The June PT patronage results have been published on Auckland Transport’s website – with the headline results being a bit of a mixed bag.

Auckland public transport patronage totalled 69,074,940 passengers for the 12-months to Jun-2013 a decrease of -0.1% on the 12-months to May-2013 and -2.8% compared to the previous 12-months to June-2012. June monthly patronage was 5,518,233 a decrease of -95,449 boardings or -1.7% on Jun-2012, normalised to ~+ 2.3 to +3.3% accounting for one less business day Jun-2013 compared to Jun-2012.

Rail patronage totalled 10,038,806 passengers for the 12-months to Jun-2013, an increase of +0.1% on the 12-months to May-2013 maintaining the 12-month rolling total above 10 million passenger trips. Annual change on the 12-months to Jun-2012 was a decrease of -7.9%. Patronage for Jun-2013 was 845,339 an increase of +11,076 boardings or +1.3% on Jun-2012, normalised to ~+10%.

The Northern Express bus service carried 2,278,585 passenger trips for the 12-months to Jun-2013, an increase of +0.6% on the 12-months to May-2013, with a -0.1% decrease on the 12-months to Jun-2012. Northern Express bus service patronage for June was 186,868, an increase of 13,337 boardings or +7.7% on Jun-2012, normalised to ~+11.7% to +12.7%. A promotional campaign in Apr-2013 including trial tickets has contributed to this monthly result.

Other bus services carried 51,251,331 passenger trips for the 12-months to Jun-2013, a decrease of -0.3% on the 12-months to May-2013, with a -2.3% decrease for on the 12-months to Jun-2012. Other bus services patronage for June was 4,104,835, a decrease of -136,418 boardings or -3.2% on Jun-2012, normalised to ~+0.8% to +1.8%.

Ferry services carried 5,506,218 passenger trips for the 12-months to Jun-2013, an increase of +0.3% on the 12-months to May-2013 and an annual increase of +1.1% on the 12-months to Jun-2012. Patronage for Jun-2013 was 381,191 an increase of +16,556 boardings or +4.5% on Jun-2012, normalised to ~+8.5% to +9.5%.

On the up side, it seems that the decline in rail patronage that we’ve seen for much of the past 12 months has halted. Northern Express and ferry services were up a little bit too – something of a turnaround for Northern Express which hasn’t really seen much growth for a while. On the down side, “other bus” (all buses aside from the Northern Express) were down a bit (the whole “normalising” process notwithstanding), which dragged down total patronage slightly.

Here are the numbers:june2013-detailsOf course June signals the end of the 2012/13 financial year, so we can start to look back and see what an incredibly disappointing year for patronage 2012/13 was – with total boardings declining by over 2 million from the year before – including a decline of more than 800,000 trips on rail and 1.2 million fewer bus boardings. In fact ferries were the only mode to see numbers grow – albeit by a fairly small 58,000.

While there was always going to be a bit of a reduction in September and October – due to the Rugby World Cup in 2011 – Auckland Transport certainly didn’t expect what’s happened over the last year to eventuate, as the statement of intent they agree to had targets for total patronage of above 74 million and rail patronage above 12 million.  On a brighter note, it seems that the poor results of the past year may turn out to be a blessing in disguise by kicking Auckland Transport out being complacent over future patronage growth and focusing attention on improved marketing and (coming in the next few months) improved rail services off-peak and at weekends.

On a brighter note, results for the past couple of months – especially if normalised for working days. For rail, we can see that in the last couple of months the daily average patronage for weekdays  and the overall average has been significantly higher than the same months last year:

june2013-raildailyaverageFor “other bus”, which is the most important in its impact on the total patronage figure, aside from May (which was a very wet month weather wise) the average totals in the past few months have tracked much closer to what happened in 2011/12 than was the case in the second half of last year – once again indicating that the ‘drop’ seems to have stopped:

2013june-busdailyaverageProbably the biggest worry is what’s happened to isthmus buses in the last couple of months – I wonder what’s going on there?isthmus-busesWith the AT Hop Card (finally) rolling out onto all buses over the next few months and weekend train services looking like they’re finally going to be boosted, we really should start to see some steady growth in patronage levels by the end of the year.

