Due to the summer break it’s been a while since we’ve seen any public transport patronage for Auckland with the last results being for November last year. That finally changed yesterday as Auckland Transport published them ahead of their board meeting on Friday and the results are stunning.
Firstly December where we saw a major change for rail with a new timetable that saw the Southern and Eastern lines split and both move to 10 minute frequencies at peak and 20 minute frequency off peak.
There are some fairly solid results in there, especially on the Rapid Transit Network which was up over 29% on December last year.
Moving on to January and the results for rail in particular are incredible. This is primarily due the summer shutdown being shorter than in previous years with the Southern, Eastern and Onehunga lines back in action on 5th January and the Western Line a week Later on the 12th. In addition there was no shutdown during Auckland Anniversary. There were a few events that also impacted on patronage. Even taking all of those changes out the patronage growth in January was impressive across all modes.
While it would have been affected by some of issues mentioned earlier, I wonder if the 166.9% increase on the Eastern Line is a record of some kind. That’s a staggering increase. Putting aside the percentages, the actual growth in number terms is also impressive. Compared to January last year, for the previous 12 months there have been over 6.5 million extra PT trips, an average of around 18,000 extra per day (will be higher on weekdays and lower on weekends). Included in that is an extra 4.3 million bus trips and 2.1 million extra train trips. If rail growth continues the way it has for the past year it will be putting huge pressure on the Government’s target for an earlier start to the CRL.
What’s also impressive about both December and January is that buses and ferries are showing some great growth too. In the case of the jump in ferry usage, AT say it is partly attributed to the patronage coming from the new Explore Group services that started a few months ago between the city and Waiheke Island. The timetable means there is now a 30 minute service throughout the day which offers a vast improvement in utility on what existed before so it’s not really surprising to see that having an impact. That also helps to highlight that the new bus network should help drive very good patronage growth.
The graphs below highlight some of the changes in patronage.
The most impressive growth is occurring on the Rapid Transit Network which comprises of the Northern Express (NEX) and the rail network. Both rail and the NEX have shown great numbers recently.
Another thing that’s really impressive about the patronage results is that they’ve occurred at a time when petrol prices have been at their lowest point in years. Even though fuel has been cheap it seems many simply don’t want to sit in the congestion.
Looking forward, February has already been feeling very busy and I expect the strong patronage growth will likely continue all the way through March Madness and beyond.
Update: some people noticed an issue with the change compared to the sane month last year figure for the Onehunga line. AT have corrected it below however it doesn’t affect the overall result
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This is fantastic news.
A couple of things strike me about these numbers: rail is currently growing faster than it did after britomart opened, in both absolute and percentage terms. And were yet to see the patronage effects of the New Network, which should lift patronage generally.
The other thing is that AT are doing the right thing by starting enabling CRL works. We will be needing that link much sooner than any of the highways the Government has accelerated in the last wee while.
And the new AMETI, AT are clearly backing the right horse there, in defiance of the local politicians’ dated prejudices, significant numbers of Pakurangitans and Botonians will no doubt join the PT rush once they have good reliable services to their new station at Panmure and across town.
Got to say this is all adding up to being a great year for AT; banking success as a result of previous effort, and exciting plans to be getting on with, sure to gain clearer support.
Pakurangitans is the best demonym ever.
Related to, but very different from, Titrangitans
Kohimaramalians
I’m quite a fan of Sydnesians for people from Sydney…
Until AMETI actually are instrumental in a bus lane and seperated cycle to Howick like yesterday even if gets modified in 2 years it is just a semi AMETI but getting closer.
Can someone make sure these exciting new stats are run past Len Brown. He was at a public meeting last night talking about the planned 10 year budget and LTP – seemed to be downplaying PT patronage stats, or referring to old figures.
Wow. So much for lower petrol prices harming ridership growth. Looks like we’re well on track to meet the government’s CRL patronage target.
To be fair, lower petrol prices were very short lived and now the oil companies are cranking the prices up as fast as they can again, unjustified of course.
This is incorrect, as is plain from the plot of importer’s margin and retailers pricing above: generally the price we pay at the pump is very highly correlated with import cost. There is very little room, and next to no evidence, of profit-taking.
