this…oh! you noticed)
I was confused, for one. I bought the original Hop to use on the bus when I first moved to Auckland early last year, thinking I’d be able to use it on the train at some point, and I only found out there was going to be a second card from reading this blog. I wonder if I still have the original Hop pamphlet somewhere, because I’m sure it promised that the original Hop card would work on trains.
I do understand how it happened – originally, there was only going to be one Hop (and the old cards would be converted, so no-one would notice the changeover), then after technical difficulties there were going to be two, but there was going to be a big-bang switch and the two cards would never run side by side. They didn’t decide to phase it in, service by service, until very shortly before launch.
The name problem is a big enough issue, though, that they should have delayed the launch of the whole system until it was ready to do the changeover in one go. We’d still giving our ten-trips to the clippy on the train today, but it would avoid the multi-year shambles we’re in the middle of.
There was never meant to be two Hop cards. Snapper were supposed to integrate their card into the Thales solution, and so at the outset the Snapper card was branded as Hop in Auckland. (This is why you can use your purple Hop in Wellington by the way). Then Snapper was allegedly unable to make their card compliant with the Thales readers and other systems and breached the terms of the Participation Agreement, and so now they’ve ended up in legal action with Auckland Transport. Which left Auckland Transport with the dilemma about what to call the Thales card being rolled out to the trains, and so they opted for calling it the **AT** Hop card.
The full timeline of this saga is here: http://greaterakl.wpengine.com/2013/05/12/hop-saga-continues/
Yes, that’s what I meant by “technical difficulties” meaning there had to be two cards, if we take Snapper at their word.
AT knew that the Snapper card wasn’t going to be compatible with Thales sometime before January 2012 when they announced it to the public, but presumably they’d already done all the branding of the Thales card back when the Snapper card was dreamed up in 2010 and it was too late to change it. (Otherwise, there’s no excuse whatsoever for any of this, so I’m being charitable again).
If that’s right, then having two Hop cards is something AT couldn’t avoid, but they did make the stupid choice to introduce the Thales card before the Snapper card was removed.
AT better sort this mess out and not just for hard core users either.
This new “intergrated” fare system will only make the perception that PT is expensive even more pervasive than it is now.
If they make non monthly pass patrons who use their new improved bus service which mostly takes them to their nearest train station from which they then need to switch modes to get to where they need to go, but doing so means it costs more than the bus fare you’d pay if you got a bus all the way to where you’re going (e.g. the South Auckland proposed changes being consulted on now), then those bus/rail interchange services will not be used and the (few) “spine” bus services will be heavily used as people try and save money by working out for themselves the cheapest route.
Really AT, only allowing “free” transfers for those with Monthly passes is a big fail – seems you’re taking the lazy way out for now.
But maybe thats because the buses are not all on-board with Hop yet and the bus operators are still holding out to try and maximise their portion of the fares?
But it better not be like this still by the time once the HOP roll out completes and before the new service patterns come into play.
Ah, AT, I am sure their motto is “A new incompetence every day!”.
I was about to start using the train again as soon as this months bus pass runs out. I was going to get a monthly HOP pass. Does this mean I will also be able to use it on all buses in that zone too once they roll that out? As it happens there is an urban express bus that goes near my house as well as the Go West buses. Does that mean from next month I can use the trains and Urban Uxpress buses? The Go West at some later (apparently unspecified) time? Which pass do I actually ask for? I guess it’s a special pass zone A.
All their web sites are truly horrible!
Oh, speaking of transfers I needed to find out about getting a train from Onehunga to Avondale the other day. I assumed buying a ticket at Onehunga would just work and transferring would be no issue but seeing as it is AT and they don’t always seem to do sensible I thought I better check. The web site is no help at all. No mention of transfers. So I rang them. The call centre agent had to put me on hold while she went to ask someone. Apparently she didn’t know and couldn’t work it out either.
In the end I got a lift so didn’t need to use PT at all but for the record they tell me yes, it does just work. You can just transfer.Why is it so hard to find this out!
Yes, at the ticket machine you can just put Avondale as your destination, or with a HOP card just tag on at your first station and off at your final destination. That gets you the cheaper fare than paying two separate fares.
Orewa and Birkenhead in the same zone? Way to encourage intensification AT!
It seems to me based on that zone map that the Isthmus gets a great deal compared to the lower North Shore. It is hard to see why Blockhouse Bay is in the same zone as the CBD, but Northcote is a different zone.
Agree. for those only two/three stages to the city (which would be most of lower north shore) the monthly pass is more expensive for the average communter (2 trips each day, 5 days a week).
Just to annoy AT, I might set up an auto top of $10 which will be triggered every second day though I may have to have a higher trigger since they say it may take 48 hour to load!
Where did you see the 48 hour figure? On the web site they say “In some cases it may take up to 72 hours for funds to be available on your AT HOP card and in your online account.”
Regardless, 2 days or 3, that’s bloody atrocious!
The 3 days is the worst case scenario should everything go wrong. For normal (non automatic) top-ups if you do it before 10pm it should be there the next morning
Dont forget there is actually a service fee charged on each credit card top up.
Yes I agree it is *that* hard to spot in the terms of service too. In fact I’m not sure it actually states it anywhere….
The auto top up rule takes about 48 hours to load onto your card, but once it’s loaded, each actual top-up is instant – the credit appears on your card the instant you make a tag on or off that puts you under the threshold. The money gets taken from your credit card in arrears.
If you’re wondering what happens if your credit card expires or otherwise can’t be charged once they’ve credited your HOP card, then AT permanently cancel your HOP card, make you buy a new one, and won’t even refund your remaining credit from the old card. Then there’s no way to remove the old card from your account, so it just sits there at the top of the screen saying BLOCKED whenever you log in, rubbing the whole process in your face forever.
Fair Go?
I’m out of pocket by $6.07 ($5 card, plus $1.07 in non-refunded credit), so I’m write-an-angry-letter-to-my-councillor angry, but not quite Fair Go angry.
Ah, I see now, thanks. 48 hours to set it up. That’s still ridiculous! I was aware of the thing about cards being blocked as it happened to a colleague of mine. I definitely won’t be using auto top up. My card expires soon and I also don’t consider AT competent enough to have my CC details anyway. Do they actually warn you if an auto top up fails somehow?
Technically though you agree to them doing all those things when you agree to their terms and conditions. They are an interesting read actually. Basically they accept no responsibility for anything, they have full control over the card which you don’t actually own and if they decided you’re breached any of the terms and conditions (which include things such as: 5.8 not affix, print, or otherwise attach any markings, stickers, or other items onto the AT HOP card; 5.9 not carry two or more AT HOP cards together (for example in your pocket, wallet or handbag);) they can cancel the card and keep all your money.
You won’t know anything until one day the tag post makes a very sad beep, lights up red, and says CARD BLOCKED – BUY PAPER TICKET. You’ll actually have seen the auto topup apply successfully on the tag post, even if it fails, because the credit goes on the Hop before they try to bill your credit card.
My auto topup did fail a couple of weeks ago. No expired card, all DD, just their malfunction. No warning, just spotted my balance go negative when tagging on. 48hr to fix. Makes me think the backend has been skimped. I hope this is not a rerun of the realtime fiasco.
Thats a bit daft, seeing that most credit cards are only valid for a couple of years they are forcing all auto top up users to change their HOP card every few years too.
I assume it would not be blocked if you somehow realised that the credit card needed to be updated and did it yourself before it expired. But it seems ridiculous – first of all, companies generally get a token that authorises them to bill an account, rather than storing the details and re-using them. It’s more secure, and it avoids exactly this problem.
But even if you expect people to dutifully update their credit card details without telling them they need to, it seems wildly disproportionate. Why not just reverse the credit and cancel the auto top-up, but keep letting me use my card? And maybe email me to say that the auto top-up is no longer working? And an email to warn me that my card is about to expire? You could even, say, look at the card expiry date provided and stop trying to charge once it had passed. You already have to provide an expiration date for the auto top-up, which for me defaulted to a year in the future – i.e. after my card was due to expire.
But aside from the money issue, maybe it’s for the best that I get a new physical card. They’re pretty flimsy and the old one was already peeling. I’ll say this for Snapper – they built their cards like tanks. My Snapper from 2008 is still in mint condition (and I use it here as a SNOP).
‘Blocked’? My first AT Hop card, which failed twice due apparently to a technical reason associated with the Auto Top Up, was ‘confiscated’ by AT and grudgingly replaced. It’s still listed on my AT Hop account as BLACKLISTED. It’s a handy reminder of AT’s attitude to the users of its networks: contemptuous; unresponsive; and uncommunicative. And yes; the cards are delaminating already (the matt finish appeals to designers but has no durability); it’s proving to be a nice little earner for AT as they demand that the owners of ‘damaged’ cards pay to replace them.
