The patronage results for June are out and like recent months the results are particularly good for the rail network. The June stats are also significant as they represent the end of financial year results for Auckland transport. The 12 month figure is the highest it has been since 1959 – although of course the city had a lot less people back then.
Auckland public transport patronage totalled 72,396,155 passengers for the 12 months to Jun-2014, an increase of +0.9% on the 12 months to May-2014 and +5.6% on the 12 months to Jun-2013.
June monthly patronage was 6,107,965, an increase of 623,266 boardings or +11.4% on Jun-2013, normalised to ~ +6.8% accounting for additional special event patronage and one more business day and one less weekend day in Jun-2014 compared to Jun-2013. Year to date patronage has grown by +5.6%.
Rail patronage totalled 11,435,085 passengers for the 12 months to Jun-2014, an increase of +1.7% on the 12 months to May-2014 and +13.9% on the 12 months to Jun-2013. Patronage for Jun-2014 was 1,039,830, an increase of 194,491 boardings or +23.0% on Jun-2013, normalised to ~ +9.4%. Year to date rail patronage has grown by +13.9%.
The Northern Express bus service carried 2,426,745 passenger trips for the 12 months to Jun-2014, an increase of +1.0% on the 12 months to May-2014 and +6.5% on the 12 months to Jun-2013. Northern Express bus service patronage for Jun-2014 was 210,069, an increase of 23,201 boardings or +12.4% on Jun-2013, normalised to ~ +9.1%. Year to date Northern Express patronage has grown by +6.5%.
Other bus services carried 53,424,378 passenger trips for the 12 months to Jun-2014, an increase of +0.8% on the 12 months to May-2014 and +4.2% on the 12 months to Jun-2013. Other bus services patronage for Jun-2014 was 4,525,656, an increase of 420,821 boardings or +10.3% on Jun-2013, normalised to ~ +7.6%. Year to date other bus patronage has grown by +4.2%.
Ferry services carried 5,109,947 passenger trips for the 12 months to Jun-2014, a decrease of -0.3% on the 12 months to May-2014 and an increase +3.1% on the 12 months to Jun-2013. Ferry services patronage for Jun-2014 was 332,410, a decrease of -15,247 boardings or -4.4% on Jun-2013, normalised to ~ -7.3%. Year to date ferry patronage has increased by +3.1%.
So rail patronage for June is up 23% on the same month a year ago while the 12 month rolling figure is up 14%, both are massive numbers. If we were able to keep up that rate of growth it would see us hitting the 20 million rail patronage target set by the government for the City Rail Link by the end of 2018. With the upcoming improvements from rolling out the electric trains to the majority of the network, the new bus network, integrated fares and other enhancements I think this rate of growth (or more) is eminently possible.
One of the important results is also to see the impact on patronage to Onehunga which has been the first to get electric trains – despite the recent hiccup. Patronage to Onehunga is up a staggering 37%. It seems the public are already responding the the improved quality of services and it’s something I’ve seen first hand with Onehunga Line trains often full in the mornings despite having significantly more capacity than the trains they replaced.
You may also remember the patronage targets for the next few years were recently reduced after AT said the already reduced targets were basically impossible. Here’s how the rail patronage result looks compared to the target.
In the end the result was only a few thousand short of the target. With only an extra 700,000 trips a year now needed to reach the newly lowered target for 2014/15 I expect it will be surpassed early. Someone should also tell Manurewa Local Board Chairperson Angela Dalton that patronage is rising as she is busy trying to say the opposite.
People will continue to abandon the trains in favour of cars until such time as there is attention focussed on security issues at suburban train stations instead of committing rate payers money into the City Rail Link,” Angela Dalton said.
Along with rail it’s also pleasing to see that bus patronage continues to grow too. This is quite important as it shows that all PT use is rising and that the increases in rail patronage aren’t simply a result of people shifting from bus to train.
