The Auckland Transport board meets again on Thursday and as such we now have the patronage results for October. Even better is there seems to be good news all around with all modes improving compared to October last year. Further there were the same number of working days making for an easier comparison – although on the rail network there were two full weekend shut-downs compared to one partial one in October 2012.
Auckland public transport patronage totalled 69,749,658 passengers for the 12-months to Oct-2013, an increase of +0.7% on the 12-months to Sept-2013. October monthly patronage was 6,321,771, an increase of 460,631 boardings or +7.9% on Oct-2012. No normalisation is required due to equivalent business days.
Rail patronage totalled 10,309,102 passengers for the 12-months to Oct-2013, an increase of +0.9% on the 12-months to Sept-2013. Patronage for Oct-2013 was 964,380, an increase of +91,309 boardings or +10.5% on Oct-2012.
The Northern Express bus service carried 2,295,587 passenger trips for the 12-months to Oct-2013, an increase of +0.4% on the 12 months to Sept-2013, a record 12 month performance for the Northern Express service. Northern Express bus service patronage for Oct-2013 was 206,265, an increase of 9,041 boardings or +4.6% on Oct-2012. A promotional campaign to areas around the Northern Busway contributed to the growth.
Other bus services carried 51,527,830 passenger trips for the 12-months to Oct-2013, a 0.6% change on the 12-months to Sept-2013. Other bus services patronage for Oct-2013 was 4,654,739, an increase of 298,591 boardings or +6.9% on Oct-2012. The implementation of AT HOP on further bus services has contributed to growth, along with promotional campaigns and improving service and on-time performance on the North Shore. Attachment 2 provides an overview of bus and Northern Express patronage growth marketing activity for the remainder of the financial year within the context of the over-arching public transport marketing approach.
Ferry services carried 5,617,139 passenger trips for the 12-months to Oct-2013, an increase of +1.1% on the 12 months to Sept-2013. Ferry services patronage for Oct-2013 was 496,387, an increase of 61,690 boardings or +14.2% on Oct-2012.
Summary performance against SOI targets is provided in Table 1
There are some pretty decent increases in there. For rail it’s the second month in a row with double digit growth and also finally reflects us being able to shed the RWC patronage boost from the 12m comparisons. Once again the increases are being driven by the increases in both average weekday usage as well as increased usage on the weekends – the latter of which was substantially higher than the year before and that only included one day of the finally improved weekend services on the western line.
The ferry increase is also extremely substantial, especially after a number of months where patronage growth had appeared to be slowing down. Even the buses saw increased patronage compared to Oct 12 although the 12m figure is still down. Overall some pleasing results and what’s more the graphs now show that the worm is really starting to turn once again.
The one downside as pointed out in the first chart is that with the exception of ferries, AT are already quite far behind their targets for the year. For each mode, the patronage report also highlights some of the initiatives being undertaken by AT. There are two buses ones I really like. The first one is this which is a retention campaign talking about the benefits bus users get or provide.
The second one is some neat and quirky art work being used to promote buses in the inner western area. You can see all five posters here.
Personally I think it’s great that AT are trying stuff as for a long time there was little to no advertising. All up some positive signs continuing to emerge.
Moving on to the main board report, as usual there is some interesting information in there. On integrated ticketing they say
Metrolink Inner and LINK went live on 10 November 2013 and is averaging 27,000 passenger trips a day. There is customer feedback on having to carry two cards Snapper HOP and AT HOP but otherwise the rollout went as planned. AT HOP card usage on Metrolink Inner and LINK has continued to grow during this week (see table below) and AT HOP card usage is expected to grow during the next week and a half.
Metro Inner & LINK AT HOP card Usage
Sunday 10/11/2013 – 21%
Monday 11/11/2013 – 28%
Tuesday 12/11/2013 – 32%
Wednesday 13/11/2013 – 35%
Based on the comments the other day I don’t think AT can really say that there was customer feedback on carrying both cards as if it was just a minor point.
On the EMUs they suggest that train testing is going well and over in Spain that CAF are cranking into the production with them already working on parts of trains 14 and 15. Things don’t look so good on the electrification side though with it noted that Kiwirail are asking for the Newmarket to Britomart section to be closed for an extra week over the Christmas shut-down so they can get work finished and it also mentioned that they are preparing an updated electrification programme. The project was already meant to have been finished by now but we found out that it had slipped with completion being pushed back to sometime in the first 3-4 months of next year. I wonder if this has slipped further.