I got a rundown of the way it works from Customer Services – cards can be either blacklisted or blocked, and you can theoretically unblacklist a card but not unblock it. Either way, they’re not going to enable the card again, because customers? Screw em.
Swan you are right, people living in Northcote, Birkenhead, Devonport etc are getting ripped off here. It’s a much shorter trip and they are being asked to pay more.
This is a real mess and needs to be drastically rethought, without the usual AT emphasis on favouring those living on the isthmus. Your trip to Britomart from Northcote should cost the same as the trip from Kingsland, Mt Eden, Orakei etc. because it’s the same distance and the fares are supposed to be the same whether using ferries, busses or trains.
I am also disappointed that they are phasing out the *day* passes. Since I have a very limited income at the moment, I generally only travel once or twice a week and I try and visit as many places as possible on those days. Currently NZ Bus offers a day pass for $10.50 for a day’s unlimited travel on their services — and I usually get around $20-25 worth of travel out of that (which is how much I would spent if I used Snapper/HOP). With the switch to HOP my only “options” would be to buy a monthly pass (which I can’t afford); pay a lot more than $10.50 for HOP money travel or, the most likely option for me, optimise my travel patterns further to ensure I can afford to travel. I suspect that once NZ Bus switch to HOP my usage of PT will drop — surely not what AT is aiming for I would have thought.
AT should have introduced day caps and/or day passes right from the beginning. Monthly passes are nice but they don’t work for infrequent travellers like me.
I think AT have gone about integrated ticketing and fares completely the wrong way. They should have started off by sorting out fares and passes using paper tickets and only after that had been sorted rolled out HOP. By rolling out HOP first they have added a lot of unneeded complexity to the whole process. The northern pass was pretty much the perfect example that should have been rolled out across the region, not be being removed. AT should have also had fare products like daily/weekly/monthly caps in place right from day one instead of waiting for a year or more for them.
One slight correction, there is a 50c transfer discount if you transfer i.e. your second/third trip within a set time period is a whopping 50c cheaper.
I agree. Fares first and then rolling the smart card later would have been a much better plan.
Looks like AT have pulled down a heap of the pages related to the bus roll out, coincidence?
Did find this though which suggests the HOP rollout for buses has been pushed back with the next one (northstar) not till late August
http://www.athop.co.nz/what-is-AT-HOP/bus-rollout-schedule/Pages/default.aspx
The only pages they’ve pulled down (and not replaced with equivalent ones) are the specific bus operator ones where there was no useful info on the page anyway.
Also all the changes were live when I saw them at around 10:00 this morning before this post was made.
The url for the monthly HOP card has now changed to: http://www.athop.co.nz/fares/monthly-passes/Pages/default.aspx
AT have updated pass information and “find the right pass for you” now links to the Bus and Train monthly pass map
I’ve updated the link in the post.
Ugh, that whole get a monthly pass but also put cash on it just in case you forget to tag off thing really sucks. Do they deliberately try to make these things as hard and as awful to use as possible? I am guessing the interest from all these little “$10 minimum balances” adds up.
Also what does “The obligations of Auckland Transport under the AT HOP cards are unsecured.” mean?
It means that if Auckland Transport goes bankrupt, you’re last in line to get your money back.
Theoretically, that is. I’m pretty damn sure if that ever happened, the government would step in.
FWIW, requiring transfers is going to stop some of us – many, perhaps – from using Public Transport. I would pay a higher fare not to transfer. Some of us are running a petition around the 477X ‘buses requesting that that service not be canned, just for that reason. I think University students are going to be very unhappy, as well.
jj
Wait where do you catch the bus from and where do you exactly go too? By the looks of it the 477X replicates the main Southern Line Train services that take 53mins into Town from Papakura compared to 1:20 hours by bus?
I catch the ‘bus in Pukekohe at 6:07AM (it’s called the 475 until Papakura, but the same ‘bus and driver carry on as 477X) and arrive at the University at between 7:05AM and 7:10AM. In the morning on the present train schedule I would leave my house at 5:20AM and make my wife get up early and get driven to the train station. I would then either walk or hope for a ‘bus up the hill to the University.
Now I see – fair enough point you made earlier then knowing that cursed walk up to University from Britomart on a cold windy winters day from my Uni years
With penalty-free transfers, however, one just walks out of Britomart and jumps on any of the dozens of buses that will then go up Symonds St.
Would have been nice to be able to do that with just using an AT-HOP card when I was a uni student 😛 rather than fumbling around with either change or multiple cards
PS – I wonder if there will be a ‘bus inside Pukekohe that will get me to the Pukekohe train station to meet the 5:36AM train (the one I would have to take), and one in the evening from the Pukekohe train station that will pick up people from the 5:53PM train (the one I would arrive on) to take them into town. There certainly is not one either time at present.
jj “Selfish Commuter”
There is a note on the Auckland Transport website that they are going to consult with Franklin residents over bus services. With dropping the Puke – town service, they must have the ability to provide frequent local buses. I would suggest using the contact form on the AT website to ask when this consultation process is due to happen and ask if they have any draft plans.
I have done – twice. Got a nice form letter each time which said that they appreciated my input. Replied to the form letter each time saying, “Thanks for this; but were they able to answer my questions, even to give me an idea of what might happen?” No reply to either.
It isn’t just Pukekohe. There are a total, I think, of 200-300 regular users of the 477X service. I know many of them who think they will probably be forced to drive if that service stops.
The train is heavily used from south Auckland, showing that it is a great and important service. It does not work for everyone. We are, no doubt, as Matt Clouds says, simply selfish, wanting to be able to get to work on time at a reasonable cost, and wanting to use Public Transport, both because we prefer it, it is cheaper, and it helps everyone else. Nonetheless, I suspect many of us will be back in the car if the 477X service stops. Train-plus-transfer just doesn’t work for a lot of us.
Pity AT appears, so far, at least, to be deaf to that. A friend went to one of the public hearings (they held one in Papakura but I couldn’t make it; so far there has been no indication they will have one in Pukekohe) and told the lady there that she (the friend) lives in Manurewa and wouldn’t be able to use the three-modes-of-transport method they want. The lady seemed astonished that anyone would be other than delighted. She then said that she lived in North Short and took the train from close to her house to close to her work.
We sometimes wonder if the planners in Auckland even realise that we exist down there – after forcing us (Pukekohe, I mean) to be part of the super-City.
jj “Selfish to the End”
Six trains an hour from Papakura to Britomart, doing a trip that’s about 30 minutes quicker than the single-seat 477X trip between the same two points. Toss in the additional time for the bus to get from Pukekohe to Papakura, and there’s precisely zero chance that the journey cannot be shorter (and more consistent in duration) with a shuttle bus between Pukekohe and Papakura that runs two or three time an hour to fill in the periods when there’s no train leaving Pukekohe.
By doing away with a service which has a round-trip time of over three hours, a number of buses are freed up to provide that shuttle. By dropping transfers, you will probably have access to a much, much higher of service.
In that case then I think the Pukekohe electrification investigation process should be stopped right now, you can have your express bus and we can spend the $150M or so somewhere else. Perfect.
I’m only joking of course because I think the EMU’s to Puke, in conjunction with the proposed DUP changes to density out there, will be a good thing. The other alternative is that you could live closer to work? This is the same as when I’ve heard people in Warkworth expressing their annoyance at me when I’ve suggested the proposed motorway is a load of unnecessary rubbish. “But we need it” they say. $1B is too much to make your commute faster (in the Warkworth case). Live closer to work.
Love it! I’ll tell all my selfish mates on the ‘bus: “Easy, you guys! Just sell your houses in your communities that mean much to you and buy houses (that will, naturally, cost more, but that’s the breaks) closer to work!” That’s brilliant! Why didn’t I think of that? Instead of having a public transport system serve the people, we have the people server the public transport system.
Excellent.
jj “Selfish is my middle name”
We, the Auckland ratepayers, cannot afford to electrify to Pukekohe, commit to frequent rail services and provide express buses, all to and from, the same location. The price per head is just too expensive.
JTJ: Auckland planners didn’t make Pukekohe part of the super city. The 2008 National/ACT government did.
It does suck that you’re going to lose your express bus that happens to go from right near your house to your work, at exactly the time you happen to need. You may need to make more transfers to get to work, and it may take longer than it does at the moment. I don’t think it will be as bad as you fear, remember that there will be a rail station at Parnell, so you should be able to take the same 475 to Papakura that you do at the moment, then transfer to the (new, faster, electric) train and get off at Parnell near your work (UoA, right?). So just one transfer, and with a less restrictive timetable than the current one if you need to go in or leave early or late.