According to the AA “On an annual basis, we calculate that the importer margin (the amount left after subtracting the fuel cost, taxes and freight from the retail price) this year has averaged about 32 cents per litre (regardless of whether retail prices are high or low), but can vary by several cents from day-to-day. The margin is even higher for diesel. This margin has gradually risen from an historical low of 15 cents per litre in 2008”
As crude oil plunged how can you say there is no profiteering? Its look as plain as day that the oil companies upped the margin on a market used to paying through the nose for their fuel.. And we know most petrol stations are own by the oil companies, Furthermore why then is petrol in South or West Auckland upwards of 10 cents per litre cheaper for 91 octane vs the central city or the North Shore and upwards of 15 cents per litre dearer on the North Shore for high octane if profiteering is not taking place? Why, because it is!.
Don’t buy it then.
I don’t understand the emotion attached to motor fuel prices. The retailers and importers are in business to make a profit (and note that margin is not the same as profit). As to why retailers charge more on the North Shore – it’s because they can. The punters are continuing to buy it at those prices. If you don’t like it, stop buying from them, use less or buy from South Auckland retailers.
Agree MFD! It’s a hell of a business all the way down the chain, they earn their cut. But of course the reason for the emotion is that most believe that they don’t have any choice, it is the resentment of the price taker that fuels [!] the passion.
Kick the habit people, reduce your auto dependancy, keep the car and it’s thirst for when it’s most valuable and pleasurable… the sense of liberation is huge, but you are likely to become involved in trying to improve the alternatives!
There’s so much great news in these numbers, perhaps surprising news even for those of us who have been expecting strong growth as services improve:
-Western Line growth is not far behind the lines with new trains and improved service, based on the other lines this should accelerate even further with higher frequencies and new trains later in the year. Also suggests the drivers for people using PT are various and powerful.
-Rapid Transit Network at 42%, Rail at 47%, this class of services is clearly where investment is rewarded best, and as they are [largely] independent of traffic the benefits for all road users [especially drivers and road freight] and the city’s economy and resilience are also strongest. This shows government policy to not fund any RTN extensions in AKL in the next funding period to be profoundly wrong, based on either out of date assumptions or poor advice from the Ministry and Agency, or both. This is holding the nation back.
-Petrol price doesn’t control PT uptake, or if it did, it no longer does. I have long been saying this, in something of a disagreement with my economist colleagues. Driving dependence is inelastic over the short term but once bigger changes are [moving home or work, going down to one car and relying on PT and Active for more trips] they tend to stick. Also paying for fuel isn’t the only burden vehicle dependency.
“-Petrol price doesn’t control PT uptake…Driving dependence is inelastic over the short term but once bigger changes … they tend to stick. Also paying for fuel isn’t the only burden vehicle dependency.
I have to agree with this after going down to a single car, cycling to work while my partner takes the bus every day. We hardly drive now.
What’s the rollout of Western Line electrics looking like at the moment?
Great figures overall. Bring on CRL.
Electrics on western line also can’t come soon enough; noticeable that passenger growth is losing momentum. Right now, standing on a packed train following -another- peak hour cancellation is not funny, and people are noticing. This train is so full it can barely move, we’ve been about 4 minutes at new Lynn…
I was on the same train from Baldwin. It’s getting so bad it’s getting difficult to read a book! 😉
Can’t wait for western line electrics. That will mean spacious trains for, oh, maybe a year or two until they’re full again 😉
What I don’t get is why AT and Veolia can’t get a better service together while we wait for the last of the trains to arrive.
They’re still serving up 4 car trains in the peak hours, and seem to have repeat offenders when it comes to unreliable train units.
I’m left wondering if it’s really that hard to add carriages now that there must be spare ones displaced from other lines, and why they can’t have a standby set at Hendo awaiting the inevitable morning failure. Letting passengers down regularly when demand is clearly helping AT is not good customer service, but then maybe there’s the heart of the issue. Do they get it?
I sincerely hope they don’t start too early with the electrics using three-car single sets only.
Budgets. Someone sometime ago wrote what would be needed, and of course looked at the lousy AT SOIs….
I think the problem is there’s only a few reliable 6-car sets. There’s an additional problem with adding carriages in that there are two different types of locomotive pulling them and the majority can only reliably pull a 4-car set with some in a bit better condition and able to pull a 5-car set. Just adding carriages will lead to a lot of delays.
Yeah, the four-car units at peak on the Western line are crazy. They are packed solid and it’s really weird AT aren’t running 6 car units. What gives?!
I don’t like to burst bubbles but I’d like to see at least the next month’s YTD figures just in case this is a statistical blip.
I believe the figures are fantastic and indicative of the “sparks effect”, but I believe they should be treated with a measure of caution.