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55 comments

  1. An extraordinary 11.7% drop on Western line patronage over the year; that’s nearly half a million journeys! I read that as a telling inditement of the abysmal quality, reliability and frequency of the service provided by AT as well as being a reflection of the atrociously communicated introduction of the Hop card. And AT’s response to these shaming statistics? After nearly a decade of lobbying they have – grudgingly it seems – decided to increase western line frequencies on weekends from the risible hourly to half hourly and extend Sunday services to Swanson. While these relatively minor improvements are long overdue, I’d suggest that they will be entirely inadequate in terms of stopping the flow. Moreover, I suspect, as the other lines electrify and integrated bus routing is adopted to the south and east, Western line statistics will plummet even further as the abysmal quality of the service becomes increasingly evident. I suspect the only way to staunch the wound would be to introduce competitive off peak as well as integrated fares sooner than currently scheduled. Unfortunately, given its past track record, AT’s response will probably be another internal marketing campaign comprising bad photographs of lots of people smirking inanely as they do pointless things. Of course, an even better solution would be for AT to adopt your CFN programme in its entirety, immediately!

    1. Have you actually sat down with someone high up from AT over say coffee maybe even lunch and have a civil discussion on the “drivers” behind the current situation and what is in the pipeline from now til 2016 rather than have a whinge here?

      Once you have I’ll share notes with you

  2. One reason for the decline in isthmus buses could be due to timekeeping issues. I presume the Eastern Bays buses (i.e. 703-771) are part of that and the timekeeping on these routes in the last year or so has been absouletly woeful. About one in every two bus I catch is more than 5 minutes late. Delays of up to 20 minutes are so common I often plan for it. The record so far this year is a service that was 35 minutes late on a Sunday when buses only ran hourly. AT and NZ Bus have both told me they are aware of the issues (no doubt because I send them 10-15 compaints a month!) and that they intend to re-time the schedule later this year (one source says August). But I fear it may have been too late as I know other people who have given up on Eastern Bays buses completly and it will take a long time for AT to persuade these people back. Very disappointing as I had raised previous issues with the former ARTA/Stagecoach as well as the present day AT/NZ Bus about the timetable for sevices many times over the last decade since the timetable for these routes were introduced — some of the issues that are happening now are not new issues — and it’s only now that AT/NZ Bus are doing something about it.

    1. Ahhhh my old routes before I abandoned Auckland altogether. They’re going to “re-time the schedule” you say? Uh huh. The last time they did that was 2003, I believe, when they added a few extra weekend services. But as far as I know, they haven’t touched the weekday timetable since 1999 at least.

      Remarkable isn’t it? Or incompetence. Or both.

      I noticed these routes would go through phases of timeliness issues. I suspect the drivers get pretty flippant and some senior manager cracks down after 2-3 months of delays, things tightening up for another 2-3 months before they fall off a cliff again. Amazing given Tamaki Drive traffic volumes are pretty consistent and, therefore, foreseeable.

  3. I would agree with James. Time keeping is a huge issue with buses and the real time boards are next to useless and actually quite infuriating. Reliability aside, sometimes they will stay on one list of buses that have already been for ages while they will rapidly flick through the next two or three pages and then stay on the last one for far to long.

    Back to the time issues, I show ten minutes before my bus is due, but then a completely random bus shows up and I cant tell if its exceedingly late, or early. It can be a bit of a pain but I think the greatest issue is waiting for buses on Symonds st. Too many times have I been waiting and theres a row of buses, the bus that I want shows up but the driver thinks meh, and doesnt even bother to try and get passengers. Also the issue of buses not wanting to go over Grafton Bridge is and having to merger when no one in their cars are willing to let it happen is also quite time consuming. Then, the lights at Khber pass and Mt eden road never match up and I swear in the morning, it takes 8 minutes for my express to travel from mt albert road to the top of new north road, then anywhere from 15-20 minutes to head down that last strech of Symonds st to uni.