Although I think Bryce was a little overboard there, he has the glimmerings of a point. Pukekohe is a long, long way from the centre of Auckland, and no matter what happens it’s always going to be a long, long commute. One of the things that this blog and CBT have supported is the provision for intensification in the Unitary Plan which will hopefully let more people who may not have sunk down roots in a particular community yet afford to live closer to town.
But I think the main thing is that the network redesign needs to cater not just for the couple of hundred people who happen to use the bus right now, but the thousands of people who currently have no realistic public transport options at all. They truly are forced to drive – everyone who currently uses the 475/477X will still have a public transport option, even if it may involve another transfer. It’s a cliche, but it really is for the greater good. The new network will probably dramatically increase ridership, too, which is a win-win – there will be more money and more political will to add extra services in the future.
@Steve D. It was intentional – for emphasis. I’m not overly serious about it but we cannot continue to build major bus routes around minimal patronage. Yes, the service John uses fills up, but not from Pukekohe. The logical, cost effective solution for Pukekohe is frequent bus services around the area to connect to frequent rail services to town. Pukekohe gets more frequent off-peak PT services to town than Te Atatu does so life is not as bad as it seems.
Damn, forgot to add a sentence. … nor can we afford duplicate routes.
Sorry, I wasn’t clear. I was talking about you saying “Live closer to work”.
Get the train from puke to Newmarket and transfer there to bus. That’s much quicker
If JTJ has to get the bus just to get to Pukekohe station in the first place, he might as well get it all the way to Papakura and avoid needing to transfer again from the diesel train to the electric one.
Hopefully that will be eliminated sooner rather than later with Electrification being pushed to Pukekohe as quickly as politics and business case studies will allow.
Then one will have a decent suite of options of either Pukekohe to Britomart via Newmarket OR for those want to be closer to home Pukekohe to Manukau via the proposed Manukau Rail South Link.
And before the ATB’s say something on that – go have a coffee with AT on that link. AT are now becoming keen on the link. Patronage numbers would make it quite attractive to build and operate
@Steve D. Yeah, I’ve always been a big fan of not commuting too far to work and have actually based house purchases on it. Yes, things change over time but I still hold the same belief. I was kind of joking, kind of serious. I would love to live at Muriwai but the commute for what I do would be too great for my own sanity so I choose not to live there. If I lived in Muriwai, I would not expect AT or NZTA to spend major amounts of cash to make my commute easier. As I live in Te Atatu, I am pushing hard to make sure PT does work as it is in an urban setting. As an aside, we currently get worse off-peak PT service than Pukekohe, even though current buses cover an area that is the so I do get a bit frustrated when these discussions come up – yes.
“PS – I wonder if there will be a ‘bus inside Pukekohe that will get me to the Pukekohe train station to meet the 5:36AM train (the one I would have to take), and one in the evening from the Pukekohe train station that will pick up people from the 5:53PM train (the one I would arrive on) to take them into town. There certainly is not one either time at present.”
John stop lying.
The 475 service is continuing from Puke to Papakura, at Papakura you will catch the train to Newmarket, and then a very frequent bus to uni. At most it will be 10 minutes slower, but like faster.
Trying to make the statement that there is not now a bus inside Pukekohe to and from the Pukeohe train station early in the morning or late in the evening (I’m not sure the present Pukekohe Loop bus does that at any time) into a lie.
But, yes, I could take the bus to Papakura – but not to catch the train that would get me to work on time under the new scheme. In order to get to work on time (7:15 in order to compensate for leaving early to catch a reasonable train back to Pukekohe) I need to catch the 5:36AM train from Pukekohe. Not sure what time that one leaves Papakura, but the earliest bus currently leaving Pukekohe for Papakura arrives in Papakura at 6:30. That would put me to work about 7:45AM.
jj “Selfish Liar”
JTJ: I think we’ve all been talking at cross-purposes here. For now, you have the 475/477X which does what you want. It will continue to run until the new Southern network starts in 2015, which in turn will be after our new electric trains are running every 10 minutes from Papakura.
The current train timetable is completely irrelevant – the new trains will get from Papakura to Newmarket in about 38 minutes, or 41 minutes to Parnell.
I think you’ll probably end up catching the exact same 475 bus in the exact same spot at the exact same time as now, but you’ll get onto the train at Papakura. Assuming the 475 timetable is the same, your current 6:07 bus gets to Papakura shortly before 6:30, you’ll get on the train there (I assume it’ll be timed), so say 6:35. get to Parnell at 7:16, and you’ve 14 minutes to walk less than 1km to Symonds St. Alternatively, get off at Newmarket at 7:13 and get a bus – there will be so many, there should be one within a few minutes no matter what.
Of course, there’s still plenty of time for AT to screw this up. But I think you’ll get better results, in your submission on the bus changes, if you accept that the 477X is going to end, and focus on how your bus services can best serve Pukekohe and Papakura.
I live in hope 🙂 Thanks for your comment, Steve. That could work out. I confess that transfers do worry me. I have seen so many of them fail in the past – first leg is a bit slow for some reason, and the next bit is gone. That (the necessity of transfers) was the only point of my comment.
jj
How reliable is the current bus at getting to Papakura by 6:30?
Very reliable. The first buses in the morning are pretty much always good – because they are the first. It’s the evening one wonders about. The 4:35 from town that I catch changes its identity in Papakura and becomes the 475, so if it is held up, you still don’t have to wait. But the 4:10PM from town misses the connexion in Papakura (not sure what time that is – 5:15??) more often than not. I have heard from train riders that evening trains are more likely to be late than morning, but don’t know from experience.
Still… if your prediction about morning trains are right, it would be good. I would still get to work considerably later than I do now – 7:30 rather than 7:15 – which is frustrating. But might be better than catching the 5:36AM train from Pukekohe.
At least I don’t have to worry about it for a year and a half (assuming our petition is unsuccessful, which, frankly, most of us who are behind it think likely).
jj
A train connection’s going to be a bit more reliable than a bus connection, because it can’t get stuck in traffic. The old diesel trains are not so great, but in principle the new electric ones should be pretty reliable. The trains at the moment run within 5 minutes of schedule a little over 80% of the time, which is pretty rubbish for a railway, but I think is considerably better than a bus is ever going to achieve in mixed traffic.
That said, many train delays at the moment are caused by “operational” issues (i.e. things caused by staff, customers, or the occasional trespasser on the tracks), rather than technical faults. And Britomart is going to be even more under pressure than it is now. So who knows, really.
And, of course, there will be no improvement to the train schedule. There will be no integration of the bus service between Pukekohe and Papakura. Nope, won’t happen. You will forever be left to leave home at 05:20 in order to catch a train that will forever stop at the bottom of town.
Wanting to have a bus that runs all the way into town in half-as-long-again as the train journey just so that you don’t have to walk from Britomart to Auckland Uni is, to be blunt, selfish as hell. You want to tie up at least four buses (in order to maintain any kind of service frequency) just so that you don’t have to get from Britomart to Symonds St.
Steve D
“Pukekohe is a long, long way from the centre of Auckland, and no matter what happens it’s always going to be a long, long commute.”
You jest, surely?
Look at any other city competing on the international stage – Pukekohe is no distance at all and a decent fast train service would get you there in 30 to 40 minutes. It is only a “long long commute” if every bus or train is all-stops to the CBD.
Well, I don’t really mean for all time. But Pukekohe is a small town a long way from Auckland, which itself is not a huge city by international standards. Electrification would reduce the trip to Britomart to 64 minutes, which is lots better than the bus or train at the moment. A super express train to Pukekohe would be great for Pukekohe. But given the expense of triple or quadruple tracking the line futher in to allow for it, I wouldn’t bet on it being AT’s top priority when they’ve got bigger fish to fry in Auckland that will benefit far more people (the CRL, North Shore rail, rail to the airport, NW busway, AMETI etc.)
You’re going to be unsuccessful, thankfully. Real public transport networks in real cities all run on the transfer model. Public transport in Auckland is the current dog’s breakfast because of the entrenched “one seat from door to door” mentality that you display, and it’s resulting in massive waste in terms of resource allocation and operating cost. Want to increase service frequency on that 477X route? You’ll need to add a couple more buses just to add one more service per hour. That’s hugely expensive, and because it’ll all be aimed at the peak it’s a massive sunk cost to improve the frequency in a narrow time of the day.
