It’s been a long time coming but Auckland Transport has finally announced that they will improve the abysmal weekend frequencies on the Western Line. Currently trains only run out west hourly on weekends and on Sundays don’t go past Henderson meaning people like myself who live further out have had no options. The changes will come into operation after the long weekend for labour day. In addition there are a couple of new services and changes.
Auckland Transport says it is increasing commuter train services particularly on the Western Line at weekends.
On Tuesday 29 October new timetables will be introduced for train services including doubling weekend services to the west to cope with demand.
Auckland Transport’s Group Manager Public Transport, Mark Lambert, says “Public demand for enhanced Western Line schedules has been evident for several years, and now that electrification work is nearly complete it’s a suitable time to improve weekend schedules.”
The Western Line will get half hourly services on Saturday and Sunday between Britomart and Swanson westbound from 8am to 6pm and eastbound from 9.20am to 7.20pm. Currently there is an hourly service on the weekend (and only as far as Henderson on a Sunday).
These changes will also extend Sunday services to Sturges Rd, Ranui and Swanson stations.
And there are changes on other lines including:
- Earlier services from Papakura on the weekends (currently first service is 7.10am, new services at 6.15am and 6.45am on both Saturday and Sunday). These earlier services affect Papakura, Takanini, Te Mahia, Manurewa, Homai, Puhinui, Papatoetoe and Middlemore.
- Onehunga services are re-timed with some services leaving earlier than currently. This follows improvements to service delivery over the past nine months and will help to further improve punctuality across the network
- An extra night service to Onehunga on Saturday and Sunday nights:
- Sunday departing Britomart 10.11pm, arriving Onehunga 10.51pm. Currently the last service arrives at 9.06pm.
- Saturday departing Britomart 11.41pm, arriving Onehunga 12.06am. Currently the last service arrives at 11.06pm.
- An extra service to and from Onehunga mid-morning Monday to Friday.
- An extra service from Manukau departing at 9.08am Monday to Friday.
As well as the timetable changes, buses will replace trains on some weekends and evenings to enable KiwiRail to continue to prepare the Auckland rail network for the arrival of the new electric trains. Auckland Transport asks train users to please check the timetable before travelling.
I’m guessing it is most likely a funding issue but it would have been nice to see some improved off peak frequencies during the weekdays too. Again out west we only get a half hourly service during the middle of the day while on the Onehunga line it is hourly off peak.
The next timetable change will be in April when our electric trains start running on the Onehunga line and we are also likely to see another change later in 2014 when they start on the Manukau line. Those electric trains will also free up some of the old diesels which can hopefully be used to boost the frequencies out west during the peak.
In other news it appears that the rollout of AT HOP to buses is about to recommence with Northstar switching over on Sunday. About time we saw that rolling out again.
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Sorry is 9.16 Eastboung going to be the first service of the day on Sudays out West, or is that when half hourly service starts?
Half-hourly on weekdays? Really?
Ridiculous.
Well eventually the plan is to go to at least 15min frequencies 7 days a week between 7am-7pm. That’s much better than my local train line in Sydney (Northern line). Can’t wait till my work is done here and move back to Auckland in a few years with this new network in place.
And every second weekend we will have Rail Buses
Dammed if they do, dammed if they don’t. If they wait till after electrification work is complete, people will bemoan that frequencies need improved now and why they’re not doing anything. And if they improve frequencies now on the weekends, people like the above commenter complain what’s the point if the network’s going to be closed every few weeks.
Would be interesting to see how badly rail buses affect patronage. From what I see most buses have 5-10 people on them. Trains on the weekend normally have at least 50. Then of course what is much harder to measure is the medium term effects of these shutdowns pushing people away from rail.
Could the end of rail-buses give us another million on the patronage figures?
All this needs is weekend trips a day to go up 10,000 from the current 10-15,000.
I think they’d have a pretty big impact. I can recall a few occasions where I was going to get the train in the weekend, but turned up to the station to see Railbus sign, and thought bugger it I’ll drive instead. I’m sure there’ll be plenty of other people like that too. Railbus replacements are usually confusing, take weird routes and just plain inconvenient.