Fare evasion is noted as being 7% (was 7.1% last month) which is based on ticket checks of just 15.3% of all trips. 7% is a similar level to what we saw prior to HOP rolling out to trains.
Over at Panmure, AT say that the new station building is coming along well and they are already starting to plan for an official opening. This will be one of the first tangible benefits from the AMETI project towards PT. After the station has been completed it will become even more critical that AT focus on how they can get the busway from Panmure to Pakuranga and beyond.
On CBD spaces the report mentions that there is/has been a tender for the upper part of Khartoum Pl with works starting early next year and that they will be going out to tender for O’Connell St in December. It’ll be good to have a few more improved public spaces.
There are a few other reports that look quite interesting but unfortunately I don’t have time to go into them right now.
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“improving service and on-time performance on the North Shore”
So I guess my partner is unlucky to always get the bus that is late or doesn’t turn up at all….. None of those retention posters address the level of service provided (or lack thereof). He is so frustrated that he would change to a car in an instant if we could afford a second vehicle.
I agree that PT service punctuality is a major issue in Auckland.
I believe (need to do some more research on this) this this issue is worse here partly because of how our contracts are structured, specifically bus operators are paid only for in-service time.
Unfortunately “in-service” is defined in such a way that it excludes recovery time at the end of each trip. This recovery time is important because it enables buses that are running late to “catch-up” before they start their next trip. Without this time delays on one trip can propagate through the rest of the network.
Defining recovery time as out of service has effectively created an incentive for operators in New Zealand to minimise recovery time (which is time that they don’t get paid for) and instead pad the scheduled running time (which is time that they do get paid for). End result? Poor punctuality; and inaccurate timetables.
Note that this decision could easily be reversed; there’s a strong case that recovery time is actually in-service time, i.e. the recovery time is required because of variation in actual trip times. I’m hoping that whoever’s working on PTOM at NZTA/AT is thinking about these issues. Contractual incentives for punctuality will mean little if what operators get paid for is defined in a way that encourages them to minimise recovery time.
I think another massive problem is still allowing cash fares and putting the onus on the driver to ensure passengers have tickets. This means only one door can be opened and someone with a $10 note holds up the line. A series of these and the bus is getting later and later.
I know we are on track, but we need to quickly move to a non-cash system so that tickets are pre-paid or you use the ATHOP (once that SNAFU is sorted). We also vitally need to move to an inspector based system with real enforcement powers.
This will leave the driver with one job; driving the bus. Passengers can get on/off at both doors, which speeds things up enormously.
This is how all European/Asian systems work (AFAIK) and it cant be faulted. This ridiculous cash fare system is some Anglophone thing that needs to be eliminated.
I’d put card fares on express services only, to start off with. This would include busway services, and some clearly marked peak hour services. Given that AT needs to consolidate its Hop service first, this should happen at a later point (at least 6 months from now).
I’d also add that once they’ve got machines on all buses, they need to start with putting two machines at the front. One simply isn’t enough, and lines build up.
Marketing works best when connected to infrastructure improvements. Bus campaign will work much better if tied in with better bus lanes and better weekend frequencies. Most weekend buses still stuck in dark ages, would be great if didn’t have to wait 3 years to see the big weekend boosts. Outer Link just as well patronised on weekend, so can’t see why others shouldn’t be the same.
Stunning lack of adjectives there: “There is customer feedback on having to carry two cards”.
I think there were probably lots of adjectives, but all of them stunningly unprintable.
more like abjectives!
Stunningly accurate, too, no doubt.
I agree with Luke. This is good stuff.
But we need better, to get to a low carbon future where our planet isn’t stuffed. (As well as being more efficient, cheaper, quieter, better for health outcomes, and improving business.) To do that, we need an investment in cycling and walking, and large increases in train and bus services, at all hours of the week.
Hopefully the summer-sag this year that follows complete shutdown on the rail system will be one of the last.
I like that they’ve highlighted putting 240 low-emissions buses on the road. Similarly, electric trains will reduce carcinogenic and climate changing particulate emissions.