The significant benefits provided by a transfer-based network have been thrashed to death on this blog. Continuing the current model is simply not affordable if public transport services are to be improved widely.
You may be right (regarding our success). No one would propose a one-bus-per-hour commute service, though. Just to be clear.
No, it would have to be a three, or four, bus-per-hour service, which for the length of that journey means at least five (more likely six) buses just to service the morning peak.
Sitting here from Christchurch, where we’ve had integrated ticketing and network-wide Metrocards for at least a decade now, I continue to wonder why it is taking so long to make it happen in Auckland (and Wgtn for that matter). Seriously; I teach transportation and I still struggle to understand the technical reasons for the differences between cities. Sure, I get that Auckland’s network is bigger and has a few more players in it, including trains; plus you typically have to wait until contracts roll over to introduce changes like this. But that should mean a delay of a FEW years compared to Chch, not more than a decade.
A price comparison would also be interesting. I love the fact that it costs me $2.30 to get from home/town to the airport here in Chch, while that will set me back about $7 in Wgtn and $16 in Akld, even with my smartcard. OK, the distance is about double in Auckland to get to town; but even the shorter distance to Manukau via the 380 will still cost $4.50…
Your council runs its bus service. That’s the reason for pretty much every single difference: no profit motive, one supplier. It’s far more complex than just “change it when the contract rolls over”, because of the way that route tendering has worked until very, very recently, and because, as you observe, there are a multiplicity of private providers. Unless they all are on board, it’s doomed.
Matt just a correction from the architect of Metrocard. At the time the system was implemented there were, as is still the case now, multiple bus companies operating in Chch all competing for bus contracts. One of these companies Redbus is owned by Christchurch City Council however the rest are privately owned. Redbus being owned by the City Council was neither a barrier nor an enabler of integrated ticketing.
Integrated ticketing in Chch has a history going back to early 90’s when system wide monthly passes were introduced, followed by free transfers between bus companies on cash tickets from around 1997 and then Metrocard from 2002. Each step built on what was there before. Each required negotiations and variations to existing operator contracts. The lack of commercially registered services, unlike Wellington and Auckland, did however make things significantly easier for Ecan.
Um, no, the Regional Council doesn’t run the bus services; it just contracts/manages them. Until recently there were three separate companies running buses around Chch (plus a ferry company); that included RedBus, which is a City Council LATE and is required to make a profit. Tenders for routes are fairly competitive between them (they’d have to be to keep the fares down) and a number have changed hands over the years. But the new contracts do require any new changes, e.g. all new ones now are requiring bike racks on buses as they get rolled over.
LX beat me to the punchline! And I think the point about commercially registered services is partly the reason behind the differences, but I don’t think it can explain everything.
It shifts the power more towards operators. Affects things rather a lot, hence the incoming 2008 government canning a law change that would have fixed matters.
I was writing my Mood of the Boardroom piece when I came across this. Had to have a small giggle reading some of these comments in here in regards to the passes.
After banging on about the Family Pass long enough until I was blue in the face with AT I made some enquiries on the passes to see what is going on here.
My enquiries found that AT should be (note that is should be not will be) releasing some new fare products from next year as we move towards integrated fares.
In saying that I believe the main reason why integrated fare product rollout is slow (and AT can correct me on this if I am wrong) is two fold:
1) Waiting for the new Service Contracts with the buses, ferries and Transdev (rail) to come up for renewal. It was believed that bringing across integrated seamless fares would best introduced at this particular time
2) The P/T operators are still most likely scraping it out who gets what from a Day Pass or Family Pass under the new single integrated fare system. That is revenue sharing between who gets what if someone for example gets a Family pass from the train station but also uses it to catch the ferry across the harbour and back again.
I am one of those students living on the north shore my monthly spend to go to uni is $140 on transport with northern pass and train fair (2 stages as you can not use northern pass and at hop together) to Mt. Albert. With this new System it will be $190! Thats over 35% for a student like me a car is looking more and more appealing. I don’t know why they don’t have student month pass??
Transport for London’s Oyster Card has a maximum daily charge so if you load money onto your card instead of a pass, and use it to make several journeys in one day it automatically caps your charge to the equivalent rate of a daily pass (it makes the corrections overnight). It was great. I lived in London for several years by my daily transport movements were irregular so made a monthly pass unsuitable for me. By loading cash onto my Oyster Card and using it as a pay-as-you-go card, it suited my travel needs perfectly. It certainly encouraged me to use public transport more because the public transport system was flexible to my needs. As a result it became my first preference for getting about – over and above taxis and cars. A public transport system that is convenient influences not just the immediate decision of an individual but over the longer term changes that individual’s minset/attitude/behaviour. Isn’t that what we want?
Why can’t we have a similar system here? Don’t we want transport and fare systems that meet the needs of the users rather than the users being inconvenienced. Doesn’t that go against the goal of increasing patronage? Tail wagging dog.
Every time a potential patron says to themselves “stuff this, too hard, I’m doing something else” it’s not just them losing. Everybody else in Auckland loses because we all directly or indirectly have invested in the system.
That’s what happens in Christchurch. It’s definitely a model that I think should be pursued here, and I think some of the regular bloggers have also advocated something similar. Setting the cap at something like two two-zone journeys would mean it was low enough to be very attractive while not so low as to start attracting some of the low-cost/no-cost disbenefits. Having a weekly cap equal to, say, five days of the daily cap, would also be good since it would mean that regular commuters got their weekend travel for nothing. Attracting commuters out of their cars at weekends would be a significant win for patronage numbers.
I was working on a project for my former city with the introduction of a money card. This card works totally with caps and integrated train and busses (also from different providers). Easy system you pay either a one or two zone 1-hour, 1-day, 7-days or monthly pass. The card recognizes how often you travel and automatically chooses the cheapest fare for you. E.g. you travel twice a day still two 1-hour passes are cheaper after the third it changed to the daily fare, and if you reach the daily fare more than 3 times a week or you had 10 1-hour passes it changes automatically to the one week pass. I cannot see why that can be a problem, particularly after full roll out of the hop card. The huge advantage of the system was the reduction of the biggest dis-satisfyer on the busses, the paper ticket sales. As automatically if you purchase only once a daily pass, the card is already included, and then you start topping up.
Yes: daily, weekly, monthly caps would do it wouldn’t it? Set the quantum carefully in each case… surely that’s doable isn’t it AT…?
Not surprised the new arrangements are more expensive. Look at what AT HOP did to rail fares: Family fare Pukekohe to Britomart increased from $24 to $67.
My partner’s monthly for her combined bus and rail trip is going from having to use the Discovery Pass at $250 month to being able to use the regular zone pass at $190.
Likewise the all zones pass for NZBus services, currently $215 is going down to $190.
The 24% discount is pretty significant, I wouldn’t call a saving of $60 or $25 more expensive. Having said that there needs to be a bit more fidelity in these zones, it’s a bit rough that the monthly to get from Northcote Point to downtown is the same as going from Waiwera to Papakura!
Having been grumpy up the page about the lower north shore getting jipped (still am – we dont live there for its proximity to Albany), I think this is actually a fairly good start as far as integrated fares go. Soon every bus and train in Aukland will have integrated fares, albeit for monthly passes only. Which means AT have obviously been able to negotiate successfully with all the operators. So I am impressed actually.
What – not everyone is bound for Britomart ??
Why do we need a fare structure that isn’t concentric circles from the city centre ??
Quite right! 0-5km from Britomart = inner city zone, 5-10km = middle zone, and 10+km from Britomart = outer zone. Drawn in a circle and no favouritism based on previous council boundaries.
Has AT not heard that Auckland’s councils have merged into one city?
Caps are such an incredibly obvius solution to this problem.
But what value do set the daily maximum cap? The cost of a return trip from Pukekohe? Or do you need a number of cap levels, as Martin talks about above? Whatever it is, AT should have started consulting on this ages ago.
Make several zones.
Record every trip made on hop.
Calculate cheapest fare using all products.
Have a pass 1 zone, 2 adjoining zones, 3 adjoimimg etc. Have tham as 1 day 1 week and 1 month(calendar). That way a patron can work out the cheapest charge and complain if it is lower.
Day pass should be the same price as a return, week pass the same as 4 day passes and month passes be the same as 12-15. Make the charges the same for the number of zones and the passes too.
I think you must have zones if are going to have caps. Otherwise you have to set the cap relevant to a Pukekohe trip, which means 95% of users would never hit the cap. Set the cap low enough to be relevant to users who don’t travel so far and you hand a massive subsidy on a plate to long distance travellers.
Cap within the zones, only fair way to do it.
