This week Auckland Transport have made a number of changes to bus routes including introducing a new service.
The major changes are on the North Shore with Birkenhead Bus services where the changes came into effect on Sunday. Key changes include additional trips and changed timetables that mean there will be services down Onewa Rd at least every 15 minutes all day, seven days a week. During most of the day on weekdays, frequencies would be even higher. After the Highbury shops where the Glenfield Rd and Beach Haven services diverge there are at least 30 minute services all day every day. In addition to the frequency improvements some services from the city also now operate later into the night.
These changes are good as it means a large part of the North Shore should see significantly improved services and effectively can be seen as a precursor to the New Network. We’ve seen in other places where frequencies have been improved – even if just through fixing existing timetables – that patronage often jumps considerably.
Perhaps unsurprisingly there appeared to be a few hiccups yesterday however I would hope they should settle down – although full buses are likely to be an ongoing issue (and not just on these routes).
@AklTransport @TransportBlog new B’head Trnspt timetable, lots of people at Onewa Rd bus stops watching full buses drive past Bad look 4 PT!
— Mat Collins (@MatCollins76) February 23, 2015
First attempt to catch bus using new Birkenhead Transport timetable fails. Same old, same old — Bill Bennett (@billbennettnz) February 23, 2015
@aw_nz @MatCollins76 @TransportBlog @AklTransport Where I was a timetabled bus went past about 4 mins before scheduled time
— Bill Bennett (@billbennettnz) February 23, 2015
The other key change was a new service serving the Stonefields Area. The 632 Stonefields Loop bus travels between Glen Innes and Stonefields every 20 minutes from 6am to 7pm, Monday to Friday. That frequency ties in nicely with the current train timetable which runs every 10 minutes during the morning and afternoon peaks and every 20 minutes off peak.
It will start at Taniwha St before going anti-clockwise along Merton Rd, College Rd, Bluegrey Ave, Tephra Boulevard, Stonefields Ave and Morrin Rd before getting back to the train station on Apirana Ave
It’s good to see Auckland Transport trying connecting services like this one who’s only real goal is to feed the rail network. One surprising aspect about it though is that it will be run by Howick and Eastern who obviously had the better tender. The reason it’s odd is that NZ Bus runs most – if not all bus services in the area and has a bus depot very close by (just at bottom of the image).
Hopefully both of these services will be a success. We’ll try and keep a close eye on what impacts the changes have.
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A service to connect the 769/767 route to Glen Innes would be welcome too.
It will be interesting to see what Birkenhead transport does with the 971/972 routes that terminate at the University. Due to the popularity of this route, for years they have been running untimetabled services to the University (numbered 951/952) that start at Highbury every 15 mins at peak times. Even with these extra services down Onewa Rd these busses get very full especially during term time. The new timetable increases the official 972 frequency to once every 15 mins (from every 30 mins) and leaves the 971 at every 30 mins. So total of 6 busses an hour timetabled down Onewa Road to the University which is less than the 8 per hour that were running with the unofficial 951/952 services. I really don’t know why AT and Birkenhead transport didn’t bite the bullet and make these services run every 5 mins down Onewa Road. I’m sure there would be enough demand to support that frequency if they did that.
Unscheduled services provide flexibility to cancel them when not needed (ie outside of Uni term). They will be run fully commercial so will only be run if demand is there.
No doubt demand is there so I would expect them to continue. As pointed out below, they provide a good connection via all other services from Britomart.
Howick & Eastern are looking pretty lively these days… Good on them.
Souter has no fear in talking on the incumbent providers, and has surplus buses due to the delay in PTOM in the south.
Good to see that the bus now meet the ferry, however can see that there could be some problems with how tight the timetable is around the ferry for those wanting to catch the ferry leaving and the bus waiting long enough to take people off the ferry. The timetable only allows 10 minutes for the bus to leave Beach Haven shops go to the ferry wait for passengers off the ferry and then get back to Verrans corner via birkdale road. Seems very tight to me In the past the bus left before the passengers had even disembarked and the wait for the next one is approx 30 minutes. My daughter is planning to use the the beach haven ferry from the city to go to Birkenhead College which will be a good test of how well the interconnections between ferry and busses work in reality.
Fingers crossed.
And interesting fact about the GI train timetables (at least until recently anyway) is that normally the “up” and “down” line trains arrive at GI station more or less at the same time (or within a minute or so of each other).
So in theory anyone arriving on the GI train from either direction should find a local bus ready for them across the road to take them “home”. And vice versa for anyone wanting a train.
Going to GI station you can go into Britomart or south towards Manukau on trains that arrive nearly at the same time.
So the bus and train can nicely mesh.