    Another issue I can see turning people off buses is the increasingly poor quality of buses. On my route we use to have the newer quiter ones but now everytime it seems to be a loud, slow one which isnt that nice to be on, plus the fact that last year it was really over crowded.
    I should clarify that these issues are not enough to put me off, but I can see why so many are turning away.

    Also theres a HUGE issue with evening express buses. EVERY time someone pushes the button on New North Road (on a 249X,243X) and cant get off till sandringham shops, and they dont know why the bus isnt stopping. All it takes is for this to happen to one person and they share their experience and you could have 20 people who have a further anti PT argument. I think we need to accept people are generally stupid and dont pay as much attention to the signage on bus as they should. I feel like there needs to be more emphasis on the fact that its an express as currently, on many buses its in tiny writing under the destination sign. IMO, it doesnt need the destination on it. Its should simply say 243X EXPRESS, anyone wanting to catch it clearly knows where its going , and just run all the express buses to new lynn so theres no confusion over whether it stops at block house bay or wesley or new lynn.
    Or simply the driver holding up a bit of paper that says express could solve this issue.
    rant over

  4. I suspect the poor performance of the NEX may have something to do with the every increasing numbers of 881 services. Would be interesting to know if some of these are commercial services. If so in effect are taking revenue of AT due to their close competition with the NEX. In deed some of them don’t even go to Torbay, but terminate at Albany.
    Would be great to bundle all services that used the busway into one, regardless of operator to see total busway patronage. George Wood actually asked about this during the last transport committee.

    1. Rolling everything into a bureau total is what AT will eventually do but can’t do it until HOP has been rolled out to all buses that use the busway and can tell where people are tagging on/off

  5. One factor likely to explain some of the patronage drop is the shift from paper periodicals (e.g. monthly passes) to AT HOP. The multipliers previously used to estimate trips associated with paper periodicals are likely to have been over-stated.

    I think it’s important to keep in mind, especially considering rail patronage. Of the 2 million patronage drop, 1 million is associated with rail and hence may be attributable to the shift to HOP. The other half may well be associated with the RWC.

    In terms of what they should do about it, I think they just need to hold their nerve with respect to:
    1. HOP
    2. Electrification
    3. New Network

    Electrification should definitely turn around those rail figures, whereas HOP and the New Network will start to lift patronage across the network. The next stage is reforming/simplifying the fare structure something along the lines of the zonal configuration identified in the RPTP.

    There’s definitely a need to work on bus reliability and timetables, but it’s also worth remembering that the New Network renders much of the existing timetables redundant, so you may as well just wait until this is progressively rolled out.

    1. I’m not very fond of the “may as well just wait until this is progressively rolled out” argument. The services in my area (Eastern Bays) are not due to change to the “New Network” for another three years. It is quite unaccepable in my view for the current status quo to continue for another three years — possibly to the point that people won’t even bother trying the “New Network” having experienced what things are like currently.

      To give you an idea of what I have to put up with: there are several city-bound afternoon peak services on routes 756/757 that I frequently use that has almost never managed to run to time in the last few years due to a 2003-era timetable still in use despite significant changes in traffic conditions along the route. After several years of regular complaints (I’ve probably logged at least a hundred complaints on just that route alone since I started using those buses in 2005) to ARTA/AT/Stagecoach/NZ Bus regarding those specific services, AT has only just recently accepted a request from NZ Bus to refresh the timetable for these services but I suspect there are many more like it across the bus network.