I though the MR Cagney submission on this was spot on and I hope AT are heading down that path.
“But what value do set the daily maximum cap? The cost of a return trip from Pukekohe?”
Pukekohe to where? Or are you thinking like AT does, and assuming everyone goes to Britomart? The existing cap of $10.50 for Auckland wide travel on buses is set at a level that makes PT competitive with the car. Any new cap needs to do the same, so it should also be somewhere around the $10 mark.
It’s very easy to exceed the cap. A simple crosstown trip from Henderson to St Heliers, or a trip from Onehunga to Browns Bay, quickly exceed the cap. Therefore, removing the cap will only have two outcomes for AT – they will gain a cash cow, or they will push a lot of people back into their cars. I suspect they aim for the former, but they are going to get the latter.
AT HOP is the single biggest price increase PT has ever seen anywhere in New Zealand. The claim that is a discount is a lie.
Pukekohe to anywhere Geoff, I used that example because it is on the extreme edge of the network. On average, Pukekohe is a longer and more expensive trip than from anywhere else. You only need go as far as Homai before a return trip hits the cap, let along making it to the other 90% of Auckland.
$10.50 is both far too low, and far too high for a cap. I would have to make six of my local area trips before hitting a cap. Meanwhile anyone making a four stage trip hits the cap before they’ve even made the return leg.
If people want caps, they need to be caps within zones to be fair. I’m not really happy subsidising people that chose to live on the edge of the city.
The cap needs to be zonal. The cap should be about 2.3-3x the single fare. A simple back and forth commuter won’t get any discount but they will effective get any further travel that day for free.
Based on a stage 3 price of $4.5, the cap could be about $10 – 11.
My car trip Swanson-Glendowie return is $9 petrol (roughly). Busabout pass is $10.50. AT HOP is about $18.00. That’s just a simple “there and back” cross town trip.
Any fare cap priced above the cost of petrol is a failure to make PT attractive. It’s already much slower than driving, so offering a better price is the only advantage. Fail to provide that advantage = more people in cars.
“If people want caps, they need to be caps within zones to be fair. I’m not really happy subsidising people that chose to live on the edge of the city.”
Not what I expected from you Nick. This city is not just about the CBD and those who reside in apartments.
If you don’t go all the way to the CBD, then you don’t pay for that zone. If you stay within your area, you don’t cross a zone boundary so you get the cheapest zonal cap.
If you travel a long distance, then your fare, and your cap, should be more.
Bryce I think you missed my point there. People who live on the edge of the city have a longer trip to any given point, on average, than those who live closer to the centre. That is just a fact of geometry. So if we don’t assume people only go to the CBD but in fact want to travel around all over the region, then those that live on the outer suburbs are going to travel longer distances. If we set a cap to suit a typical trip of those people, it becomes completely irrelevant to most others. Or if we set the cap to suit the ‘average’ travel length across the region (regardless of where they are going, please ignore the CBD) then we are effectively using a price structure that charges full rates to those trips below average distance but automatically giving a large discount to anyone making an above average trip length.
Ok let’s put it another way, why should we have a single one-size-fits-all cap? Take people who only catch the bus within Pukekohe, or some other neighbourhood. Again you’d have to make six trips around Pukekohe before you hit a cap, whereas someone leaving Pukekohe only has to go as far as Homai and back to hit a cap. Why are we giving a cap to the person who makes a single trip, but not to the person who has been travelling all day?
While that is true Nick, there is also a case that residents who live closer to town use PT more often than those who live on the fringes. To me it makes sense, in order to keep things simple, to make a limit on the city – say Orewa Interchange, Waimauku,(or Huapai perhaps) and Pukekohe (pick a street / bus route) and have a single all day cap for that area. Make that 3 zones say. For travel, up to a max of 3 zone trips, the day cap is in effect but 4 zone trips are priced separately. I’m sure there are examples overseas that we can use (Vancouver must experience this). The goal is to get as many people using PT, on-peak and off-peak, as possible.
I’m ok if people do not hit the cap, and only use PT for a couple of short journeys a day. Why is the cap there? To remove a significant reason to use a car. Over a long distance the economy, and practicalities of using a car become more justifiable than for short trips so price becomes a very significant factor. Yes, there are many on this site who are lucky enough to have office jobs in town and also live very close to town but I wasn’t to see a transport system that works for all of Auckland. If someone who lives on Otara is offered a job in Albany, but has lots of family nearby in Otara (which when you have kids you start to understand the power of having family nearby) why should we penalise them? Or compel them to drive a car. After all many suburban jobs have free parking. We need to offer a realistically priced alternative.
A it is, I think a $15 a day fare cap for all trips within the isthmus I just described would be acceptable.
“People who live on the edge of the city have a longer trip to any given point, on average, than those who live closer to the centre”
A mathematician would disagree. From any given point within an area, all possible distances within that area, added together, remain the same for each given point.
I don’t disagree with caps for each zone, as long as the maximum is about the same as the withdrawn passes. But all of this is a moot point, as it’s now become clear that AT have no caps planned as time soon. Bus patronage is about to take a hit in the same way rail has.
Bryce, forget about the CBD for a minute. What about someone who lives in Otara and only travels as far as Papatoetoe and Manukau, but does that often, maybe several times a day. Why shouldn’t we cap the cost of their trips after a reasonable amount? Don’t we want to give them a reason to not take a car, to make it cheaper to go by public transport. My question is why have a flat cap at a regional level that ends up automatically giving a discount to long distance commuters but is usless for people who might use PT exclusively for all their travel but not happen to go a particularly long distance? If you can see the value in one cap for the whole region, why can’t you see the better value in a lower cap covering smaller areas?
Geoff, caps in zones should be considerably cheaper than the withdrawn passes, assuming there are a reasonable number of zones. That’s my whole point, the old passes that served as the defacto cap were too high to be useful for people who make all their trips within a localised area. Don’t be so sure that there are no caps planned soon, I’ve heard rumours of new fare products on their way although I have no idea if those are caps or not, or even if the rumours are true.
As for your mathematician, they wouldn’t disagree with me. To put it in very simple terms, from the centre of a circle the longest trip you can make is half the diameter of the circle. From a point on the edge of the circle the longest trip you can make is twice as long. The closer to the edge you get, the longer your possible trips become. In other words, from the centre point you can reach 100% of the area with a trip length equal to the radius, but from a point on the edge you can only reach about a third of the area with the same length trip.
But isn’t a max of something like $15 a reasonable daily max spend for PT all over Auckland, no matter how many trips you make? Very easy to sell.
$15, well that’s cheaper that a six, seven or eight stage return trip. So your automatically giving anyone traveling a long distance a big discount for nothing and give them unlimited travel anywhere for the rest of the day, one that would have to be offset by higher prices on shorter travel if you assume a fixed revenue target…. But on the other hand $15 is over nine single stage trips. Someone who only travels locally would basically never hit the cap, even if they caught a bus from home to the shops and back four times in one day!
Why automatically hand the long distance commuter a big discount just for living far from work, yet charge a consistent PT user full price for half a dozen trips in one day.
In my opinion the cap should be set within a zone equivalent to two trips in that zone (or group of zones). So if you make a return trip across four zones, you get free travel in those four zones for the rest of the day. Make two trips inside a single zone, get free travel in that zone. Travel one more zone and you pay the marginal difference, then your cap is extended to cover both zones.
That’s pretty simple, travel twice in an area and you can keep traveling in that area for no extra charge. It’s fair and pegs a cap relative to both how much a person had paid and how much travel resource they consume.
“To put it in very simple terms, from the centre of a circle the longest trip you can make is half the diameter of the circle. From a point on the edge of the circle the longest trip you can make is twice as long”
But living in the middle of the circle you have more potential outer locations. Whether living on the edge, or in the middle, the total of all distances remains the same.
“$15, well that’s cheaper that a six, seven or eight stage return trip. So your automatically giving anyone traveling a long distance a big discount for nothing”
Not for nothing. For a very important reason actually – to keep the price competitive with use of a car during off-peak periods when roads are clear. The only way to entice people out of their cars from clear roads is to offer a price advantage, and that means keeping it under $15. Busabout for $10.50 and train day tripper for $12.00 were set at those prices for that very reason. The same cheap offers exist in most PT networks, so Auckland will be the odd one out very shortly, by effectively promoting PT use for peak travel only, and doing nothing to make it attarctive for off-peak or weekend use, when cars will be much cheaper.
So why decide that 6-8 stage fares need to be price competitive with driving, but 1-5 stage fares don’t?Driving costs aren’t fixed, the are basically a function of distance. If you have a fixed cap it only ends up being competitive for long trips.
