This weekend has been a particularly big one with so many events on and with the exception of the Big Day Out, Auckland Transport haven’t exactly be doing a stellar job when it comes to event management with the recent cricket matches in particular being quite shambolic. As such we knew that this weekend would be a real test for AT but it was one they said they were prepared for and were confident of being able to handle the crowds.
Well unfortunately that appears not to have been the case with lots of reports streaming in last night about all sorts of issues, many of which are reminiscent of the RWC opening night. Below are some of the issues that we saw.
The CBD was packed with people from both the lantern festival and from those coming and going from the Nines or Eminem concert yet pretty much nothing was done to improve pedestrian priority. This was particularly evident around the intersection of Victoria St and Kitchener St where huge numbers of people were walking and trying to cross the road. The picture below doesn’t really do that justice but you can see a pretty busy Victoria St. You can also see some traffic cones out and there was someone there who was supposedly meant to be making things work better however their focus seemed to only be on stopping the pedestrians to allow cars to flow. Once again traffic management seems to mean that moving cars is more important than moving people.
This is the response we got from Auckland Transport when we suggested that they should have closed the intersection.
@TransportBlog closing it would create more traffic issues. We understand it’s busy, take care out there
— Auckland Transport (@AklTransport) February 15, 2014
But it was other parts of the CBD too, Fort St which should have been humming with people was allowed to be taken over by cars trying to rat run somewhere.
@Brycepearce @TransportBlog @AklTransport pic.twitter.com/hCLGH8qkGU
— Geogoose (@geogoose) February 15, 2014
It seems that once again despite probably tens of thousands of people trying to walk around the city cars were treated as king and pedestrians as the least important.
Buses seemed to have a patchy night. There were some reports of them working well but also lots of reports of them failing and too infrequent. Northern Express services in particular seemed like it was only to standard weekend frequencies with some buses 30 minutes apart, completely inadequate for the numbers of people in town. When this photo was taken after 9pm there were an estimated 300 people waiting (more around the corner) for a bus that was a long way away.
Here’s another one
@TransportBlog @AklTransport pic.twitter.com/FE10Cmv6It
— Geogoose (@geogoose) February 15, 2014
There were issues with other bus services too.
Of all the modes about the quietest noise was about the rail network which seemed to generally work ok – although there were a few complaints. This is perhaps the most surprising because my understanding is that there was a chronic shortage of drivers (for various reasons) which may explain why the timetable looked so light.
I get the feeling now that while Auckland is still very much a car city that Aucklanders are quite prepared to catch PT to large events and people are learning to enjoy big city events. The problem we now face is that our management of our transport networks for anyone but those in cars is woeful leading to very poor outcomes and probably holding a lot of people back from using PT altogether. What is needed is for AT to be more bold, to put more pedestrian priority in place or even close intersections/streets to vehicles. They also need to a much greater provision of PT services. With big multi event days like this weekend it means not just a couple of extra services tacked on to a regular timetable but a proper set of frequent services. The question is if anyone will be held accountable for the constant event issues that keep arising.
I also can’t help but think that many of the long talked about city centre ideas would have helped greatly with all of this including the Victoria St Linear park, a bus only Queen St with wider footpaths and a proper east/west bus corridor on Wellesley St.
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Appalling.
I would like to point out that while NEX was quite busy last night as your photos show, additional services were put on after 9.30pm for the rest of the evening. As a way to clear the crowds (and by way of apology to those waiting in line) the guy from AT who was at the stop at around 9.30pm said that NEX was free for all passengers leaving Britomart until midnight which pleased a while bunch of people no end – the crowds were shifted and clear by 10pm. I was in Britomart for a little while (the line for McDonalds was atrocious) and think the whole bus operation after 9.30pm or so actually went quite well in Britomart, all things considered
Well I must have seen it just at the peak before those extra services arrived, because folk were lined up round the corner and halfway to Albert St.
Took the picture above at 9.45pm, at about 9.50 a number of extra busses turned up. Don’t know about it being clear by 10, but it was definitely in the process of being sorted out.