      I am also worried that the “New Network” will be neglected in the long-term (just as the current network has been). Where is the commitment from AT that they will ensure that bus timetables will be regularly checked against actual running times? They don’t do that at present — as I have learnt through my correspondences with them. The “New Network” not only has to be well designed, it also has to be closely monitored to ensure it continues to provide the best experience for end-users. It is the latter that will be the proof of whether the “New Nework” will work out in the long term.

      AT HOP is also another bugbear for me — I was super excited about it being rolled out on NZ Bus services only to find that it would actually cost me more than Snapper due to the phasing out of day passes. I appreciate it will work out in the end (quite possibly few years away given the poor HOP rollout that has occured over the last few years) but there are quite a lot of things AT could do in the mean time to make the transition as easy as possible.

      1. To their credit, AT have recently begun updating timetables to reflect actual running times on the current (non-)network to help in the interim. Sandringham Rd was a recently updated route, as was the 008/009 crosstown and I believe there have been others too.

        Of course it would have been nicer if they’d started this process earlier, but now they’ve started it’s best they continue or scale up the process.

        And while the new integrated fares are coming next year, I agree AT aren’t doing themselves any favors by scrapping things like the Northern Pass (including/especially student weeklies) and other day passes before their replacements (in the form of zonal fares with caps) are ready without at least providing something in the interim.

        I’m lucky that the Adult all zones monthly pass will benefit me once North Star and Ritchies are on board (I work on the Shore), but students and Shore-to-CBD commuters see less benefit or even disbenefit. Anyway, Cam has covered all this in another blog post.

      2. “Where is the commitment from AT that they will ensure that bus timetables will be regularly checked against actual running times? They don’t do that at present — as I have learnt through my correspondences with them.”
        Heck I could have fun with this thread all day at this rate.
        Hmmm I wonder if it will start happening once the existing contracts are out and the new ones kick through from 2016 including the trains. Then again you could always send your CV and references into AT err Greg Edmonds – Exec of Operations and maybe even Peter Clark – Exec of Strategy and Planning and lend some assistance.

        Am I trolling? Hmmm no – rather being entrepreneurial in pushing for a #moving Auckland

        1. Nah you’re trolling.

          The timetables are rubbish (e.g. the 767/9 and 756/0 goes hourly fter 8pm and winds up at 11pm and 11.45pm respectively – thanks Grandpa Auckland). What there is can’t be believed because it’s so unreliable AND it’s stupidly expensive (to both fund and in fares).

          The 767/9 weekday timetable hasn’t been changed since 1999 (bar a possible tweak in 2003 when they upped weekend services) and you seriously think questioning this is unreasonable? Bollocks.

          Oh but wait, 3 more years for an as yet unseen timetable change. By which time… 17 years for a timetable change. How fabulously Auckland.

  6. Also wonder if the good weather this year has had an effect on the Isthmus patronage. This means more people would walk or cycle rather than catching the bus a couple of km. Especially coupled with reliability issues as seen above. This is certainly true for me, catch the Link to city/uni when raining, but walk when fine.

    1. Yup, on the days I head into Uni, it’s either cycle or bus, the deciding factor being the weather. No idea how widespread that approach is however? Some may use Transit on fine days and drive if it’s wet, so it could even out…? Hard to know.

      1. Another factor at play here is that AT in their wisdom doubled the price of inner city bus trips from 50c to $1 and for a lot of students that is an amount that adds up over the term to quite a big number. No explanation for the 100% fare increase there..

        1. Every bus within the CBD fare zone used to be 50c. Now $1.00, which is still cheaper than a normal 1 stage.

        2. And it used to be 45c with Hop! Hopefully, our new zone system will make it effectively free for all the people transferring from ferries and trains.

        3. .45c? Jeepers that’s cheap. I don’t see any reason for the city zone to be free. Cheap yes, but free? No.

        4. Unless by free, you mean the free transfer? So ferry – CBD bus would presumably just be 2 x zones?

        5. Yeah, free for transfers. I don’t think it should be totally free either (or even cheaper than any other 1 stage fare).