Why not have a fare structure where PT is competitive with driving for any length journey or group of journeys? Why have one cap that is really great for anyone making a long trip
but tell everyone else they can go fly a kite?
Oh and sorry but you are completely wrong on this :”Whether living on the edge, or in the middle, the total of all distances remains the same.”
The sum of distances to all points is much higher from somewhere on the edge than from the centre. Try it yourself, randomly distribute a bunch of destinations around a circle then measure the distances from the centre or any point on the edge. The centre of a shape is the point closest to all other points in the shape, that’s the very definition of centre.
“Why have one cap that is really great for anyone making a long trip”
I already wrote I have no problem with having zonal caps as you suggest, so long as the maximum one still achieves the goal of a cap, which is remain competitive with car travel. There’s no point in having a fare system that leads to people spending $20, $30 or $40 to do what $10 of petrol will do. The fact is, we can currently go anywhere across Auckland, all day, for $10.50. It would be wrong to increase that substantially, as it would push people into cars. You appear to be of the belief that in the interests of fairness to short distance travellers, long distance travellers should switch to cars. That’s counter-productive if we want people to use PT more.
Nick and Geoff – I think you are both largely arguing the same thing. You both agree that there should be a a daily pass with a capped price the difference is in the details of what that pass should cover.
To put Nick’s argument a different way, He is suggesting that instead of one daily pass, that there should be multiple ones, one that allows people unlimited travel in the say inner suburbs out to a certain point and one that allows unlimited travel to a greater area. Perhaps one way to do it is the same way the monthly passes work with the zones, staying in zone B you pay one price, going from Zone A to Zone B you another price etc.
What Geoff is arguing about is what level the fare should be set at. I agree that AT needs to be careful not to set the prices too high but they also need to make sure they aren’t priced unrealistically cheap. $10.50 is probably too expensive for someone just staying in the isthmus but too cheap for someone travelling from Papakura to Britomart. Another thing to consider is that by having finer grained pass options, it might allow AT to offer them all day instead of only after 9am. That could be quite useful as I imagine there are a lot of people who might make multiple trips in a day but who start in the morning peak where currently they can’t use those passes.
Yes, thanks Matt. Not sure why Geoff thinks I want to remove caps for longer distances and force people into cars just because I think people going shorter distances should get a cap too.
The above is a good example, to start with why not have a daily cap for one zone, another cap for two zones and a third for all the zones. I’d like to see a finer zone structure but its a good place to start.
The (outgoing) Northern Passes are a good example too – while paper based meaning you had to “pre-select” your cap at time of purchase rather than have a smartcard cap it automatically, and while the fare options had a few obvious gaps (such as travel just within one zone than minimum between two zones) it had different levels for all-day travel from different zones. All-day unlimited travel within the lower+CBD zone cost less than crossing over to the upper zone, but that too had an unlimited travel fixed amount.
Hopefully the stupidity of half the North Shore being 2 or 3 stages from the CBD but unlike other areas with the same cash fare, Zone B for monthly passes is remedied quickly. Just as different rail and bus fares needed to be equalised, so does this anomaly. I get that like-for-like is the first build, this one is something easy to do and would compensate for the impending withdrawal of the Northern Pass
Clearly public transport will be an expensive disaster saddling future generations with monumental debt.
And Dennis your evidence for this claim is what?
Massive WTF at someone in Northcote having to pay the same as someone in Waiwera in terms of the monthly pass
Well, this is Auckland Transport we’re talking about. They probably aren’t sure where Northcote is.
Patrick. have a look at the council books, the massive debt they have accumulated, the additional borrowing they propose and the cost of constructing, maintaining and running the proposed new railways tunnels etc. I am sure you are more familiar with the figures than I am.
Dennis, we need to look at this issue as a national issue rather than a local one. NZTA pay a large share in most transport projects, whether they be local or regional. The focus needs to go on moving people and freight not moving vehicles. Then we will be able to be cost effective outcomes for the country, not just rate payers. Auckland ratepayers pay rates towards far more road building projects than they do PT or freight initiatives. For instance, the mooted East-West arterial needs to be built to move freight. I’ve got no issue with that but that corridor needs to be built just to carry freight (including couriers). If we add general traffic to the mix, it will be congested before you can say “wow” and we’ll have to start over. Without the PT projects that AT (and even more so ATB) are proposing, we would need to spend a far larger amount to move general traffic and this will still leave the freight industry in congestion.
Dennis we are very familiar with the figures and most of the transport budget goes on roads and other driving amenity. Public transport is not efficiently delivered in Auckland because of decades of underinvestment and poor service but that does not mean that we shouldn’t fix that, nor that the alternative; everyone always driving, is more cost effective; It isn’t.
This has now made the Herald. “Plans to axe passengers’ discounts”
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/transport/news/article.cfm?c_id=97&objectid=10904687
@Andrew Yes I saw that. I assume that “source” is a journalistic code word that translates to “read the Auckland Transport blog last week” 🙂
In fairness to Mathew Dearnaley at the Herald, it was him phoning me early last week that prompted me to have a look at the issue. The Herald were going to run their story last week and I was hoping to tie into that, but it got bumped until today. Good to see the issue getting wider exposure though.
Bryce what I think is of concern is the council debt that our children are going to be saddled with. The council needs to borrow more money presumably offshore and subject to fluctuating exchange and interest rates to fund their share after taxpayer input. How is this going to be repaid? I do not think we can afford it. Perhaps some of the plans should be held or scaled back until they are affordable and some of the other council spending cancelled and or reduced for example the Manakau water park, the 143 council PR staff etc etc.
Dennis, I share that concern but I believe the only way our children are not going to be saddled with that debt is tore-evaluate how we spend on transport infrastructure in NZ. The proposed Puford motorway at $2+B is a prime example of huge investment for minor gains. Can we spend $1B and get 95% of the gains? I bet we can. The proposed AWHC is a $4 – 5B program. We could alternatively get a rapid rail system (Skytrain – read more here: http://greaterakl.wpengine.com/2013/07/11/guest-post-trying-out-south-koreas-new-light-metro-line/) all the way from the CBD to Albany for approx. $2B.
Hi Dennis,
Nearly all major entities have debt, whether they are businesses or councils. Even if the funding ultimately comes from offshore, the debt which the Auckland Council (or any NZ company) takes on is in New Zealand dollars, and with interest rates determined at the outset. It’s the lenders who take on any foreign exchange risk.
So that’s one point. Point two is that Auckland is growing fast. That means there’s a need for infrastructure, of various types, to accommodate the growth. Since the newcomers aren’t around to help pay for this infrastructure yet, it has to be partly funded by debt. Once our population is larger, we can start knuckling down and paying it off. Again, this approach is common to high-growth councils or companies. Incidentally, two-thirds of the growth comes from births minus deaths, and migration is only one-third: this is often misunderstood.
Point three is that a big proportion of capital expenditure on transport (roads, public transport etc) is funded through petrol taxes and other ‘user pays’-type methods.
Point four is that at this point in Auckland’s development, it’s a lot more cost-effective to invest in public transport rather than roads, generally speaking. That’s the main point we’re arguing, and in fact we want a reduction in overall spending compared to what is laid out in the ITP.
Dennis, have you noticed what the most expensive projects are? The Additional Waitemata Harbour Crossing – a road project -, the Puhoi-Wellsford (or just Warkworth) motorway – a road project – the Waterview Tunnel – a road project – various motorway widenings – again all roads – the East-West Connector – a motorway so another road project – need I go on? A little perspective may be in order here.
Dennis we all share your concern at debt levels but it is not investment in public transport that is the big hole in out transport budget. Our plans involve spending less in total than is currently proposed, and getting a better result for the whole city. What matters is not just the quantum of what is spent but its value. Have a look here:
http://greaterakl.wpengine.com/congestion-free-network/financial-details/
Hi Guys, we should complain stop this stupid decision.
I am sorry for the silly question but it doesn’t seem clear from the monthly pass map PDF: Will a monthly pass in, for instance, Zone A, entitle the holder to bus and train travel, or is it for one mode only?
Both bus and train.
Cheers!
I wonder is Auckland Transport still up to the job of looking after our city’s transport future? If AT is behaving as if Northcote is a longer trip from Britomart than Half Moon Bay or Panmure then it is in need of some significant managerial direction. There’s no way that the monthly HOP map should have escaped into public view in that state.
Best thing for you to do Simon might be to contact your local councillor or try to get the Transport Minister to intervene directly. Unless of course you think that Auckland Transport will listen to someone from the other side of the bridge and sort it out themselves.