Reactionary, which in this case appears to be good (eventually), but it does leave people thinking about reliability. I don’t understand why the NEX was on a 30 minute frequency on such a busy weekend. There were tweets all day detailing the number of people around the CBD and surely there were AT people observing this? Plenty of time to organise.
Thats great to see AT have stepped up the game in responding to issues quickly. Though still need to work on prediction and planning. Lots did work well yesterday, but again small things let it down for some people.
Good to see the numbers who used public transport to get around the city this weekend, and I acknowledge it’s a big undertaking to manage all that.
To be fair I think it was far better that we might have seen in the past. Half hourly northern express is the one true balls up in my opinion, all else is what you might expect from a big event day. Was near western springs in the afternoon and the eminem crowds were well managed.
Having said that, the should really consider closing and managing streets in the city for the lantern festival. Perhaps create strategic corridors in and out of major parking buildings, and close off a lot of the rest. Why did we have gridlock on Shortland St, Fort St etc? Why were there cars on Queen St at all. I saw an new personal bus spotter record of five city links bunched together (the whole running fleet?!) and that was only late afternoon.
Maybe bring a bit of the festival down into Lorne st or Aotea square too, the street in front of the library would be a great place for a row of the food vendors, rather than rows of parked cars.
Actually that sounds like a blueprint for the city in general. Create strategic corridors to major parking buildings and a few crosstown routes. Segregate the main PT corridors, and have the rest as shared spaces or pedestrianised entirely.
I suspect the trains operated reasonably well because, over the past couple of years, people have learned not to rely on them when attending major events. Moreover, the Western Line rail bus compromise at Morningside/Kingsland, for example, is almost as bad as the Newmarket switchback, a brilliant indicator of the no. 8 wire and a bit of cardboard protocol the rail network operates under. Nonetheless, I am impressed that it appears no trains broke down during the course of the evening and that services were adequately sized (i.e. no 2 car ADLs). So, rail: 6/10; buses, 4/10; pedestrians, 1/10; and cars (using AT traffic engineer/Stagecoach on-time reporting metrics) 12/10?
The evidence suggests people have come to rely on rail, and expect good service. People were pouring on and off trains all evening. Supposedly half the crowd took public transport, and most of this would have been rail.
Also this post may be a day early. Just wait until tonight where no trains West or Past Otahuhu after 10pm. Also concerned timetable says only half hourly trains heading to the game after 11.30am! After a big night part of crowd is sure to come in a bit late.
That these events were not surprises and as the plans for them became clear many people predicted that those would be inadequate, so aren’t we surely now at the point of demanding changes in the agencies responsible? Why can’t AT organise these things even adequately?
Why do they fail to close enough roadspace to traffic at and around these events?
Why do they fail to provide sufficient PT services to and from these events?
Why are they so poor at designing, executing, and communicating clear programmes for these events?
It seems looking from the outside that somewhere fairly senior in AT there is a complete failure to understand what is required.
Aucklanders want more of these events, and they all have one thing in common; a lot of people together on foot. Is this the problem?; the fact that these events can only thrive on the antithesis of the car-first model? Important people at AT just don’t seem to get it.
Accountability overdue. Given that Auckland Transport control the entire street domain as well as all modes, they are more than cpaable of managing *all* transport around events.
Which managers in AT are reponsible? How does their Board fell about their performance? Is this one of the items in their SOI with Auckland Council? What does Council’s transport committee make of it? How about the Mayor’s office?
Gee if only there was a profession who could ask them questions and report their answers..
I’d also like to see similar questions asked of agencies like ATEED who control other aspects of large events.
Given the lessons of the RWC opening night (http://publicaddress.net/speaker/party-central-structures-and-silos/), you’d hope they were all working together better by now.
Need to turn “traffic management” into transport management – getting *people* where they need to go, especially for the final 1-2km ring around any event.
And making other modes adapt. Anyone driving cars near these events should expect delays, unless they’re heading for mobility parks.
From my experience on the day, it was far from perfect but it may be a little harsh to compare it to what happened on the RWC opening night?