  7. Re bus trip times, here’s an idea that seems so obvious there must be something wrong with it!

    Why doesn’t AT invite a number of regular patrons to maintain a log of actual trip times in exchange for a free pass for the relevant period? Include in the report factors such as weather and any unusual circumstances like a road blockage (eg roadworks or accident). In a word: measure.

      1. Good point SB. It should be quite easy to mine that data. The additional info that a real person could provide would add some value but probably not a lot.

        1. or use buses GPS to tell speed and place of bus.
          Not sure how good the Auckland bus fleet data is. One Paris companies records every second of every buses position-so great for analysis

  8. I don’t think it’s all that bad considering all the interruptions and changes that are/will taking place. People on here tend to be very dooms dayers. There haven’t really been any service improvements in the last year so it’s to be expected

  9. Want improved bus reliability? Well improve bus priority on our roads and streets so buses are not delayed by general traffic and made late and erratic.

    Number of metres of buslane created by AT since its inception = 0

    As far as we know.

    1. St Mary’s bay bus shoulder has been created since AT came to be. Did they push for it? I can’t see NZTA doing it of their own accord.

  10. Well I know the 020 and 020X has had serious reliability issues in the PM peak. In the last three months I can safely bank on the 4.54PM bus (at Mayoral Drive outside Aotea Centre) being consistently 10 minutes late every weekday. Definitely will be putting people off.

    1. Soon as I saw 020X I thought of one person – Bernard Orsman and his near daily whinge on Twitter to AT about it being late or absent. Been a bit quiet this week but then again he is on holiday and should be back tomorrow. Now doubt to more of his “favourite” tweets

      1. Haha – he’s a regular on my morning bus. He has a point though. It becomes very overcrowded and most days has to leave passengers behind at the later stops.

        1. Apart from the section of Albert St (which can be congested- there really should be peak time bus only on this section- between Swanson and Victoria Sts) and the first corner the bus has to take it’s on bus lanes the whole way through the CBD as far as Vincent St. The issue seems to be that it doesn’t start on time and many of the peak pm services are not rotating 020s but services coming from elsewhere. The other day the driver explained his 15 min start delay on traffic on Great South Road…

  11. I believe line closures for the electrification work has had a big impact on patronage. I suggested to Mike Lee that.AT look at introducing something similar to the Sydney Family Sunday Funday pass.which allows people to travel anywhere in the greater metropolitan area for $2.50. This would lift patronage figures as well as being a good PR gesture to thank people for all the disruption they have had to put up with.

    1. Free travel for accompanied children on weekends and holidays could be a great easy thing to implement. Of course the problem is the patronage gains would be hard to measure as children would not need a ticket.
      A slightly more complicated solution would be a cheap family pass added to the AT HOP machines though wouldn’t help bus users outside of NEX.

  12. I also wonder with rail how many people are not paying now there isn’t anyone on every train making sure people have purchased a ticket or have scanned their Hop cards.

  13. Did hear some good things about buslanes when chatting to one of the AT guys at the new network open day at Otahuhu yesterday. Seemed to say they were looking a substantial new lanes as park of new network.

    As for timing have a good anecdote from this evenings travel. Caught Outer Link from Herne Bay to Parnell, leaving at 6.15pm. At first bus waited for 5 minutes at Herne Bay, then arrived Wellesley just after 6.30pm, thus just missing the bus ahead of me. Then a 13 minute wait at Wellesley untill 6.45pm. Finally got to Parnell at 6.55pm. So for a 40 minute journey nearly half was waiting at timing points. If there was not wait at Herne Bay bus could have run the 6.30pm service, and I would have got home in half the time. Surely they can run much better timetabled services than this, varying the timetable for off-peak times.
    Have similar issues with Inner Link at Newmarket. Hopless catching it from Parnell to K road, as waits so long at Newmarket. Just as quick to walk 30mins.