All up a good result for PT and in other good news Cycling continues to grow strongly at the sites monitored by ATs automatic cycle counters. For June the result was up 11.4% while the 12 month rolling figure was up 10%
Considering the heightened discussion surrounding the traffic on the Harbour Bridge it’s also worth highlighting what’s happening with traffic on the bridge. As you can see vehicle volumes continue to struggle to get above 160,000 trips, something that was a regular occurrence before 2007
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Its good news for June and the year ended June, despite AT continuing on the same old pattern of ignoring adding any major bus priority (Fanshawe St the only exception to date), people are voting with their HOP cards and jumping on board both Trains and Buses. But I sense this can’t continue the status quo forever, the buses and trains are groaning, and so are those left behind by full buses and trains.
The recent change to dis-incentivise cash fares over HOP fares is good too, and it is once again proof that if you build a PT system people will use it. Now imagine those numbers when we have a good integrated PT system with frequency – it will blow those conservative SOI figures off the tracks.
So do we need to start aiming to get 16 million rail journeys by (the end of) 2016 to meet the 20 million by 2018 figure?
As for more people using the Onehunga trains (compared to the older DMU/SAs),
I am sure not all those using the Onehunga services are getting on at Onehunga, – in fact many are probably getting on at later stations like Ellerslie, Remuera or Newmarket, slow station arrivals not withstanding. But evne so, if 37% more people are using the Electric trains so much the better.
We’ll have a better idea of that effect once the Eastern Line services run EMUs (from next month I hear).
As that surely can’t come quick enough both from an operational perspective and from a passenger point of view – as Luke C tweeted last Friday – 65% increase on Panmure usage compared to last year means a lot of people are now using trains for some of their journeys, which is the model going forward.
Was also interesting to see Brownlee on Q&A on Sunday waffling on about PT and CRL and AWHC, basically he said AWHC not needed until 2025-2030 and that business case needs to start in next 2 years – which is going to be interesting is Key pulls out something else.
On CRL he waffled on how the CRL patronage and CBD employment growth targets were set by Auckland (he didn’t say Council or Transport) and that the Government halved these to their current targets and even now Brownlee said they will be a struggle to meet by 2020.
Then he indicated a little later on that a funding start on CRL in 2016-17 (to have it completed by 2020)?) Talk about having your cake and eating it too, Minister.
Great news on the patronage.
Someone should tell NZ Herald who only focussed on security issues on their train article this morning.
Note also the NZ Herald Porkometer…….no mention there of the various RoNS which are blatant examples of pork-barrel politics. Their lead-in text goes like this: ‘Eight weeks out from the election, Labour’s new spending promises are running streets ahead of National’s.’ What complete nonsense – the opposite is true.
Mind you, unbiased reporting never was NZ Herald’s forte. I really get the feeling that opposition parties are going to have to trawl through this mainstream media rubbish each day to rebuke, as well as whatever national puts out there.
All that Angela Dalton seems to be saying is that stations should be safe, and people should feel safe. She’s right about that. She’s also right that she shouldn’t get the run around from Auckland Transport.
If there are problems with fare-evaders, then these people should be trespassed from the stations, something that would give the Police power to act.
14% growth is huge. If we get that again over the year to June 2015 that would mean 13 million boardings and if sustained for the rest of the decade then 25 million for the year to June 2020!
AT and the network and KR and everybody will be scrambling to keep up service delivery to meet this demand day in and day out.
So Quax and the other rail-haters championed by the Herald couldn’t be more wrong; investment in the network is urgent, and bring the huge capacity lift of the CRL on as soon as possible is urgent.
We’ve had this kind of growth before. But that was followed by a readjustment in petrol prices, increases in ticket prices, the HOP transition, and disruptions caused by electrification.
I’m confident growth will continue. The quality of service is reasonable, the price is not that bad, and an increased number of people want to use their devices and are failing to enter the driver-licensing process. But it’s important that we look at anything that might hamper that growth. Thankfully I can’t see much at the moment, although the electric-slowdown could foreseeably be a problem, as could renewed extended summer network shutdowns which damage the use-value of the network for thousands. (People want to travel during summer too!)