Definitely need to wait and see although I do think Feb has been very busy from my observations. AT say that with the factors such as shorter shutdown accounted for that patronage was up 20%
There’s no doubt that the shorter rail shutdown bumped the rail figures, good weather helped the ferries, and events too… But all of these things are likely to be repeated next Jan, and the service improvements will just keep continuing. Was I expecting 40-odd% growth, no, is this the level that is required for it to be considered a success? No. But can we reasonably expect Feb and March to be strong too, well all last year was, so I think we can, this shows every sign of being structural, not a ‘blip’.
Surely the growth rate expressed as percentage will fall but even as it does the raw numbers will continue to grow or even accelerate.
There is clearly a Network Effect here; each improvement to each part of the network brings more riders to all parts, once someone takes one trip, they start to try it for other journeys and so on.
Yesterday I shot at three locations and had one out of office meeting. Two bus trips, three train, one car, and one taxi. And a lot of commenting here and tweeting while in Transit. Today will be two bike trips [meeting] then one return drive out of town [location]; less social media!
Case for full investment and network changes to missing modes looking stronger. More investment into car mode looking more ridiculous.
I would suggest the extra capacity on the eastern line with electric trains caused the growth- catching a train from GI, Meadowbank or Orakei used to be very unreliable; not because of cancellations but becuase often trains were too full to board. Now it seems its becoming a similar situation on the Western line.
One point on the petrol price issue, or more particularly on traffic volumes, which we expect to be up too. Auckland is of a scale, density, geography, and stage of development that means we should expect both Traffic and Transit, not one or the other. This I guess is what’s new this century over the last one. 20th Century AKL was first all Transit, then all Traffic. Now it’s both.
Thesis, Antithesis -> Synthesis.
Is that a quote or are you claiming it?
I’m sure I’m not the first to bring those three words together, but to describe the uptake of transport modes in Auckland; yup, that’s all mine.
Hegelian transport blogging!
“166.9% increase on the Eastern Line is a record of some kind.”
Sure, is but not quite such a positive record as you think.
While as many of you know, I love rail patronage figures to go up and up, the fact is that this figure is a total piece of bad statistical reporting by AT, that very sort gives statistics a bad name – as in: “Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics”.
See – last year (Jan 2014) the Eastern line was shutdown for about 3 weeks of the 4 in January, plus it had the anniversary weekend shutdown too the next weekend.
When Panmure station opened about the 18th of January 2014, the trains weren’t running then, and wouldn’t be for 2 more days on the 20th.
[I.e. you couldn’t get to a train station opening by train – something people observed at the time here on TB].
Then AT had 1 week of trains back, then the Anniversary weekend shutdown, then trains as normal for a few more days in January.
All up Auckland had 9 (week)days of actual trains running in January 14 on the Eastern line.
This year, AT opened the Eastern Line back up from the 5th with no anniversary weekend shutdown – the net effect, 27 days of trains in January including weekend running.
And we had the Nines running the last weekend of January as well, with the trains and Britomart being as busy as a normal weekday those days.
So of course the “same month last year” numbers for January look stunning. 9 working days last year versus 20 working days (1 day of Nines in January figures). and 9 days total last year versus 27 this year.
So thats a large chunk of the “169%” increase right there, and is a result of just not comparing like with like.
Sure there is an increase in there allright, after all frequency is up in peak and half hours in weekends, but the resulting increase is actually more like the rest of the rail network, not some over the top 169% increase.
And while the roads brigade might be happy to trumpet these sorts of figures to justify all their money spent, I don’t think TB or AT need to do the same.
Those stunning patronage increase figures are already there in the numbers, we don’t need the easy to prove wrong growth numbers as the headline though, as that leaves a bad taste in everyone’s mouth when the truth is revealed.
Yes, but the fact that they managed to keep the line open for longer is a good thing too, right? Patronage is increased both by running more services and filling up the services you already have.
Considering that not running services (e.g. extended shutdowns as in Jan 2014 and beyond) is a legacy of lack of investment in rail. So its a reality we can’t and shouldn’t hide.
Running services is a good thing and filling up the ones you have is also good, but comparing apples with bananas is not when you compare 9 days of operation with 27 the comparison is not apt
You can’t tell from the patronage figures if the Eastern January 2015 numbers are due to more frequent trains or more people on each train, or (more likely) a combination of both.
And yes, you generally don’t care as more bums on seats (or standing) is a good thing no matter how generated in general. But for peak management, you do need to know if some services are filling up too much.
Right now the total capacity of the Eastern line across the day is massive compared to the passenger numbers that use it on a given day. But if the 7am to 8am services are all chocka – that spare capacity later on doesn’t help much.
