A comprehensive US study looks at different factors determining modal choice – in particular looking at what makes particular people more likely to use public transport than others. The key findings are shown below:
None of the findings are particularly surprising at this level, although it is interesting to note that the basics of getting PT right – fast, reliable and affordable service – are seen as more important than flashy add-ons.
Digging into the report’s executive summary highlights a few more interesting results. Firstly, in relation to whether travel trends are changing for cultural/generational reasons or simple economic circumstances:
A central topic of this report is the behavior and attitudes of the Millennial generation as compared to older Americans. Whether the apparent change in travel preferences among Millennials is the result of a true generational change in attitudes— rather than a product of economic or social circumstances—is a topic of fierce debate. We see behavioral evidence to suggest that such a shift is indeed taking place: Parents of school-age children, who are under 30 are, it appears, more likely than parents of school-age children over 30 to use public transit, even when controlling for income.
There are also some potentially counter-intuitive outcomes when looking at the role of upbringing:
We also look at the role of upbringing in mode choice. Investigating the childhood circumstances and travel patterns of Millennials (defined in the report as people under 30) and Baby Boomers (over 60) leads us to a paradox: The Millennial generation seems to be defying its sheltered, suburban upbringing by delaying the acquisition of a driver’s license and choosing transit. Meanwhile, Baby
Boomers, who grew up using transit and were encouraged to do so, are defying their upbringing by avoiding transit now.
Maybe everyone’s just being rebellious?
An area where it seems that the US might differ from New Zealand, Auckland in particular, is the relationship between transit use and income. In the US, it seems like the richer you get, the more likely you are to drive:
I haven’t seen a similar graph for Auckland, but when you look at areas with higher PT use they don’t exactly stand out as being the poor parts of the city – quite the opposite in fact:
Many American cities are only just starting to embark on the process of ‘recentralisation’ that Auckland has gone through over the past decade or two (Ponsonby was one of the poorest parts of the city once, Freemans Bay was once a slum). I wonder whether over time they might also see more complex and surprising relationships between PT use and income over time. I also wonder what the causes and implications for Auckland’s poor are from not being higher users of public transport. I suspect the basics of travel time, reliability and cost are significant, especially for those working multiple jobs or that involves travel outside of the peak.
It would be great to see a similar study done in New Zealand, so we can compare with the US patterns and reasons for different transport choices but more than anything this report highlights that if we want more people using PT we need to focus on improving the quality of services.
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I like the data that confirms what I’ve been saying for a while. Spending money on adding wi-fi to transit is a terrible idea that is the result of what happens when people who never take transit and never would are given the task of trying to decide what will attract more transit riders. They’re completely disconnected from the needs of actual transit riders, so they come up with solutions that have no relation to actual problems transit riders have.
As a regular transit rider, I don’t give a damn about wi-fi, I want transit to get me where I want to go quickly (commercial speed and good network planning so points of interests are close to transit), to be reliable (high frequency and predictability) and affordable, with clean, comfortable vehicles. Wi-fi is so low down the list it might not even exist. Additionally, the ease of understanding the network is of great importance when going to someplace I have never gone to before. If I can’t understand how to get there, I will not use transit.
Much of it ties deeply into land use.
Density allows services to be more frequent by increasing ridership.
A porous street network allows each line to maximize its walkshed and therefore its customers, increasing ridership and therefore frequency. (But then measures like bus lanes, limited stops and payment before boarding are required to maintain speed)
A grid-like design allows public transit to also adopt a grid form, which is easy to understand and navigate.
Concentrating businesses and jobs along arterials rather than away near interchanges allows transit lines to serve a multitude of points of interests, making every destination accessible by transit.
Good transit needs good urban planning.
Agree 100%. WiFi might have been a selling point 5-10 years ago, but it’s a non-issue these days.
Would agree, most people who would consume WIFI on PT would need to have a smartphone (or a laptop), and owning a smartphone without a data plan make for a really expensive dumb phone and little else. So if people have their own mobile data plans, they don’t need in-bus WIFI.