Every delay, breakdown, network closure, is a set back. If the ridiculous enforced slowdown of the new trains continues, the clampdown on investment in interchange stations and bus and bike priority to these stations continue, the continued failure to invest in the Third Main to deal with both freight and passenger capacity, efficiency, and safety on the spine of the network, these things all will influence the pace of growth…. Especially with various forces wishing failure on the network, and working to starve or at least white-ant it.
George,
You are right but those issues are mostly a thing of the past, with HOP now fully rolled out, electric trains (slowly) being rolled out and ticket prices for HOP card users staying stable for now (cash prices not so much).
The only post surge readjustment expected is petrol prices, and that will be up, not down, petrol is as cheap now in real terms now as it can be given the price of oil, we’ve been insulated from that due to record high exchange rates (which are just below the highest they’ve ever been in the 30 years since our Dollar was floated back in ’84) – and really we’re only a 5 cent drop in the Exchange rate from petrol prices hitting the roof (in real terms), and then the car driving hoardes will switch to PT even more than they are now.
Agree though that annual summer shutdowns, are a big nuisance and impact rail figures a lot in particular – at the very time most people have time to explore and use the rail system – its turned off.
Yes, the dollar is right near the top of its range, and will eventually drop again. Add to this the cost of fuel tax rises to pay for the Blue Elephants, and vehicle kilometres will be depressed. These same cost pressures will affect bus operation, which is not yet transferring to hybrid or electric technology.
On the other side, we have things that make public transport less attractive. If we wanted to, we could set a better equilibrium.
“AT and the network and KR and everybody will be scrambling to keep up service delivery to meet this demand day in and day out.”
Patrick – not so much “will be scrambling … to meet demand” – they already **are** scrambling … to meet demand.
Recent EMU train issues are not helping. Currently we can manage EMU issues by putting old DMUs on the runs, in a few months that won’t be an option anymore as loaded 3 car EMUs won’t be so easily replaced by a 2 unit DMU, so these ongoing train issues need to be addressed as fast as possible to ensure those targets can be met.
And of course, The Herald and Quax will say, this is only a temporary blip upwards, like it was during the RWC – without noticing the “wall of buses” about to descend upon the southern line stations to disgorge passengers like what happens at Panmure now.
[And of course, that harbour bridge traffic “lull” has been going to uptick and return to normal year on year growth any day according to their book – and has been for some 8+ years now]
But imagine a 65% lift in Train journeys through every bus/rail interchange station like Panmure has now and see how soon those pedestrian SOI targets are going to be exceeded.
Your harbour bridge traffic graph includes the impact of the opening of the Greenhithe and Hobsonville sections of the SH18 motorway. Traffic on the Upper Harbour Bridge has grown from 24,000vpd in 2007 to 36,900 in 2013. So for the combined screenline traffic has gone from 189700 in 2007 down to 181300 in 2008 then up to 195800 in 2013.
Yes that right. And given that the people in the lower North Shore don’t want any growth (as expressed in the response to the UP) then we can expect growth in traffic demand to continue to focus on the Upper Harbour Bridge. This is where future cross harbour traffic lane capacity expansion planning should be focused. Especially as the autodependent sprawl model is being pursued northwards with glee and the Busway Extension being at best delayed. Of course high quality Rapid Transit alternatives to ‘drive-only’ should also be delivered for these areas too, as in the CFN.
While many on the lower Shore are indeed against intensification it is happening. I understand that there are three apartment complexes for Lomond St before Council for resource consent; Housing NZ wants high rise at the bottom of Lomond St; there is the 260 unit proposal near the lake and the Fire Service wants high rise for the old fire station- reasonably impressive for such a small area.
And once the WRR route opens up, then the harbour bridge traffic should drop even further.
Even further weakening the case for the AWHC tunnel to have a road component.
I think the case for AWHC would disappear if we could get road pricing on to the CBD cordon. Trips to and from the CBD are the only place where public transport really works at the moment. Every trip priced onto PT would have a double benefit of more spare capacity on the roads for other trips and economies of scale for the PT. It would be a simple matter to ring fence tolls from the shore to expand the busway and the other tolls to fund CRL and rail improvements.
Yeah, wow, way to save 5billion and get some income!
NZTA modelled a drop of 10% on SH1 when WRR opens, that’s huge. Be interesting to see what happens.