Getting to and from Eden Park was quite good. I got to Newmarket hoping to take the train west, but met loads of people that had come from the southern line expecting to do the same and seeing the trains full from britomart. Event buses running from outside the station were radioed down from waiting at Dilworth when the previous one left. Not sure why we went Broadway- Khyber Pass- Symonds- Mt Eden Rd- Balmoral- Sandringham, but that did mean getting dropped in the Eden Park carpark which was nice. No parking through Mt Eden village would make a huge difference.
Got the train back to Newmarket with friends, had to wait for 15 minutes which wasn’t too bad. Definitely helped that half the crowd left after the warriors game, and people trickled out during the remaining three games.
Overall satisfactory but not exceptional.
The normal bus services down Mt Eden Road (27* and 25*, 26* exiting View Road) were not great – there was what felt like peak time passenger counts but only weekend levels of service. Waited 30 minutes with a queue of about 15 others, watched 2 completely packed busses go past before pretty much the enture stop decided to give up left. One couple was literally cursing AT to anyone who would listen.
There probably should’ve been 10 minute frequencies at least as it got near lantern festival time.
+1 re transport management! Imagine how much better this would have worked with the CRL up and running.
Popular events like these are like windows to our city’s future transport demand. Opportunities to see where more is needed, and less.
I would guess the Parking buildings in High, Kitchener and Lorne Street limit what they can do at some of those intersections.
In previous years I have gone to the lantern festival on Sunday night because I like to see the fireworks. But with the fireworks scheduled to finish at 10.45pm and various last buses scheduled to leave town sometimes a matter of minutes after this its always a bit hit and miss if you can get home via bus. Even if the last bus leaves late enough to get on to it (e.g. at 11.20pm as mine is), with so many people trying to get on to the one bus, invariably its packed and not everyone can get on. I’ve seen people left behind despite bus drivers trying to cram as many people as they can on. I’m lucky as I don’t live too far away but a 45 min walk home late at night on my own is not something I feel I should have to do because the bus timetable still runs to a typical Sunday timetable. Lets see if this year is any different. I’m not holding my breathe.
My experience was that it appeared a blind eye was turned to illegal berm parking in the side street s close to western springs. Reinforcing the notion that you can drive and park real close cos you wont get a ticket.
Why was the motorway clogged when there is precious little parking immediately around Eden Park & the Springs. Where were they all going ?
Add to that my complaints to auckland council about towing at least 12 disabled stickered cars from Christmas in the domain.
Reply email from the council was full of lies.
Telling me what I saw, which was no one got towed, instead of families sat on the side of the road at midnight wondering how to get home.
Well done council on not having any idea how to run a city or manage and handle people.
Glad we went to the Lantern Festival on Friday when it was *slightly* quieter. Piled the kids on to the NEX and met the other half in town. Worked well (but then we weren’t on weekend timetables).
I tried to catch a bus from Sandringham to the Lantern Festival. At 7:00pm maxx.co.nz showed the 6:15 bus due to arrive in 15 minutes! Nothing came and I walked to the festival and didn’t see a single Sandringham Rd bus all the way in the 50 minutes it took to walk.
Its also the National Governments fault as well for proposing to spend obscene amounts of money on public transport and are intent on putting cars before people as well. I hope come 2014 election that they are voted out!
I meant obscene money on roads not public transport guys of course
The amounts spent on PT by the Government *are* obscene – obscenely small.
Better pedestrian priority is a must. Victoria St by Albert Park was a mess and very dangerous. Also intersection of High St and Shortland St needs fixed fast before someone gets bowled. Have to disagree re the trains, although they may have been running and didn’t have any breakdowns the comms from AT staff was appalling and the crowd control awful. All in all it felt very unsafe taking the kids into town last night.
That non intersection at Shortland St is nuts. Pedestrians were forced to scurry across the road as cars came down Shortland St way too quick. And High St / Lorne St needs to be service vehicles only asap. Forget the shared space.
And can anyone give me a single good reason why general traffic is able to access Jean Batten Place off Shortland St?
The only reason I can come up with is to take some load off of Queen Street if you’re coming from Shortland street and heading north.
Shared space is not a suitable alternative route for Queen St traffic. Close it. Next?
I think it was originally for the benefit of police vehicles going to the station on Fort Street. Now that that’s no longer there, any reason for car traffic on Jean Batten is gone with it.