Sure they’d could use it at the bus stop e.g. while waiting for the bus, or to check up on where the bus (or train) is, whether its on time etc, but once on the bus?
trongly disagree. I use the new station wifi regularly, although have a data plan, but it is much much more useful for my kids, who like most kids and others have smartphones but use the cheapest plans with no data. I get a lot of commenting on this very forum done on the move!
And it is a way to underline that time in transit need not be wasted, and that it is a good fit with contemporary conditions and that AT have high quality service standards for their customers.
I read the U.S. result quoted above in two ways: 1. Absolutely having wifi on a service that doesn’t turn up or is otherwise useless is clearly no advantage, and that was the question; what matters most. And 2. This outcome allmost certainly reflects that in most US cities Transit is only seen as a social service for the poor, and not really for everyone (outside of NY, Boston, SF Etc), is often pretty poor, slow and infrequent.
But yes fix the core issues of speed, frequency, and reliability first.
Might be the case today. But in a few years time, data compression will be such that phone data plans will be virtually unlimited, or the plans themselves will be.
In the mid-term wifi makes little sense.
Matt I take that Map is Journey to Work data only? We know there are more trips on PT taken every week day for education. It is incredibly frustrating that the census ignores all these trips, so that then politicians and others just repeat these distorted numbers. We should at least make it clear when we reproduce this data that it is seriously incomplete.
I note again that in Australia the question on the census is Journey to work or education. A much more real dataset results, if AT planned their services with these numbers it would be laughingly inadequate.
Greg, you might want to talk to a Spark or Vodafone tech, to see how the telcos are integrating wifi into the mobile network. Spark aren’t rolling out wifi to all their payphones from the goodness of their hearts, it’s part of their plan to manage mobile data traffic. Also, many young people (and some of us oldies) are smart enough to use free wifi to save their data for when they really need it – I only synch email when I’m on wifi. 🙂
Whether free wifi is an attractor for PT is another matter…
Cart before horse. In my view, we can think about Wifi when the networks are running on time, more frequent and reliable. This is where the investment needs to be.
No, it isn’t a big cost, is part of the comms and security systems on the trains, Auckland PT services are so poor that we need to improve everything at once. No improvement in the service is being sacrificed to provide this. We are allowed to expect high quality. We deserve it, we pay high fares and contribute through rates and tax too.
The basic is important. However I would still like unlimited wifi.
The 3G/4G data in Hong Kong used to be unlimited. So what happened is almost everybody in the train is streaming video to their mobile devices. Video news and on-demand drama become very popular. Many newspaper publishers revolutionize their way to deliver content.
However, the telecoms in HK decided they need to cap the data usage. After that, most people no longer watch video in the train. I see a decline of the once emerging business.
I would say, if we have unlimited free wifi on the public transport. Tvnz/3now ondemand will become very popular. It will reshape our news and TV industry. At the moment our expensive 3g/4g data is restricting our possibility with our mobile devices.
I have a 5gb data plan (vf red plus) but I only usually use average 1gb or at worse 2gb. Just be a bit more conservative when using mobile data and you should be fine. WiFi on PT will become useless soon as mobile data plans are becoming cheaper and including more data.
Peter. One word: tunnels. Doesn’t matter how big your data plan is when you have no connection. And we will be getting a very long tunnel eventually which will be at the heart of thenwhole system.
Patrick – tunnels don’t have to mean no connection. In Bucharest I had connectivity even in the Metro underground. However, in Prague I didn’t. It may have been a matter of depth as the Prague Metro is very deep (intended as nuclear fallout shelters).
It is just a matter of having the infrastructure in place.
Mobile operators can put cellphone antenna inside tunnels
“I haven’t seen a similar graph for Auckland, but when you look at areas with higher PT use they don’t exactly stand out as being the poor parts of the city – quite the opposite”
Probably the effect of PT in Auckland being so expensive. It’s often cheaper to drive.
This is a big problem, as many costs of traveling by car are real but somewhat hidden.
Like the financing cost of that second car you probably wouldn’t need if the PT was better.
Actually I think it is more simple than that. By far, the people who routinely use PT the most to get to work in Auckland are those that work in the CBD, I.e office commuters. Those people also tend to be wealthier and live in the more salubrious suburbs of the isthmus and north shore.