Prediction: WRR, plus ongoing PT improvements, plus some form of congestion pricing (even bluntly but efficiently implemented through parking pricing) woudl avoid the need for another harbour crossing. Now let’s make it happen.
“Traffic on the Upper Harbour Bridge has grown from 24,000vpd in 2007 to 36,900 in 2013”
But are any of those extra 12,900 vehicles going to the CBD? From observation, the majority are going from North West to Albany, or from Albany to Henderson (either for work or to shop).
Indeed, people entering the CBD has grown consistently all this century but the numbers doing so in a private vehicle have fallen. No need for more traffic lanes to the CBD.
Random question – do you know if/where we can get hold of some more granular patronage data, such as boardings by individual stop. Do you know if these data are available for use in research?
Xavier
+1
AT have boarding information by stop as held by the RAPID GPS system and also from the AT HOP system. It gets a bit more complicated to work out ons/offs but there are ways to do that to calculate the maximum loading at any point. One metric that would be great to see is the numbers of buses with more than say 10 standing customers. If AT are seriously going to go after 100m patronage (PWC) capacity and customer experience is a big piece of getting the basics right. With the Onehunga trains delivering 36% growth with better trains and big increases in seating and standing capacity we are already seeing the benefits of providing the capacity.
In terms of trains AT run a patronage survey every May. This is incredibly useful info and shows the year on year growth and times of day with most load pressure. Some stations also stand out with their annual growth leapfrogging them up into the Top 10 stations. From previous feedback in this blog you will see stations like Panmure flying up the rankings, and also Onehunga and Te Papapa. Might also see some good growth in Penrose, Ellerslie, Greenlane and Remuera with impact from EMU’s also.
AT – how about putting on more capacity on the Shore routes, a few of the main CBD corridors and more in the evening peaks (have 100 spare buses to be able to do this).
Love to see the patronage growth continuing this stellar result – let’s see if this continues.
Don’t current legal arrangements prevent them from releasing this information? (Assuming they wanted to.)
Sure but is this data available for use? I’m assuming they’re gathering, but are researchers able to use it?
Details of data source provided for #HACKAKL still available at http://hackakl.wikispaces.com/data+sources
Yes I’ve already pillaged HACKAKL for all it’s worth, but there’s nothing there on patronage data – just GTFS stuff unfortunately :-/
We are constantly asking to see this data. AT are currently saying it’s too early to release it, too early for what we a ask?
happy days. Especially for cycling.
So ordering modes from fastest to lowest growth we have: 1) cycling; 2) rail; 3) buses; 4) trucks; and 5) cars. Ordering Government investment priorities leaves us with: 1) trucks and 2) cars.
Hmmm.
Correction, Rail has the highest growth followed by Cycling. It’s hard to tell exactly what order the other modes are as growth varies by location but my guess is trucks would be ahead of buses and cars would probably be about the same as buses.
correction: Not for the last 12 months.
You’re correct on a month to month basis, but that’s too fickle for me ;).
Correction, for the last 12 months total, rail up 14%, cycling up 10% so that means rail has grown more than cycling on an annual basis. The 12 month figures have been stronger for rail from Feb onwards.
corrected!
P.s. My figures were not as recent as yours!
Percentage growth is not the relevant factor though. Actual numbers are. So for each mode, the daily uptake of new users is the relevant number. I wonder if these are available anywhere?
Shove off, percentage uptake is absolutely relevant.
No, it’s not. If one person normally commutes by hot air balloon, and a second person takes it up, you wouldn’t say “there’s been 100% growth, therefore we need to give the balloonists the bulk of funding”.
So, let’s see the actual uptake of new users for each mode, and stop skewing the figures with percentages or per capita data, which frankly, are irrelevancies because funding is linked to actual usage, not percentages or per capita usage.
No Geoff looking at rates of growth is important. However yes the total change does need to be looked at too. It’s hard to get total numbers for cars for all trips however we know from the 2013 census that of the increase in people going to work over 2006, more of that growth happened on PT than in cars.