I walked to the Sky Tower from the Lantern Festival on Saturday to get a western bus home at about 8.15, naively thinking there would be extra and frequent services. The computer board showed the next bus in 17 mins. After waiting about 20 mins, no bus had come and the service had dropped off the computer. I got the next Link bus in sort-of the right direction and walked 1.5 km to get home. Thanks, Auckland Transport!
Well, I waited 45 mins for my East Coast Bays bus at around 9.00pm, nothing for the North Shore at all went past at all in that time. Of course when a bus did arrive it was full by the time it got to Albert St, I wonder what time the folks waiting there actually got home? I hate driving in Auckland at night time but it seems like there’s no real alternative.
Heard on the radio earlier today that after the nines people travelling west to places like Avondale were told that no trains were running so they’d have to taxi.
And also others saying they waited ages then a two car train showed up that was way too small for the hundreds waiting.
I’ve asked for a response from both Events and Auckland Transport officers to the issues raised in the blog post and the comments.
Thanks.
Thanks. Please follow this up as getting events wrong is a great way to stigmatise PT for irregular users.
Oh and just to make the events a poorer experience for all. And possibly meaning they will go to other cities in following years. Auckland is a competitive market for these and for other things like young talent coming here to work or not. These things are part of the appeal of the city and it simply is pathetic to be failing to deliver basic needs like quality transport and public realm access like this.
Someone was kicked off the 222 yesterday when they had an event ticket, the driver said “event buses only” when they are the same bus company (nz bus) and if you live near kingsland taking the 2XX (X = anything) makes sense to get to the game. I had to pay an adult cash fare due to the shitty AT Hop card and not having anywhere near as many top-up locations as snapper did in west auckland and not to mention instant visa/mastercard top-up’s via NFC-enabled devices. Oh not to mention the stupid $10 top-up requirement that actually looses them money as they make $0.25 per topup. Also laughable is how every second bus im on stops mid-journey for 5 minutes to fix a paper jam on the new equipment which I have never seen once on the old orange ones. Sorry for getting off-topic but I don’t think this blog brings up the constant still unfixed issues with AT Hop, I could list several more.
My experience is the opposite snop always jammed and athop hasn’t yet.
Don’t know what buses you’ve been on but AT Hop printers are constantly jamming, drivers are always on about it, Ritchies or some other bus was delayed in the roll-out due to it being such a big issue. Never saw it in all the years I’ve been using snapper on NZBus services. I don’t get why everyone hates on snapper here, I would much rather have snapper on all transport services in Auckland then this Thales garbage right now… In the future my mind will probably change though but so far I have seen nothing done about dozens off issues I have complained about constantly.
If you’re using a HOP card there is no need for the ticket printer. Right?
Yes there is, when I am unable to top-up my hop card due to lack of top-up retailers which snapper had plenty of, but now there are barely any or an nfc credit card instant top-up app like snapper had, I need to buy an *expensive* paper ticket. This happens frequently, especially if you are a student and don’t have the luxury of making large top-ups.
Snapper (objectively) is much slower than HOP to tag on/off, and (in my experience) has more read/write errors.
I do miss the NFC top up from Snapper, but have read is in the planning for AT app. And yes retailer network is rubbish, really need some more, especially areas away from rail network/busway. Though guess the 25c top up fee funds that.
I’ve timed it. Snapper (using the JCOP cards – all Snapper-HOP branded cards were JCOP) took 0.6s to complete a transaction.
AT HOP takes 0.3s, but oddly there is a 250-300ms delay between the transaction completing (with green light showing) and the beep. That needs to go, I have no idea why they did that.
Oddly, older Wellington-issued Snapper cards (IIRC 2010 and earlier) perform faster, about 400ms.
Also AT HOP needs 1 second between successive card reads (assuming passengers are fast enough!), Snapper-HOP needed 2sec.
Like Snapper, most card read fails are due to people not holding their card flat and still to the reader. Some insist on “swiping”, and others take too long to carefully hold their card away from the reader as if they’re playing that old board game Operation.