And the 635 bus covers the same route in Stonefields (but not Merton Road). So I presume (and hope) that the 635 buses and this local one are scheduled to complement each other.
But given they are different bus operators who knows for sure.
A guess as of why the 971 and 972 are so popular: these actually meet up with other services at Britomart.
The other Birkenhead buses go via Hobson street to the Sky tower. And all the other buses towards South and East drive in a wide circle around this point (Anzac Ave and Symonds St).
Yes at least 50% of passengers get off on Customs Street outside Britomart, and a higher percentage outside of University term time of course.
They should sort out the feeder bus options from Glendowie/ St Heliers currently these bus’s come from across town so are often late.
Agreed – the 767/769s are really held up by the Mission Bay snarl-up and are a bit of a mess coming out of the City. It would be great if a shuttle could connect St Heliers/Glendowie and the Glen Innes train station on a high-frequency service.
Precisely that is planned with the New Network.
From the initial consultation maps it seemed like the services will merely extend the 767/769 route to the Glen Innes station – I’d love for there to be a shuttle option that doesn’t rely on going all the way into town or catching a bus that has to go all the way along the waterfront first.
See here: https://at.govt.nz/media/594493/New-Network-Map.pdf
St Heliers – Gledowie – GI every fifteen minutes all day every day.
Good to see the operators stepping on each others turf.
The whole operator setup doesn’t appear very competitive to me. When was last time a route switched operator due to competition?
Eastern routes been run by H&E forever. Local govt granted perpetual monopoly?
Never – since The **Central** Gov’t forced the sell off of all council owned bus services 20+ years ago and all the bus operators who bought the buses got exclusive property rights on the routes they bought to boot.
The only reason Stonefields new local service is H&E is because as a new route its therefore not covered by the NZ Bus monopoly out that way.
And is also why the H&E express buses that go that way past the Tamaki Campus of Auckland Uni can’t pick up people on the route they go as they’re in “NZ Bus country”.
Would like to see a service like this to the Onehunga railway station for those of us who live in lower Hillsborough so we don’t have to walk up very steep hills to get the bus on Hillsborough Rd.
And Rosebank could do with one to connect to Avondale Station, which should help head off the desire for a park and ride at Avondale Station which the local Business Association (I think) are advocating for. We are about to get our new network consultation so we’ll see if this is part of it.
Run it to the Te Atatu, Lincoln Rd or even Westgate interchanges.
The Fanshawe St bus stop #7036 is deeply inadequate.
http://greaterakl.wpengine.com/2014/06/10/photo-of-the-day-fanshawe-st-bus-stop/
The 3 shelters are nothing but an obstruction. Trees obscure the view of approaching buses.
The “real time board” is too small and again obstructed by bus shelters.
The footpath is too narrow. At peak times you have to squeeze past people and run to your bus. It is often made worse by skateboarders.
Commuters congregate on the grass of Victoria Park and then have to leap a fence to catch their bus.
The cheapest solution would be to
a) remove all the current shelters
b) remove the dangerous low fence
c) put some seats on the grass of Vic Park
AT plans to spend zillions soon, apparently?? http://www.roadingnz.org.nz/sites/roadingnz.org.nz/files/Auckland_Transport_Construction_Programme_2012-2015.pdf
Bus station by Victoria Park (at Wyndham Quarter) deferred to 2016-2017?
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11225531
I know it’s a crap stop but AT do have plans for this. Serious plans. From what I’ve read what they are going to do is build an urban busway along the northern side of Fanshaw St and include an interchange. I’m not sure about timing but I’m expecting it to be sooner rather than later.
Sooner please! Don’t need a fancy million dollar exchange, when the council could spend $50K and dramatically improve things in a matter of days/weeks.
It’s not the northern side of Fanshawe that’s the problem! AT needs to fix the Vic Park side urgently. The serious lack of footpath room means that people are in danger of being jostled into the path of buses. I have injured myself on the stupid low fence of Vic Park. Nobody can see what damn bus is coming until the last second, making people run around like headless chooks. Bus stop 7036 sucks and hundreds (thousands?) of people use it daily.
I’ve just submitted a problem report to AT. Hope to hear something soon.
I am pleased to see the increase in the 966 bus- which goes past Auckland Hospital/Medical school. The 881 , which goes from Albany to Newmarket via the Northern Busway, the main Auckland University campus and Auckland hospital, increased from 5 per day to 47 per day over only three years and is very heavily used by people from the Hospital/Medical school site.
Having an early bus for nurses starting their 0700 shift will be useful. Has there been any thought of promoting this new service at the Hospital/Medical sites so it is fully used?
Birkenhead, but still not direct bus via Kaipatiki Rd to Massey Uni and Albany Centre/NHIE/Apollo Drive, it all goes through Highbury