“funding is linked to actual usage, not percentages or per capita usage” – Is it? Fantastic, cycling must be due for a massive boost in funding as even with only 2% of people cycling in Auckland we don’t even get that percentage of the transport budget. And neither does public transport get its percentage.
Great news, thanks Geoff.
Thanks Matt, those are the sort of numbers I’m looking for.
Goo, don’t forget road funding is also cycling funding.
No it is not Geoff, no more than spending on roads is investment in PT because buses use them. But your trolling gives me a chance to set out what the government can do to improve cycling.
Investment in roads would be investment in cycling if the government brought in some simple policy change that any road with a speed limit over 30km/h must have separated cycle facilities. That would mean as roads were built or upgraded, they would need to be either built to encourage speeds no greater than 30km/h or have separated cycle facilities.
Cycling would quickly become a much more popular method of travel and everyone would be safer. Paris has just instituted an almost city wide 30km/h zone:
http://caa.org.nz/safety/paris-in-the-slow-lane/
New York and London are heading in that direction. Most Northern European countries already have similar policies.
I would think there is no commercial benefit from releasing the patronage from the rail stations as AT take the patronage revenue. Even at a total level of boardings per day at each station would be fine. If people see boardings at station by trip or hour there mit be a bit of noise about frequency, service and why are certain stations not gated earlier. No drama there for an open and transparent organisation?
Bus patronage is commercially sensitive although expecially leading into PTOM tenders, although AT would give operators indications of patronage alongwith with timetables and bus requirements.
Ferry would also be commercially sensitive.
The greatest thing able opening up patronage data is that some analysts can whiz throuh and see what amazing opportunities there are for growth across the network. Building timetables based on a minimum frequency, but with demand based planning to try and have say 50-55 people on each peak bus is the ideal. I suspect this is well beyond the current thinking as this requires a highly mathematical approach rather than simply scheduling and planning. Give Avi Cedar and some young whiz kids out of Akld Uni 6 months on this and you would save 50-100 peak buses.
That is exactly the process that has already been undertaken when the New Network was developed: minimum frequencies for service standard reasons across the day, coupled with allocating peak bus resources efficiently to meet demand with high occupancy levels, based on observed patronage.
Under PTOM a lot of the existing patronage data collected previously and in the last year or so, under HOP, using the old “stringy routes” will be obsoleted due to the route changes and also due the nature of how people will use your buses to get around goig forward.
If you have buses running to local train stations as under PTOM, then assuming people get on and then off your buses at a few specific points like they do now under the current boarding data when using PTOM will not be correct. And when and where (and for how long) people will get on and off your buses will be completely different under PTOM as a result of these changes.
The current model assumes a person boards as bus, and for the most part leaves only at the “end” of the journey e.g. at a fare stage boundary or bus terminus, and that you as bus operator get to keep the bulk of the entire fare [plus a subsidy if there is one as for most bus services now].
Under Integrated fares, you can’t as a bus operator concentrate on clipping the whole ticket each time e.g. “bums on seats for the entire journey” and so you’ll have to think about “boardings” [and alightings], as for each boarding you (in theory) will get a [smallish] slice of the fare paid by the passenger, and also for each alighting you will be losing a good part of the overall revenue from that passenger – to other modes or even your own bus on their return journey.
And don’t forget, just because someone gets on your bus doesn’t mean you’ll make much money at all, as after all, if they used a bus to go to the local supermarket, then used your bus to come back, HOP would see that as one journey with a short break in it. Not two separate journeys so that current “50 cents” minimum per boarding you make now for 2×1 stage journeys – won’twork like that and worse you will have to share that revenue with another bus operator.
So to maximise your revenue [and profit] you’ll probably want as many people getting tagging on and off your bus at each and every stop for each “trip” it makes.
That way you’ll get a lot of very small fare slices from each passenger, but per bus trip should result in a similar amount of $ than one bus trundling all the way from Otahuhu to Britomart and back will do.
Bearing in mind that your “peak business times” may for many routes not just be the AM/PM peaks as now but spread all over the day, making for a better “base load” of revenue but that means you being able ot shed drivers in the middle of the day to save costs – might not an option going forward.