Agreed. One weekend we wanted to take the rail bus home but they only accepted cash, not AT Hop or Snapper Hop. So we just took the regular bus instead. But I can easily imagine this causing someone to not try again with trains.
Good question. In terms of the numbers you’re probably better off considering it this way: At 11 million boardings p.a. that’s an average of 211,000 boardings in your average week. Assuming 36,000 boardings per average weekday, that leaves 32,000 on your average weekend. If we assume that rail buses discourage 50% of patronage, then that equates to 16,000 boardings for every weekend that the rail network is closed. If it was closed every weekend then that’s 820,000 boardings p.a.
BUT:
1. It’s not closed every weekend; and
2. Closures tend to be arranged around seasonally low periods
I’d hazard a guess that rail buses cost us approximately 200,000 boardings per year. It’s not insignificant, but it’s also not a game-changer (few things are!).
There is also the impact from passengers deciding to switch away from rail altogether. I use railbuses quite a bit (I catch the almost-but-not-quite-permanent Southern line evening railbus about 2-3 times a week since my gym workout after work means I often miss the last train that isn’t replaced by buses) and they are so frustrating that I wouldn’t be surprised if people decided to abandon rail altogether until there is a decent service back in place.
yes and no.
Reason being that Auckland has never (at least in recent memory) had great weekend services. Even before the regular weekend shut-downs services would have been hourly at best and in many places non-existent. So I don’t think we’ll be *losing* many existing passengers, especially now with HOP they can train during weeks and bus during weekends using same card.
It’s probably more accurate to say that the rail-buses might be acting as a handbrake on the rate at which new passengers are attracted to the system. This would be especially true for those (unfortunate) new passengers who decide to “try out” rail services on the weekend, find it wanting, and subsequently decide not to travel by rail.
Earlier this week my 17 year old daughter was dumped at Otahuhu rail station late at night with no connecting bus to Papakura (she had a Papakura-Britomart return ticket). A $70 taxi fare resolved that problem. Take the train next time? Maybe not.
A 50% loss sounds very optimistic. Admittedly observations have just been from the street in Parnell, saw about 5 buses this weekend. One seemed to have 10 people, and the rest 5. Would be interesting to see if others observations matched this. Seems more like 80% loss to me. I certainly never bother with rail buses, would have probably used the train on the weekend but decided to put it off because didn’t want to wander around suburbs for an hour, when could get a much nicer journey next week.
Since we’re all guessing here, I’d say 90%, based on my experience. Their disincentive to new users is pretty high. Surely AT know the answer, probably worth putting in a request.
I have my own issues with motion sickness that mean that a bus ride of more than about 10 minutes is pretty awful. I know that this level of discomfort is a minority issue, but it’s pretty common to feel some level of motion sickness.
Great news. Maybe the level of service during these school holidays suggests they need a hiring push to keep up with demand……?
Next goal: half hourly Onehunga trains at all times.
I think that will happen in April next year when the first EMUs come into service, as Onehunga will be the first to get them. Half hourly to Onehunga at all times has certainly been in all the plans I’ve seen.
Yes Tim, despite the sarcasm of some, it is further good news. Every little bit of improvement is progress and steadily, bit by bit Auckland continues to improve. Yes, we’d love to create a perfect PT network in Auckland in the blink of an eye and progress on some things is/has been slower than what we want but we are getting there! The weekend shutdowns certainly haven’t helped but hopefully they will soon be a thing of the past (There should be hell to pay if they aren’t!) and all the hard work to bring the rail network back from the dead will be able to be enjoyed once all the developments EMU, integrated ticketing & fares, bus network changes are in place. I expect a pretty good network by the end of 2016! Once the CRL is built and operational, it will be even better. Quite frankly despite the sometimes stuttering pace of development, this and the last decade have been the best decades for PT in a long while. Some of the sarky people might just want to remember, if they’re old enough to, the way things were until recently. BTW, one of the good timetable developments of the EMU introduction, will be that Puke gets weekend services, and while Puke will have shuttles instead of direct services, at least there will be plenty of shuttles and therefore actually higher service levels (just hope there is minimal transfer time) than before.