But it’s awful that our buses aren’t already shifted in this direction. Decisions were made to buy dirty buses throughout the 2000s. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been standing at the lights and a bus has noisiliy belched a black cloud for me to breathe. It’s one of the reasons I stopped cycling in Auckland – I got sick of opening up my lungs only to breathe half-burnt diesel fuel.
Let’s get our buses towards ultra-low emissions as soon as possible. The pathway doesn’t bother me, if it’s combustion, hybrid, or electric that’s fine (though hybrid and electric buses offer massive noise reduction benefits).
good point. Hopefully the new network enables the bus fleet to specialise more too, with low emission vehicles deployed on routes that tend to traverse denser central city areas, where the negative effects of air pollution on pedestrians and cyclists are orders of magnitude higher.
Of course, the end game is having an entire fleet of low emissions vehicles, but the current ones will take time to phase out.
You mean “Phased out” like those old bendy buses, from the ’80s have (not) been?
So you really mean we can expect to have to put up with smoke belching crappy old diesel buses around Auckland for another 30 years?
Mind you, I’ve always wondered whether one “belching” bus is actually worse than the emissions from the 30+ cars that it could be replacing (50 cars if you believe the AT poster)…
It’s worse if you’re beside it or behind it (as a pedestrian or cyclist, or sitting and eating).
I don’t think reducing emissions has been an actual priority of AT until now. I’m sure it’s one of their stated objectives, but practice reveals priorities. That in turn will be because they’ve only been funded to buy cheaper (in the short term) vehicles, because of funding constraints from Council and Government,
Diesel fumes are objectively worse for you than petrol fumes, particularly since NZ uses “dirty” diesel with a high sulphur content (though far reduced from what it was a decade ago).
RE: FAir evasion. The fact that the train AT ticket dispensers don’t work in full sunlight may have something to do with this. I see people consantly unable to buy tickets past 12 pm, at a number of stations that have unconvered ticketing machines. These people ALL invariably end up riding for free…
Why does the flyer on the left not say ‘Connecting Aucklanders’ at the bottom?
Totally unrelated except perhaps related to far evasion and perhaps good marketing for PT ….
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/drunken-french-teenagers-abduct-a-circus-llama-and-take-him-on-a-tram-ride-8920524.html
Hahaha wow, that second yellow poster is amazing. Hope they continue in this vein and roll it out city-wide!
Yep both good ideas.
However, in Europe most people just get on the bus and then scan. So I would be more inclined (once the cashless system is in place) to spread the card machines out over the bus. Once both doors are able to be opened the front of the bus wont become such a pinch point.
Sorry, that was intended as a reply to George, who replied to my comment above on cash less buses.
2 things spring to mind. The first is that the drift down in patronge since 2011 very probably partly reflects the region’s persistently high unemployment (it’s above the national average and most of the jobs being created are part-time); and – closer to home – I’m glad they haven’t wheeled out any of those posters on South Auckland’s buses. Connected? Saving time? Beyond irony.
Also service disappointments in both rail and bus. No new bus lanes to lift bus performance and a lot of overcrowding. Trains being unreliable [recently this has improved a lot- see below], and all the network stutdowns which sadly are continuing.
But, and I do think this is critical, the new higher petrol prices were ameliorated by a strengthening NZD and the rises became accepted as a new normal. This I believe is a delicately balanced situation; improvements in the world economy should lead to two upward pressures on the NZ pump price. An end to QE in the US is expected to lead to downward pressure on the NZD/USD rate and recovering global oil demand will add upward pressure on crude price. Two more tax rises are coming too.
And the supply demand balance is actually very tight despite the boosterism from some powerful quarters. I think it is clear that the average NZ driver is just coping with the current petrol price and another repricing [up] will be very destabilising. Especially as the MSM has been running all sorts of cornucopian nonsense so the public will have absorbed the idea that the current price is some kind of peak, not just a step on the way up to new highs….. time will tell, but if [when; in my view] this happens expect to hear the ‘Shock’ word to be wheeled out again.
Does this mean we can safely say the stalling of rail patronage is finally over?
Yes I think we can, although there are still heaps of shutdowns to come which is an ongoing negative, however it looks like the signals upgrade is finally bearing fruit in terms of service improvements as well as the work that Transdev are also clearly doing to lift their game. From this month, Nov, on the weekends that it is running the Western Line will at last have the long promised new frequencies.