Yeah honestly the read time doesn’t bother me very much… but the delay between read and confirmation is quite annoying I think it’s just checking to see if it’s in positive balance and what consession is applied so it can play the right sound. There was a video about a westpac/at mobile wallet but that was in 2012 and in 2013 it was successful trialed so what the hell is happening? lol
Yeah honestly the read time doesn’t bother me very much… but the delay between read and confirmation is quite annoying I think it’s just checking to see if it’s in positive balance and what consession is applied so it can play the right sound. There was a video about a westpac/at mobile wallet but that was in 2012 and in 2013 it was successful trialed so what the heck is happening? lol
That extra 300ms can’t be it checking balance / concession as the balance shows on the screen and the concession lights up the yellow LED – and that’s all already happened 300ms before the beep. And people like me have pulled our card away by that point too.
Just a guess but I would think they are waiting for this: https://www.paymark.co.nz/info-hub/tsm.html to become fully operational. I believe it will be later this year.
Yeah. Don’t need to wait for the beep. The green light comes up pretty quick.
Oh, is it yellow? I can’t remember.
Green + Yellow LEDs together indicate a concession fare (child, sec/ter student, SuperGold). Green alone = adult.
The delay between the beep and the light is annoying, especially so with the tag posts at train stations where they’ve taped over the green light! Half the time when you’re tagging off, the train is leaving with a god-awful noise so your only indication of a successful tag off is the tiny LCD showing your balance.
Still, vastly better than Snapper was, and roughly similar to other systems I’ve used overseas. Except for the Tokyo metro which was crazy-super-ridiculous fast. Near instant as far as I could tell.
“Closing it would create more traffic issues” I think this sums up pretty well the AT mindset. You know what? If you close it = no traffic no issues.
Indeed. Whoever made that call is not in any way incompetent – they’re judging success or failure by a totally alien set of values. That value is – “are the cars moving?”
Without any thought to where the people in those cars are actually trying to end up, or any thought about anyone not within one of those cars (even if they are on foot coming from, or going to, a carpark!)
Let alone any thought as to what effect your actions in managing the streets in favour of those cars may have on how people choose to travel in the first place – by valuing nothing but the motion of cars, you’re ensuring that nothing’s moving anywhere, car or not.
Auckland Transport’s not a democracy in the normal sense, since it’s diluted with the layers of council, board and management, but it is a democracy in another sense. One Car, One Vote.
Instead of reacting to increased demand, why not go crazy for a weekend like this and run lots of main line services similar to peak times and find out just how much demand there is? Here was an opportunity that was missed in my opinion.
You wouldn’t put a bus stand in Fort St now so why allow it to be used as a taxi rank?
Another reason why i moved to melbourne temporarily, might come back to auckland around 2017 when things are a little more ‘liveable’
Not quite transport but similar issue, I was in Auckland CBD both Saturday and Sunday morning and it was business as usual, that being the shops all staying shut until mid morning (10.00 AM) if they opened at all, nice and relaxed. They bleat on and on about the sad plight of retail shopping and yet for the many people both local and from overseas wandering the streets of this retail ghost town there was nothing. Give yourselves an upper cut Auckland CBD retail!
True! I was looking for a coffee at 9am Saturday Morning in Elliott St and there were numerous out of towners looking for breakfast but everywhere was closed. Apart from mcdo, irony.
Meanwhile in Melbourne next weekend there is an all-night event and trains and trams will run all night on most routes at half-hourly intervals. I’ll be going, but is there anyone in AT who should be nominated for a “study visit”, to see what is possible in an Australasian city with similar demographics ?
http://ptv.vic.gov.au/news-and-events/events/public-transport-for-white-night-melbourne-7pm-saturday-22-february-7am-sunday-23-february/
Ah, Melbourne…a city that doesn’t need to pretend to be anything that its not. Report back here on your White Night 2014 findings please.
Auckland Transport really seems like a bunch of bureaucrats of unknown qualities. Sometimes they get part of the event transport right, sometimes not. I cannot believe they are not closing roads when it’s clear PEOPLE ON TWO LEGS are swarming into the city and key roads.
Seriously, AT seems fractionalised and whoever looks after the roading side is taking pedestrians as second rate citizens to car drivers. Time AT is really held accountable for their continured mess for major events.