Note that the above map is from census data for journeys to work only, it’s not all trips. It’s basically a map of who commutes to work by bus, the answer to which is office workers who live on the north shore and isthmus.
It will be interesting to compare those Auckland results to the 2018 census, at which point the New Network will be fully in place with better services both from and to, but more importantly within, places like South Auckland.
I work in a CBD office, and most of my colleagues who use PT live in less salubrious areas (Glenfield, Glen Eden, Onehunga). The ones who live in the wealthier areas are more likely to drive or cycle.
The report makes one comment that I find hard to fathom, claiming that Boomers grew up being encouraged to use transit. But the Boomers grew up in the ’50s and ’60s, when motown was at it’s strongest, the Interstate highways were being built, and car ownership was booming. The post-war brave new world of automotive freedom dream that captured Auckland’s planners…
I was also surprised by that idea. And agree that was not the case in Auckland. Furthermore uptake by boomers is on the increase now as they try, as ever, to stay hip, and leave the frantic pace of their core work years more and more. They are also downsizing their dwellings often moving into apartments…. Odd part of the report.
Many of the Boomers have now got a Gold Card… 😉
Well I would count glenfield and onehunga as exactly part of the north shore and isthmus that I was talking about, albeit the less fancy parts. Within 10km of downtown and good peak time bus access.
When you say “Improving the quality of service”. I take it You’re referring to “improving Travel time & Travel Time reliability”
Interestingly the report does not talk much about parking.
Here is a Hamilton survey, which put “no parking worries” first reason for using the bus.
http://www.waikatoregion.govt.nz/PageFiles/28502/Presentation%20by%20staff%20re%20survey%20of%20business%20bus%20use%20RPTP%20Development%20Committee%204%20August%202014.pdf
The reason the poorer people drive is two fold. One is that it is often unsafe to walk from a bus stop at night and the other is that the areas they work are too spread out for buses to be able to service economically. The factories and warehouses in South Auckland are large, but often with few workers. You would need a bus stop for each site. Think back to when National was going to tax company parking; the loudest cry was from the cleaners union, as it was unsafe for their workers travelling home by PT.
Neil its a little simpler than that; the reason most people drive is because, outside of the Centre City, it is the only complete and joined up network available. PT in Auckland is largely hopeless outside of the core primarily because of decades of underinvestment in physical infrastructure. This makes it slow and unreliable, which then leads to low uptake, which leads to infrequency, short operating hours, and lack of security. A vicious cycle.
Happily we are in the midst of a multi year broad upgrade. But there is still a way to go.
I’d agree with that. The people who use PT are those for whom PT is more convenient (time & money) than using the car. These people are likely to be inner city suburb (or North shore) dwellers working in town. For most other people, using the bus is a worse option than using the car. The best way to make this change is by putting in bus lanes on all arterials (bring them back on SH16!) and improve PT service to the faraway suburbs. Paint is cheap.
In regards to improving service: would it be so darn difficult for AT to have signs with good clear maps of the surrounding area at their various train stations and major interchanges such as Botany and Onehunga? Perhaps AT could charge local businesses a small fee for to be actually named on such maps? Not all of us travel around navigating via cellphone app, or can afford the data charges..
And who was the idiot who designed Panmure station and interchange with the buses going towards Britomart having to cross 2 lanes of traffic to get into the bus stop, then have passengers having to cross a pedestrian crossing in front of the bus to get to the station itself? How come it was not possible to have a bus stop on either side of the bloody big shiny expensive new bridge with most of the the station waiting area sheltered under it instead of in a blasted freezing and wet open trench? Piss poor if you ask me.
If they want people to wait to take PT for longer than 10 minutes and not get sunbaked in summer and wind-blasted in winter then better shelter would be very useful. Botany as a major interchange for example sucks donkey balls in this respect. Not to mention that in Botany there is a 575 bus going to Middlemore leaving at the same side of the road as a 580 going to Howick while on the other side of the road is a 575 going via Howick to Half Moon Bay and a 580 going to Manukau – more than a little confusing I reckon.