I am even more confident than previously that the new trains are going to lead a huge jump: the road to 20 million trips p/a in 2020 starts here and is, I believe, certainly achievable.
Once that ball really gets rolling I expect the complaint will change from ‘don’t spend money on that’ to ‘why hasn’t my area got a line?’.
The new improved Auckland starts here. Along with HOP and the new bus network. Revolution.
I have always thought that patronage would slump for a while on trains while we were in the period before electrification and the transition to electric trains (I’m pretty sure I even recall Matt L saying this on another forum as well).
1) We haven’t seen any more rolling stock come onboard that obviously helped push patronage in the 2000s through allowing more services to be introduced (remember it’s still not that many years ago since Sunday services anywhere were introduced!)
2) Not enough drivers. This is a key part of why more weekend services couldn’t be introduced earlier.
3) Many full & partial weekend and evening shutdowns while the AEP has been in progress.
4) RWC2011 was always going to give a false indication of the patronage stats and make them look not so flattering afterwards. I can remember people gushing about the PT patronage stats during the RWC period and thinking yeah great but don’t be surprised if there is a decline for the same period in the next couple of years.
To be honest I’m surprised some people have been doom and gloom here over the last couple of years. I think AT’s done reasonably well to keep patronage figures at about the same or with slight declines compared to pre-RWC stats considering the above. I think anyone who assumed that patronage was just going to keep climbing in this “transition” period was not really dealing with reality!
One thing has concerned me a bit about patronage stats for a while though. We look at total patronage stats but if more trains and/or services are introduced it’s reasonable to expect overall patronage numbers will also climb so that’s not really proving rail is becoming a more attractive option per se as you could say the same thing about other transport modes. For me a more accurate reflection of whether rail PT patronage would be improving or declining would be if the stats showed how many people used each service on average. If we can see that our trains are becoming fuller and fuller then we know rail PT is doing better and better patronage -wise.
Here’s what happened in Perth, note the dip during delivery and the boom afterwards…. coming to a city near you [although Perth’s work did involve something like the CRL along with their electrification]:
Patrick, the huge increase Perth experienced came from the opening of the Joondalup line. It was a 26km line equivalent to Britomart-Whangaparoa. The even bigger increase in the late 2000’s came from the new 70km Mandurah line. That’s Britomart-Wellsford. Big increases from big lines. Auckland will need to think a lot bigger than short lines to the airport, Mt Roskill or Takapuna to get similar increases.
The other point, when Joondalup and Mandurah opened, they got rid of the buses. The trains replaced the buses. In Auckland they compete. Remember the ill-fated Helensville train? They ran buses alongside it, because nobody thought to can the bus when the train started. Same in South Auckland – they keep running buses from Papakura to Manukau. Rail patronage in Auckland will not perform to its maximum potential for as long as buses keep running between points served by rail.
Geoff, the regional public transport plan removes all competing buses and reallocated them as rail feeders, we are doing precisely what you appear to be saying. All buses west of New Lynn terminate at New Lynn, west of Henderson to Henderson, south of otahuhu end there, south of Onehunga, etc.
No more buses from Manukau or Papakura in about 18 months time, just as all the EMUs have been delivered.
Our rail patronage is going to explode over the next three or four years.
I wrote Papakura to Manukau.
How many million journeys per year do you estimate will move from buses to trains?
Ah, Geoff, your wearisome pedantry compels me to respond in kind: Both new lines are visibly marked on the chart for any observant reader, and of course what happened in Perth is not exactly the same as what is currently happening in Auckland, and nor did I claim it as such. I did not claim that AK will hit 30 million in the same period as Perth but merely that we are on our way to 20 million over a six year period. The point that I did however refer to is the dip in ridership during the construction phase and that is clearly observable in Auckland and is indeed looking uncannily like what happened in Perth.
Perth clearly offers a good equivalence for the process currently underway in Auckland, this means that they are not exactly the same but do share some useful similarities.
The primary purpose of buses between Papakura and Manukau is to service people that don’t live close to a station: i.e to deliver them to trains for onward connections or directly to the centres at Papakura, Manurewa or Manukau. It’s twelve kilometres between Papakura and Manukau with only two stations along the way. The bus extends the reach of the rail stations to the whole twelve kilometres rather than just walking distance around the few stations.