PS I see the Xmas shutdown this year is not as long as it has been for most parts of the network. I think the shutdown even began pre-Xmas last year. This year will see the shutdown begin on Boxing Day and all of the network back in operation on Jan 6th with only the Eastern Line out to till the later date of Jan 19th. (Something to look forward to when that re-opens is the opening of the new Panmure Station building.)
Agree with everything you wrote, although progress is sometimes incredibly slow, one needs to celebrate the improvements that do happen and not constantly complain. I’m actually surprised they’re doing it this soon, as I would have thought they would have waited till electrification was fully completed.
On another note, after electrification, shutdowns will be reduced significantly but NOT completely. Whilst there should be no more long christmas holiday shutdowns, you will still probably have the odd weekend shutdown. In saying that, it should only be one line every few months and not the entire network. My line here in Sydney probably has a shutdown once every 3-6months for general maintenance work, and even then it’s only on the Sunday (Saturday runs as per normal). They also time it so it’s ‘usually’ only one line at a time, or even just a small part of the line. I don’t think one or two Sundays every 6months is a huge deal, although Sydney Trains certainly isn’t a world role model by any means.
No sarcasm in the slightest. As a daily western line rider this is great for me.
My point is that fanfare announcements need to be followed through with delivery. Western has been vastly improved over the last two years, but this week and last weeks levels of cancellations are the opposite of what is being heralded.
Lots of people doing good work out there, but I cannot help feeling that Veolia / Transdev is the weak link right now.
Tim, I wasn’t singling your post out as one of the ones showing sarcasm.
No worries….
Wow the first increase in Western Line Saturday frequencies since 1994!
Congratulations!
OMG i can’t believe they are actually improving the weekend service! I live 200m from the station and have never used the train on the weekend, and i can’t believe anybody else does. One hour frequency is just a token service for the elderly, unemployed, and those disqualified from driving. Maybe i will finally get to use it now.
Hopefully this will convince one or two more families that they don’t need the 2nd or 3rd car because now because the train has gone from massively inconvenient to just inconvenient.
Every time Len Brown harps on about needing the rail link, i think, how about we start with something small in the meantime and run a couple more trains on the weekend? And how about one after 9pm so i can get home after dinner in town?
I really do wonder how much of an impact the piss poor weekend frequencies have on car ownership levels in Auckland. Sure you could get to work on PT, but you need a car for the weekend. And once you own the car and have paid all the fixed costs, the marginal cost of driving to work is so little that it makes the cost of PT so expensive (certainly i could drive to work for a fraction of what it costs to me bike halfway and then get the bus (damn harbour bridge!)).
But if suddenly you could do without the car on the weekend, and you start loading the fixed ownership costs into the figures you compare with the bus ticket, well then PT becomes a whole lot more competitive.
You can drive and park for less than $6.80 a day? Across the bridge? What do you drive?
so reply below
Kia Rio diesel. I’m getting about 6.2l/100km around town (4.5 on the highway). When i drive i park on the street for free and walk a couple hundred meters to the office block. Total trip is about 10km each way, so 1.86 in diesel, plus $1.08 in road tax = $2.94 return.
Bus is $8.10 return after 10 trip discount and after biking half the way.
If i were bus the whole journey it’s $15.20 return and an extra hour of my life gone. Never tried that sole destroying option, i generally drive if the bike is not an option for some reason.
(yes that’s right with the changes RUC to make it cheaper for large trucks and more expensive for small cars, the petrol equivalent price of my diesel is $2.95/l)
Ok so that was obviously supposed to be in reply to Sailor Boy
Ignore that ‘petrol equivalent diesel price’ comment. I should stop trying to do maths after midnight.
I use Bus About sometimes – cost only $10.50 am able to travel after 9 am from Pukekohe to Long Bay depending on the operator, should you do more than $10.50 travel a day is well worth buying this.
Agree Wayne, and hundreds of people use that pass every day. Unfortunately it is to be dumped as part of the HOP rollout, so those travellers are going to face massive price increases. I suspect most will opt for their car instead.