I think PTOM will change the entire economics of bus operations and I am sure that NZ Bus are darn furious that all their precious boarding data is now publicly controlled by AT and will no doubt become a weapon used to get even lower bus service costs from them (and their competitors). So I can see why AT is currently holding their patronage data cards close to the chest on this one, but sooner or later this data has to become public. Either that or we’ll get apps that let us achieve the same thing via our smartphones.
It is indeed fantastic that rail patronage is up by about 14%. Can we assume then that revenue is up by about the same amount? But I guess costa are about the same as there has been no greater level of service.
What if AT was to say, “let’s keep the fare box recovery rate at the same level and we will reduce fares by 14%? I have long believed that there is an elastic demand for publlic transport based on price. Yes we are looking at completely different markets, but when I look at the fantastic patronage levels achieved in some South American countries it is apparent that much of this is tied to very low fares – and many systems still break even. And then there is Vienna where it is apparently unusual not to travel by public transport and they have services that go from strength to strength.
Is now the time to make really bold moves to change the way we approach public transport? I note that from next year the country will have 4 billion dollars less to spend on imported fuel and vehicles. Maybe change is inevitable?
If rail is growing in double digits despite relatively poor reliability and service levels, then I would argue the fares are just fine. At this stage it’s better that they receive more revenue to lower the subsidy and/or reinvest in better service and infrastructure.
Cutting revenue in a time of strong growth is risky for long term stability, I say leave major discounts for when it has stopped growing strongly (noting that not putting up fares each year to meet inflation is already the same as a 1- 3% discount).
Personally I would rather they increase the service offering while keeping revenue constant. A great way to do that would be some sort of fare cap or zone pass, where you still pay much what you do today but are able to ride more often. Case in point, someone who pays $10 a day to commute with one return trip. Let them have free off peak travel for example, you still get $10 revenue and it costs nothing to have them fill an empty seat on an off peak service. However they person gets more perceived value, and is more likely to try using the train on the weekend and buy another ticket. No extra cost, but greater patronage and same, if not more revenue.
fares in Auckland are cheap by comparison to most Australasian cities, all of whom have higher patronage than Auckland.
For most people fares are not the barrier to using PT; it’s quality of service/experience – which is why I agree with Nic: Keep the money and reinvest in better services/infrastructure.
Not really.
I’ve lived in a few places, and your statement felt wrong to me, so I checked. A 55 minute train journey (Papakura – Britomart; Beenleigh – Roma St; Lilydale – Parliament) costs $8.50 in Auckland, $7.66 in Brisbane, and $6.06 in Melbourne (all in domestic currencies, since prices reflect incomes and cost of inputs). You could argue that Auckland is not *substantively* more expensive, but you cannot argue that Auckland fares are lower in any real sense.
What that means for patronage is of course a matter for debate.
Fares have and will alwsys be a highly contentious and political issue. In one corner you have people who believe PT should be self funding which is not realisic in the Auckland environment. Apparently there is funding of $2 for every bus trip and $6 for every train trip. This should that fare revenue will have a limited effect on making a real difference in this area. In the other corner are people wishing to keep fares as low as possible which can be about access for low socio users, but is also built on a belief that low fares encourage PT usage. I agree with Stu’s observation that quality of service and experience is the main factor.In terms of options to find a balance between the two these are wide and varied: (1)increasing the price differentiation between HOP and cash has been a good case in point – it can still be cheap, but you need to use the preferred option – which in turn saves a huge amunt of time on buses and can lead to funding savings, or reinvestment in addtional services (2) you could increase patronage by making non-peak travel a different price (apparently Thales has limitations in its system to be able to do this currently). I would look at interpeak but also around the cusps of peaks e.g. heavily discount travel pre-7am boarding like they did in Melbourne. The result was revenue positive as it saved plenty of peak vehicles as customers shifted to the earlier time. Having a large group of workers move their days to 7-4 has potentially huge benefits in smoothing the peak requirements (generally 7.45-8.30am) with 10% less required in the pm peak due to this being spread more with workers and students. (3) provide a $1 school student flat fare irrespective of distance to encourage PT.