I think the odds of the transport minister wading into a debate about the exact boundaries for a city’s PT fare system is pretty much nil. But do complain to your councillor.
I agree. Everyone who has ever run the “Round the Bays” knows, it is 8km from britomart to Kohimarama. It is the same distance from Britomart to Birkenhead and slightly less to Akoranga Drive. Now given part of this journey is on State Highway 1, which is outside of AT control, Trips from Birkenhead and other lower North Shore suburbs should be cheaper than from Kohi (or Westmare or Mt Roskill)
Why is it important (for the purpose of setting fares) who controls the harbour bridge?
It isn’t really (I should have typed “should be cheaper if anything, not more expensive …”). That was just to pre-empt the argument that their is a very expensive piece of infrastructure between the shore and the City and therefore fares from the shore should be more.
The key drive to prices should be distance. And a quick play with Google Maps will show that there are many places on the shore that are closer to the CBD (lets face it, most public transport is CBD centric), than other suburbs in Zone A.
It is probably worthwhile to note that the current pass boundaries have simply been rolled forward from the former bus pass boundaries. The fact that North Shore bus users get stiffed on monthlies (or at least those on the lower North Shore) is not news to North Shore bus commuters. The immediate win here is the integration between bus operators, and between bus and rail. I used to get shafted living on the North Shore because my local bus down the bays and the peak buses to town were operated by NZBus, while the Northern Express and the feeder service to it were operated by Ritchies. Hence the need for the Northern Pass. Although that wasn’t so awesome because while it did allow access to inner train services it didn’t allow access to city side buses, including the link.
The real win here is that shortly we will have a monthly pass that covers all buses and trains on in all of urban Auckland (more or less) for $190. Forty-five bucks a week for a commute from anywhere in Auckland is a pretty good deal. $45 a week to cover all your transport needs, if you don’t drive like me, is a very good deal. I could go from Waiwera to Papakura on that pass.
The other thing to point out is that AT are obviously looking at better zones as per the draft in the RPTP, so we can assume they are looking to take care of these issues for the next revision of the fare zones.
Leaving aside the issue of monthly passes and zones for a moment the other major issue arising from the shift of Urban Express and Birkenhead Transport to the AT HOP card has been the stealth of Auckland Transport in doing away with shorter time passes and requiring everyone to purchase single tickets for every trip. This is contrary to their stated policy of free transfers and they should be taken up on this NOW. Fares for individual journeys using the AT HOP card on trains and buses or a combination through transfers should have one final fare attached to them based on how far you travel. I have this year taken the 380 bus from the airport to Papatoetoe, then the train to Britomart (two single fares, one on AT HOP card) and then Northern Express to Sunnynook (using a Northern Express 2 hour pass). If it had been raining I would have gone to Constellation and transferred to the 834 to get home at the top of Sunnynook Road, paying no extra. (another joke is AT don’t run buses up Sunnynook Road past the bus station – another story!) According to AT website this should all be possible using the AT HOP card by the end of the year. However it will be 3 or 4 single fares charged separately. What a joke AT!! The same day as I took the journey above I started in Melbourne on the 75 tram to Hawthorn Station, the train to Flinders Street, the train to Broadmeadows and the 901 bus to the airport. Used my MYKI card and got charged for one 2 zone fare. AT HOP needs to work in the same way. AT trumpet it as being the best card ever – so make it work properly. The way to increase patronage is to get the off-peak and interpeak travellers onto PT. AT clearly has no idea how to achieve this.
As I noted above, what you have described is what AT proposed in the Regional Public Transport Plan. So they have it on their minds, the real question is what is taking so long? Why can’t they get it happening with HOP rather than some time later. There is a 50c transfer discount, but that’s not much when you are making two or three legs.
Why it’s taking so long is the biggie alright. It’s not like they’re reinventing the wheel here. It’s been done elsewhere already. They can start using the zones right now. People would see the benefits and be looking forward to it as more buses are set up on the HOP network. Leave the current passes in use, if they need to, until HOP zones are ready. I take it Nick, that not even you know why they are dragging their heels?
The I thing i hadn’t added was off-peak, single zone rates (no matter how many zones you travel) which potentially takes care of those users you’ve described. Pretty much as Vancouver operates right now. Why reinvent the wheel? What is the feedback on the Vancouver set up?
That was for Nick from way up the thread.
Amen Bruce – that is the way to get off peak travel going. The zones only apply to peak travel – so 7-9am and 5-7pm Monday to Friday?
Seems like a no brainer to me.
I look at PT the same way I view cycle infrastructure. Find a place that does it well and copy it. Cycling – Netherlands. Transit – Vancouver. Then tweak it to suit.
Yep that could be one very good way to do it. But in terms of reinventing the wheel there are plenty of examples across the world to use as an example, like what I am suggesting is basically what they do in Brisbane and Melbourne.
I agree with you on cycling and the Netherlands. Not so sure that Vancouver is best practise for PT in the world. But I guess it might serve as a realistic parallel to Auckland being an English speaking city. Then again Vancouver didnt build central city motorways so it is probably a step ahead of us.
I still think the best PT system I have ever used is Prague. It was such a breeze to get around that city whether for long distances (the awesome Metro, the most used per capita in the world) or short trips (the even more awesome trams). It also has a similar population and I can tell you from working there that the salaries and wages are not that much different now.
An annual PT pass for the whole city is around NZ$250.
How did casual fares work in Prague? Do they have daily caps? Zones? How many zones?
Apologies gents. I was working off my phone and I didn’t have a chance to check things before posting. I was thinking of Canberra with regards to the fare caps. Doh! Should concentrate on work when at work 🙂
I think the Canberra system offers a very simple fare operation, although Auckland is a bit bigger so will potentially need some zones. The zones as per the current AT HOP ‘monthly pass’ appear fine. It would definitely simplify things although Canberra fares appear very cheap. I don’t know the level of subsidy there.
“The sum of distances to all points is much higher from somewhere on the edge than from the centre”
No, it isn’t. It’s still the same amount of area to be covered from a single point. You can move that point as much as you like, the area to be covered remains the same.
Yes the same area of the circle, but the distances are longer if you are getting there from the edge. Pretty basic geometry that the middle is the closest to all points. Seriously if you can’t understand that sit down with a pen, paper and ruler and measure it for yourself.
If the network stretches from Pukekohe to Albany then why not encourage people to make the full use of it? The buses returning to Albany from the CBD, in the peak, are pretty empty, so if someone hops off a train at Britomart to use the NEX to get to Albany, how much does it cost AT? Pretty much nothing. Keep it cheap and fill em up.
Yes I have no problem with that and a good cap and zone system would facilitate that perfectly. I’m just refuting Geoffs nonsense that places on the fringe are just as close to everywhere else as places at the centre.
Perhaps a simple demonstration of that point is that
If your starting point is in the centre of the circle, all edges are the same distance away.
If your starting point is on the edge of the circle, the opposite edge is twice as far away as the centre.
If your starting point is halfway between an edge and the centre, then the opposite edge is three times as far away as the centre.
If I find time I might make a graphic showing this later.
You need to do a bit of mildly fancy maths to figure this out for a 2D shape, but it’s really easy if you imagine a totally linear city that’s X kilometres long, with a uniform density of places you might want to go. If you’re at one extreme end, the average distance to a random location is X/2. If you’re in the middle, the average distance to a random location is half that, X/4.
@Nick Perhaps you should calm down, get off your high horse and actually read Geoffs comment. He doesn’t say that the longest trip is the same from every point, but that the sum of the available destinations / trips is.
Maybe you should take your own advice and sit with paper and pen. A circle seems a bit hard so maybe start with a line with 3 points and figure out the available return trips that cover all points
Thanks for your imput iiq374, but you are also wrong to say the sum of all available trip lengths are the same from every point. They are lowest at the centre and highest at the edge.
Ok line with three points A – B – C spaced one unit apart. From the centre (B) the two possible trips (B to A and B to C) are one unit away, so the sum of all the available trips is two units. From A the trip to B is one unit, but the trip to C is two units away. Sum of all trips is three units length. Same applies from C. In this case the sum of all possible trips from the periphery is 50% greater than that at the centre.
Aaaaanyway enough of this geometry tangent. I think it is pretty clear (and it looks like Geoff already agrees on this point) that a single cap for the whole region can’t work well for all trip patterns, and that a series of caps within smaller geographic zones would be fairer and more relevant to everyone.