And on the topic of the Auckland Transport RIP OFF 25 cents FEE for topping THEIR HOP card (while they use YOUR money YOU have stored on it) – this fee needs to cancelled immediately – AT are you listening? The public, your customers have had enough of it. DROP IT.
And finally, AT bring back family rail passes. Events like this would be perfect for families to experience rail, but your very poor attitude and treatment of families is not enticing them to try rail. How can Auckland achieve rail growth with and organisation which is shooting itself in the foot?
I would like to second this. I went to Victoria street for the fireworks on Sunday night and was surprised that it wasn’t closed. Many people had lined up along the street for the obvious view of the tower, the official response (from AT, I presume) was to have people with megaphones shouting at pedestrians to keep off the road. Apparently even closing the section between Kitchener and High Street for a few hours was too much to ask.
“Heard on the radio earlier today that after the nines people travelling west to places like Avondale were told that no trains were running so they’d have to taxi.
And also others saying they waited ages then a two car train showed up that was way too small for the hundreds waiting.
..”
Strange, I heard trains running out to Swanson all Saturday evening, and into the early hours of Sunday morning. And TV3 showed footage of the crowds boarding from both platforms at Kingsland – bizarre if they had nothing running west at the same time.
West trains were running and quite frequently – starting at Morningside and heading west from there.
However if you wanted a westbound train from Britomart, Newmarket etc between 6pm and 10pm, you were SOL. One railbus an hour between 6pm and 10pm. Then ONE train at 10:03pm on the Sunday, 42 minutes BEFORE the end of the fireworks.
My experiences on Saturday and Sundays was that most people resorted to the most reliable public transport…….walking.
2am ponsonby road there were hundreds waiting for taxis that there was no way the taxis could cope. Just a lot of frustrated people. Sad way to end a good night.
Overall Was good to see people out and about in the city day and night. Felt like a proper city.
Everyone’s talking about public transport but what about car parking — in particular why not increase the price of parking during such events, so that the limited spaces are readily available for those who really want / need to drive?
What did AT do for its car park buildings? Did it keep the same weekend rate or vary the price?
Probably made them free as they did for the Santa parade if memory serves me correctly.
Problem is capacity. If total transport capacity is designed around a normal commuter requirement of say hypothetically 100 people maximum, then prudent design demands planning at say 110 people ( but there is a limit to how much oversupply becomes ‘economical’ – do you design something to oversupply the demand by say 50% to cater for occasional peaks or…?). When ATEED and city planners overpromise and allow situation where demand capacity is hugely exceeded (as in Rugby World Cup and last weekend events held over many hours) the ability for the transport organisations to clear the demand constantly and maintain any flexibility reduces. If demand exceeds supply the equation is usually reduced/lesser service levels or, you pay a premium (cab fare or parking?), that happens anywhere in the world.
At the risk of firing this up again. The public transport and traffic management arrangements for the past weekend were even more comprehensive than for Rugby World Cup, three events at three venues.
As for the Northern Express on Saturday night there was a high demand after 9pm. When our operator saw this we called in five buses to clear the backlog.
To speed-up boarding the decision was made to make travel free.
On Sunday night extra Northern Express services were added. Our apologies if anyone was held up.
Overall, the weekend was a great success for Auckland. We accept there were some operational issues and we will take these into account for future events.
Bring on the Cricket World Cup.
Mark Hannan, Media Manager, AT.
As someone in the NEX queue on Sat night, the problem for me was the uncertainty. 1/2 hourly scheduled services was not good enough. They were 15m in the am. There were plenty of signs that town was packed. As for the western line, what a shambles. No trains when people were ready to go home. Not good enough and not close to world class. I went to F1 GP in Melb 12 years ago. Great experience. Frequent trams all day and late into the night.
@ Mark Hannan: I was pretty proud of Auckland as a grown up city with all the celebrating and activity in the CBD. I can attest to the photo looking down Victoria St when I was there Saturday 9.30pm. However, what isn’t visible are cars coming along Kitchener through the cones on the right in the photo. It was unclear whether which rows of cones were for peds or cars, and the high viz vested person directing traffic seemed somewhat unsure too. It was fantastic to see so many on the one hand, but a bit overwhelming and potentially dangerous on the other. In Manhattan I know cars will stop for me, but here they just get angry and rev up. The transportation strategy needs to consider pedestrians (remember, he tangata….) getting to PT, taxis, parked cars, and even those just walking home. The overall strategy needs work because those riding something have to walk to and from them somehow. And shared spaces need to be closed on a night like this, let’s not wait for an accident or death first, ok?