I don’t expect many bus journeys at all will move to trains, however a huge amount will become bus and train journeys rather than just bus alone. For the majority of Auckland, travelling further than your local shops will be best done by catching a bus to the train station.
Consider what will happen with the increased speed, reliability and frequency of the new trains, coupled with the extra appeal of being flash, new, clean and quiet. Then add in the fact that the effective catchment of the rail network is going to increase tenfold from walking distance around a few dozen stations to covering the majority of Auckland South of the harbour.
I predict we will be at thirty million trips within two years of the New Network and EMU rollout being completed, assuming that the supporting fare structure changes also go ahead.
My point Patrick, is that the big increase that coincided with electrification in Perth won’t occur in Auckland with our electrification, so the comparison shouldn’t really be made. The factors that caused that increase in Perth are not present in Auckland. We won’t be opening new outer urban lines as they did. Heck, we can’t even get AT to use the existing outer urban railway lines! Auckland has also increased frequencies and introduced rolling stock with modern interiors, prior to electrification, whereas Perth did both of those things with electrification.
Our “sparks effect” will be a good one, but it won’t replicate Perth’s.
There is enough change coming with electrification, especially as Nick says with the connection of the bus and rail network, and as Luke says the move to integrated FARES, for us to be confident that a major upswing in patronage will occur that will prove the analogy with Perth to be correct.
However:
AT do need to find the money quickly for the integrated stations, even if that means going alone [ie without NZTA] if necessary and of course deliver that fare integration in an equally timely manner. As electrification has never been a stand alone project- it is intimately linked to, and its success dependent on, both the New Bus Network and the delivery of a fully Integrated Fares programme.
Buses taking longer than the car isn’t a myth, it’s fact. Most bus routes at most times are much slower than driving. Swanson to the city = 20 minutes car, 75 minutes bus. The buses only offer an advantage on a small number of routes, for a short portion of the day.
Geoff this campaign is targeted at a specific area and one where there are bus lanes on many of the major roads. This isn’t a region wide campaign.
bizzare comparison picking Swanson to CBD at midnight for driving and high peak traffic for the bus.
The 36F timetabled at 1 hour from Swanson to CBD anyway, leaving 7.15am driving wouldn’t be much faster than this.
Midnight? It’s 20 minutes most of the time. Maybe 25 if Lincoln Rd is slow moving. Only slower during the morning peak, on weekdays.
Why would you take a bus from Swanson to the CBD? That’s as daft as me using a route that includes catching a train from Te Atatu to the city.
Swanson to uckland is a major bus route, and why do people use it? Simple. Bus = $10.50. Train = $13.60+
For my Swanson-Glendowie journey, my choice is 1) Drive for $10, 2) Bus for $10.50, 3) Train-Bus $23.60.
When HOP is fully rolled out, the $10.50 bus fare will increase to $23.60 as well, so driving will then be the only viable option. HOP prices itself off the market.
You don’t know what the final fare structure is going to be so your example is pure speculation
Until AT say otherwise, the HOP prices are the final fare structure. All else is pure speculation.
Once zonal system rolled out those journeys will come down substantially, also should see a daily cap, which should be less than $20, hopefully back to the $16, and less on weekends.
Also no idea how you get those figures, train bus same price from swanson of $6.80 oneway.
The $6.80 is for train only – bus is fare capped region-wide at $10.50.
Ticket checks are just 15.3% of all trips? That’s a surprising statistic to me. I encounter ticket inspectors on most of my trips on the western line. Maybe they’ve got a tracking device on my hop card! Dodgy individual.
According to Google Maps, Ritchies depot to Britomart, 22 minutes (in current traffic 24 minutes). The slow times are the morning and afternoon peaks and much of Saturday. And the 70-80kmh speed restrictions on the road works along much of the northwestern motorway over the next few years won’t help. 🙁
The quickest PT option is the 36F at 62 minutes, followed by the train at 72 minutes (including 1.2km walk). Don’t forget, for a valid comparison, your car journey time must also be door-to-door. So, driving time plus such things as getting the car out of the garage, parking, and walking to the destination.