Oh sorry iiq374, we might be on a different page. I’ve just realised you said “figure out the available return trips that cover all points”, in that case you are perfectly correct. However we aren’t concerned with covering all points (people don’t want to catch one bus that passes through every bus stop in the Auckland region), we are concerned with making individual return trips to a selection of destinations from a given origin, e.g. a trip from home to Manukau, an trip from home to Takapuna, an trip from home to New Lynn, etc. In those very simplified terms your trips are going to be shorter across the board if you live near the centre than if you live near the edge.
I think you’re on to something Nick. In fact, it could even remove the need for monthly passes. So the scenario is that we have zones, of course, similar to the current monthly pass zones. Each zone has a daily cap – say $3. If you stay within the same zone all day then you pay no more than the $3. If you venture outside the zone you end up with a $6 cap for the day and so on up to a cap of $12 for the day over 4 zones (or 5 if you need to add more). If we make the weekends a single zone fare all day ($3) then the effective commuting cap for someone coming from Albany to the CBD (3 zones under the MR Cagney submission?) becomes $30 per week or $130 per month. No need to buy passes. Split the zones into 2 to get fare points? Say, $1.50 per stage to cover the zone? In effect, if you travel 2 x stages you reach the single zone cap.
There are other things to consider – ferries, and how we would price those. Perhaps they are a zone (including stages) of their own?
Yes Nick, the middle is the closet to all points, but from the middle you face a 50% distance to all outer points, compared to someone on the edge facing anywhere from 0% to 100%. Still the same average for everyone.
No, it’s not. From the middle (again for a linear city) you face a distance uniformly distributed between 0% and 50%, so an average of 25%. From the edge, as you say, it’s uniformly distributed between 0% and 100%, so an average of 50%. So on average, it is twice the distance to travel to a random point from the edge than from the middle.
Back on the topic of fares, though, I generally agree with you, but for a totally different reason – you don’t impose a much smaller cost on the PT system by travelling a shorter distance. If I catch the train from Britomart to Kingsland, the train still has to travel all the way to Swanson. I may only be travelling a short way, but the service wouldn’t exist at all if it weren’t for all the other people travelling farther.
You should pay a smaller fare for travelling a shorter distance, to better compete with driving, taxis, and walking, and to acknowledge that the sheer size of the city affects the overall running cost of the system. But it doesn’t need to be completely proportional. There’s also a big benefit from the fare system being simpler, so people don’t have to waste as much time figuring out all the fare zones. There’s a lot to be said for the pricing system on San Francisco’s Muni – 2 USD gets you on any of their services anywhere in the city for 2 hours. That’s pretty much all you have to know.
I think the quickest, easiest solution to the fare issue, just to tide us over until the new fare system starts, is just to have daily versions of the new monthly passes. Prices roughly equivalent to the current Northern Pass for one zone, and the Discovery Pass for three zones, and two zones somewhere in the middle, with the usual after-9am, weekend, child and tertiary discounts.
“So on average, it is twice the distance to travel to a random point from the edge than from the middle”
All of the possible random points will equal the same overall distance from anywhere within the area, be it the middle or the edge. It’s the same total for all, no matter where you are.
But of course the real world determining factor is how far people choose to live from their work, or work from where they live. Someone living in Swanson and working in Henderson has a lower travel demand than someone living in Newmarket and working in Manurewa.
What is the advantage of zones but make things complicated?. Why doesn’t a day/week/month pass just give you access to everything and make it simple and accessible for anyone this way patronage goes up and gets the affect that is wanted for the public transport network. Isn’t this the goal making the public transport accessible for all and a preferred mode. Keeping things simple works which is why I think the congestion free network demonstration surpasses everything as it looks acheivable . Then everyone can see the advantages of public transport even pro car people or perhaps deep seated reprogramming which was probably the case with me.
Geoff- nonsense. See Nick above.
Steve- what’s the point of zones? Equity.
It may be simpler that everyone has to pay for journeys fro say Pukekohe to Albany, but why should someone who only goes Puke to Papakura, or New Lynn to Swanson, or Meadowbank to Sylvia Park have to, or want to?
Have it so you can buy an all zone pass if you want to but don’t make everyone do it. If for no other reason because you will price shorter journey riders off the system. And that’s just daft.
Overall Patrick think it is about gaining numbers,momentum and the plant be it train, bus, ferry are running regardless on the rapid network and the base cost is the same. Whether passengers are taking a couple of long trips or numerous little trips /station hopping throught out the day don’t thing really matters in the big picture. It is about gaining patronage for this mode and making it easy for those who do. Just a view but see your point.Think a day fare,week fare,month fare could be averaged out (not suggesting max length /fee for everyone) or set at an affordable price . People then are probably even more encouraged to make the most of the pass and just jump on and move around. Actually I suggest the pricing overall is low /affordable to gain and maintain patronage and get priority in the network or we are back to where we are.
North star is planned to switch to at hop from purple hop on 25th August 2013 as per http://www.athop.co.nz/what-is-AT-HOP/bus-rollout-schedule/Pages/North-Star.aspx
AT should introduce a daily fare cap as in Melbourne to encourage public transport usage and introduce transfers for part-time workers without having to purchase a costly monthly pass
Graeme, I agree using the Melbourne example is an excellent one for fare structure. They only have two zones to cover the whole of a more spread out city than Auckland. Their fares are really simple. Zone 1 is $3.50 for unlimited trips in 2 hours and $7.00 for unlimited trips in a day. This is bus, tram and train or any combination with Myki used on all of them. Zone 1 and 2 is $5.85 for 2 hours or $11.70 for the day. Weekends are $3.50 anywhere on the network for the whole day!! As a result they have had to increase the frequency of trains from 20 min to 10 min on some lines during the day on the weekend as the patronage has increased so much. Only suggestion I would have is for a $1.70 fare for a single trip in a zone each day. They also have a much more sensible system of passes. You can buy a 7 day pass at a discount on the Myki fares or any number of consecutive days between 28 and 365. AT have devised a system of zones for passes. They should start using those zones for a simple 2 hour/daily fare system as AT HOP is introduced to the buses. Don’t wait and punish people as they have already done to the Birkenhead transport users and look like doing to North Star later this month.
“Not sure why Geoff thinks I want to remove caps for longer distances”
Because you keep defending the removal of the existing caps. I don’t care what system is put in place, as long as region-wide travel remains similar to the current price of $10.50, so as to remain competitive with driving. Remember, PT does not offer any off-peak time advantage. Therefore it must offer a price advantage, and that means keeping it below the cost of petrol.
I’m curious to know what is a best case scenario from here to give public transport a real kick start for major improvement.
1) Endorsement of the Congestion Free Network. Changing Capex budget July 2014 onwards- 85% focus without the $!2b current shortfall. Reviewing current projects with the fit into the network and reducing stations costs or road widening unless essential etc for now ie more of a focus on the network itself then frill it up as patronage sky rockets and expenditure need obvious after the whole caboodle is going.
2) A simpler and probably more affordable integrated ticket that becomes a mainsteam option. Perhaps an off-peak discount option to try and balance out. But go anywhere all-round.
3) Implementing high frequencies routes with a mandate for a dedicated lane in peak hour direction as required including the motorway system within Auckland limits.. Actually the Mayor and Auckland Transport Chairman announcing this as effectively as emergency works to offset the current congestion and giving 4 months notice. (fast tracking , trialing networks on the fly for the wider network on the AT website ).
Would that do it and increase patronage to significant levels and create the swing-shift for change?
A 3 pronged approach with No3 being the David Tua punch.
Strategy and expenditure -fixed.
Patronage-get the uptake affordable and spreading the load.
Service- Class A where reqd getting the speed seeing the benefits.
On prong 2 patronage ie this original post. With no zone limitations.
Peak time recognised as 0730 to 0900 and 1600 to 1800.
Monthly passes
Peak and Off Peak $140 per month.
Off peak travel time allowable only $70 per month.
Week pass (roughly divide by 3) $45 Peak and Off Peak
Off Peak $23
Day Pass (roughly divide by 14) $10 Peak and Off-Peak
$5 Off-Peak travel only.
Students pass includes on peak travel time.
Try that for starters and not too hard and simple for everyone.
Just a point on the implementing faster ie prong 3 above is probably less painful overall than trying to keep same level of service on cars which is what I think is happening now and phasing in slowely. A triple heart bypass when the arteries are clogged is usually best done at speed -slice-dice and getting on with it rather than on awaiting list for 6 years then you may be dead by then. That would be my advice going forward to Auckland Transport and Len Brown. Probably now the best time to pressure the most as at least Len and Auckland Transport persisted with the city rail link, what it needs now is the rest of the network up to speed when this turbo-boost at the core kicks in and might even help fast tracking other parts even the turbo.
Excellent way of explaining, and good piece of writing
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