You see the problem here is the people. Once they park or get off a bus people don’t disappear. You have to provide a safe environment for everyone around the city even walking. A liveable city doesn’t stop at traffic management and public transport. I guess this is more an Ateed problem though.
There’s some sense, nonsense. Perhaps ATEED needs to co-ordinate with AT on crowd / pedestrian management? This is a somewhat separate event/issue to the others, excepct that it wasn’t just the lantern fest crowd, but the Nines revellers as well. At one point I watched an ambulance trying to get up to Princes St via Bowen Ave. Now that was something!
I’d love to see AT’s ‘integrated transport management plan’ for Sat night .
yes the NEX was great. Same on Sunday night, however services not timetabled so few used them. Big issue was with trains, as when Lantern Festival finished at 10.45pm, were no trains West, and no trains South of Otahuhu. Was watching fireworks nearby, walked past Britomart, and saw many come up the station, walk in, and walk out again looking worried. The lucky ones could make calls home for someone to pick them up, but still big inconveniences. However worst of all were about 15 kids aged 12-15 who were sitting outside the station at 11.15pm with no way to get home. Even if were issues with trains, all was needed was 3 buses (one for each line) waiting, very cheap.
I still think that if we went nuts with PT on a weekend such as the one just been, we could find out the real potential of PT in Auckland. Don’t put it out as an alternative to driving as those who want to can, but make a real effort to have high frequency all day and into the night and advertise it properly before the event. Pick the busy times and adjust the frequency to suit. Show what ‘walk up and go’ PT can really do.
+1. Like any good party it’s better to over-cater than under-cater. Worth mentioning that these events were unusual and one-offs, but they’re not spontaneous or a surprise. There have been many months to prepare for this weekend.
Thanks for dropping by, Mark. Please add pedestrian flows to your transport planning for future events including the cricket world cup. Temporary street closures are not such a big deal for drivers, but they make a huge difference for all the walkers, including safety benefits.
Three events? Looking at the western line timetable, you catered for the NRL and Eminem well (that’s two events), but look to have completely forgot about the third event, the Lantern Festival. Or was AT invoking Meatloaf event planning (“two outta three ain’t bad”)?
– No westbound trains from town and only one railbus an hour between 6pm and 10pm.
– Then on the Sunday, ONE scheduled train at 10:03pm. The fireworks display ended 45 minutes after that!
Why no later trains? And, accepting operational reasons for no westbound trains running east of Morningside, why only one railbus an hour? Why not a railbus (or two) to meet each train westbound?
I looked at that timetable and decided there was no point even attempting to see the Lantern Festival. Stayed home.
This was supposed to be in reply to Mark Hannan above.
Changing your normal schedule in favour of the events as they did with Western Line from CBD is fraught. Rail bus West is likely to annoy the loyal users and the replacement was not like for like capacity.
I reckon there would have been no rail or bus resources left by Sunday night. Any more services and Monday schedule would have been effected – more unhappy loyal customers.
Cant please everyone if there is no capacity so as with the catering analogy – FHB, guests get a feed first.
they are a bit stuck immediately post events, with the need to move big crowds post event in a short space of time. These means trains depart city bound from both platforms. However this probably only needs to be the case for an half an hour, especially when we can car run 6 car EMUs every few minutes. The 6 car EMU’s have much more room for standees so will have much higher capacity than the 6 car sets.
However what can be done is having frequent rail buses running, and there should be express rail bus from Morningside to Britomart (as well as all-stops) to ensure regular patrons don’t get caught in post match traffic and are inconvenienced as little as possible.
Yes, in reply to Mark Hannan. Can you let me know Auckland Transports’ strategy for rail services last Sunday night?? It wasn’t good.
Can you post them to me at The Campaign for Better Transport for review?
And Mark, AT need to drop the AT Hop transaction fee!!!