  14. Well according to these stats and your opinion on a second harbour crossing not being needed due to a short term drop in car crossings there is no need for further investment in Auckland public transport systems.
    Now I KNOW that is stupid because the PT system is going to be improved and when its fully rolled out by AT it will get more patronage. I just wonder why some posters (when I say some I mean most) can not understand that when the cross harbour tunnels are built, they will also be used.
    A progressive Auckland will be one that includes public transport and motorways for private cars!

    1. Having a harbour motorway tunnel used is precisely the problem. The tunnel would achieve nothing but free up all the capacity of the harbour bridge to access the CBD: there are no extra lanes through Spaghetti Junction, no new motorway links south of the harbour and no widening of any existing ones. In fact NZTAs proposal reduces the number of lanes linking from the north to the other motorways from four to three.

      The CBD streets cannot handle triple the traffic coming off the bridge, and there is no way to widen them to do so. We don’t want more traffic choking our city and nor do we need it. The CBD has been growing very happily from bus, train and ferry patronage as traffic has remained stagnant for the last ten years.

      Why would we want to spend five billion dollars to funnel a whole lot of new motorway capacity into downtown, and place where it can’t fit and would only make congestion worse?

    2. Agreed – and you have rightly listed those two things in the correct order of priority.

      Once we have exhausted the low hanging (in fact, just about on the ground) fruit of improving our abysmal PT system, we can start thinking about maybe building more motorways. Cycling should slot in there ahead of motorways as well for trips of less than 5km.

      Though I suspect by then the car use will be getting so low as petrol hits $3 that it may become academic.

      Build the harbour tunnel as a rail tunnel with future provision for roading, rather than vice versa.

    3. @Phil, maybe the reason that those aren’t the same is that encouraging driving is a negative for congestion and general transport qualit.

  15. Agree Phil. And as we have spent 50yrs almost solely building motorways, time to push the second half of your plan (PT) to make the first part work better.

  16. If you want to increase patronage I think you need to do some simple things;
    – drop the fares (preferably in half and tell people – it’s still either easier to travel by car and the train is not much of a saving for the inconvenience – Wellington is dirt cheap – half the fare and you’ll double the patronage with marginal cost increase.) The prices are too high.

    The Good
    – the real time board for trains has been a blessing and it’s usually not far off (and magically you can now see it on the web – really that wasn’t too hard to do was it?)

    The Bad
    – *AT help staff are still well below average in terms of skill with many telling a different story. (no one seems to know).
    – *AT counter staff at Britomart are more poorly skilled. *These people and their manager need serious retraining.
    – It’s frustrating getting different stories from staff about what is true with staff often contradicting each other.
    – I have a less than $9 credit to go on my AT card. I’ve logged it, communicated, had the phone calls, then the emails then the credit confirmed. Today over two months later the money still hasn’t shown on the card. So I popped an email through today. There’s a high level of incompetence in the system. I just got informed that as the money hasn’t been paid onto the card it has to go back to the team that looks into it again even though it had been agreed and advised it would be allocated. It seems an incredibly archaic dysfunctional process. I seriously dread anytime my card fails. This must be costing AT a fortune.
    – lastly whose idea was it to have two counters at Britomart on opposite sides of the space. Every time I’m there I see people cue to be told when they get to the counter that they need to go to the other counter across the other side. It’s like a cruel joke. at least a sign posted up high saying “we do this here… and these items are over there”. At best move them next to each other. The staff know they refer send people across regularly but no one seems to care how much they run customers around.

    1. If you want to encourage greater pt patronage we need to stop continuing to invest predominantly in roading as this undermines our investment in pt. Auckland has got what it has paid for. It is only when we seriously start to give precedence to our preferred modes in terms if quality and quantity will peoe want to use or. Zurich had a systematic policy of doing this and at the same tome. Among the roads less desirable to travel upon. L

  17. I suppose there’s no use asking at this point if they’ll ever include cycle data again (missing from May, April and March patronage reports as far as I can tell)…

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