Agreed – I came to the exact same conclusion on seeing the figure: too good to be true, so obviously caused by something other than changes in patronage per day. The adjusted numbers will still show an increase, so why not give those numbers and keep things away from ridiculous? The raw numbers can then be presented as an aside.
Raw numbers are not an “aside” when talking about meeting CRL targets. They are what matters.
I’m really glad we don’t see one sixth of our transport capacity shut down for an entire month. After this year’s figures, I think that will be even less likely in future.
you guys should stick a “rail and/ or PT patronage growth tracker” over on the side bar in relation to the CRL targets as a visual reminder of how well things have been tracking recently.
I notice that the Onehunga line’s monthly change from previous year is exactly the same in both months (18641) – i think I’m reading it correctly. Is this figure to be questioned, or just a coincidence? Hopefully these figures go through proper QC prior to being released. The last thing TP supporters want or need are questionable statistics.
Extraordinary, isn’t it? What are the chances?
About 1 in 18641
Bit higher than than, but it’s true that coincidence seems unlikely, and is more likely to be an error, or some sort of averaging? If we are lucky, it’s just a summary table error (rather than anything affecting the overall percentage results).
It is an error as every column from 12 month patronage along in the Onehunga row is identical in both charts, also the rail sub-totals for both months are based on these figures (checked by subtracting everything else). Hopefully the January figure is wrong and we’re closer to 13 million than we think.
So then this is a little serious isn’t it? If the Onehunga stats are incorrect then what else is?. Really AT needs to be contacted about this.
Was an error and updated table at end of post
The RTN figures are incredible. But 8% annual growth in the non-rapid transit network isn’t something to be ignored either. At this rate, the usage doubles every 9 years. We’re going to need a *lot* more capacity.
(And this is with next to no increase in bus-lanes, before AMETI, and before the network re-organisations.)
Speaking of which, Souter (Howick and Eastern) have ordered double deckers for East Auckland, anticipating strong demand.
Someone should run against Quax in 2016 and give the far-East reality-based representation.
I was on the Botany to Britomart 500 bus (the one they are getting double deckers for )Tuesday
Pleased to say that it does actually stop at Panmure Interchange, a couple got off here.
Then in car today at 455pm took till 520 to get from half way along Ti Rakau Dr to Botany Road it would be the same for the bus service.
If the numbers keep growing at this rate, how long until we hit 14 million? And 20 million?
Well 14mil later this year. 20m in 2018? Maybe if everything goes well, then: http://greaterakl.wpengine.com/2014/11/04/20-by-2017/
What needs to go well? Roll out of the New Network [good to see the next interchange stations Otahuhu and Manukau City getting built this year], Integrated Fares for early 2016, and, of course, the Rail Network has to not fall over with all this extra demand too…. It’s a fragile little network, especially pre-CRL.
With rail numbers now up to 12,790,306 (which is a 20% annual increase). If this rate continues it will be 15,348,367 Jan 2016. 18,418,040 in Jan 2017 and 22,101,648 in Jan 2018. So the 20mil figure would be reached around May 2017 so late 2017 should be the latest start date for main construction of CRL at this rate.
All the EMUs aren’t even rolled out yet, the Bus Network not up, and bugger all seperated cycling. Long term car only projection models not looking like holding water at all. Demand changing, alternative networks changing. Why isn’t our main transport industry agency embracing the change with open arms and fully running with it 100%, even AT I would say not 100%. Surprise, surprise open up other taps and things change, I wander how much really is necessary for a fully functioning network when all modes up and running? Apart from CRL and extra trains, interchanges etc, why not an industry wide focus on maximising bus network and seperated cycling ,walking making the best use of what we have built already? Forget the politics just do it and get them up like yesterday. Both NZTA and AT fully control the road network and how space, and intersection controls are run. Based on signs so far,who knows.
Is it too early to publish stats for Pukekohe weekend services now that these are running?
For a year now rail ridership growth has been at a sustained 20% which is huge. If this were to continue, and there are good reason to believe it should, we get these great numbers:
Ridership year to end Jan 15 12.79m
Jan 2016 + 2.56m ~15.35m
Jan 2017 + 3.07m ~18.32m
Jan 2018 + 3.66m ~21.98m
Is there going to be the capacity to handle these numbers? Or will they trail off, 2.5 mil looks likely this year, and 3m+ thereafter as all the upgrades are delivered… There’s going to be a long and full wait for the CRL, even if funding is announced over the next two years…. And note that’s 20m sometime in 2017!
We look forward to the MoT’s view.