There have been a couple of articles in the Herald in the last few days that are worth talking about.

Double EMU Orakei Basin
Photo by Alex Burgess http://nzrailphotos.co.nz/

On Friday there was the issue of faults with the new electric trains.

Auckland’s new electric trains are still being bugged by computer software and braking problems, which have brought engineers out from Spain in search of remedies.

The city’s transport authority disclosed this week it is trying to bring forward from August the completion of its rollout of its $400 million fleet of electric trains, after continuing disruptions from diesel breakdowns.

But it is not just the old trains that are causing trouble, leading to a reduction in punctuality on all the city’s railway lines except for the Onehunga branch.

Rail workers are concerned some of the new trains are having to be shut down for their on-board computers to be reset, and that a sophisticated new control system designed to prevent collisions “has a tendency to randomly apply” emergency brakes when passing certain signals.

One industry source said in a message received indirectly by the Herald this morning there had been breakdowns on the rail network causing disruption “every day” for the past three weeks.

The emergency braking problem caused chaotic scenes at Britomart and Newmarket stations in the morning commuter rush in December, when a driver’s unfamiliarity with the new system prompted him to disable several other systems on board his train, disrupting 15 other services.

Auckland Transport chief executive David Warburton told his board this week, in his monthly business report, that Siemens Spain had undertaken a two-week investigation in New Zealand and was “working to improve ETCS [European Train Control System] reliability.”

It seems there has been a number of issues that have arisen with the trains, as the also herald notes in the article there were issues with how restrictive the new signalling system was when the trains were first introduced and it seems further improvements are due. I’m aware there have also been issues with the power supply and with the doors, both of which have been fixed. The latest issues seems to include some gremlins in the traction systems – something I’m sure will be ironed out.

I guess for me the thing is that while this is very concerning and annoying, this isn’t uncommon when brand new systems are installed. Even in mature networks new machines or parts of the network will tend to have issues. As an example the new trains in Wellington had to be pulled from service a number of times over a few years due to issues that arose.

While the outcome for passengers tends to be the same – delays and frustration – that’s quite different from the issues with the aging diesel trains. As I understand it, for them there’s often a difficult decision between temporarily patching up issues and properly fixing them – which could be quite costly – when the trains will likely only be used for another month or two.

In effect we seem to have both fleets of trains (electric and diesel) at opposite sides of a bell curve. The electrics have a lot of faults but they are getting better and more reliable and it is likely that soon faults will become much rarer while on the other side the diesels are getting more and more unreliable and that in part is also be accelerated by their pending replacement. Unfortunately what isn’t changing is the poor communication when things go wrong. Perhaps what AT and Transdev need is some more transparency in the matter and to explain to the pubic exactly what is going wrong. If the public were more aware of what the issues being faced are then they might be more accepting of the situation. In lieu of that that faults are leaving people with bad experiences and driving people away from using trains.

The second piece was related to the property purchases for the City Rail Link.

Plans for Auckland Transport’s ambitious $2.4 billion City Rail Link project are gathering speed, as it secures more real estate along the route.

An AT spokeswoman said the council-controlled authority had now bought 58 of the 70 surface properties it needs, spending $85 million securing the route – a critical part of Auckland’s biggest transport project.

That means AT now controls 83 per cent of the properties it needs and the full-steam-ahead approach has seen big progress since last year.

The update indicated 23 new property purchases were concluded in the past nine months, as owners agree to sell their land and buildings for the rail route’s progress.

AT’s relatively rapid pace is a big advance from the middle of last year when it had only concluded 35 surface purchases and spent $35 million.

Some politicians have questioned why all the pricey real estate is being bought well before Government funding as AT closes deals on the properties along its 3.4km Britomart to Mt Eden route.

AT’s biggest sticking point appears to remain the valuable Mt Eden Life Church, a property which it has been negotiating on for some time: the spokeswoman said the purchase of that big property near the Mt Eden Station, between the bottom of Flower St and Mt Eden Rd, was yet to be concluded.

Part of that issue is finding the Christians a new property. The spokeswoman said that was very much part of the deal and that no sale would be concluded until it was resolved.

“The issue is finding an alternative site. Negotiations are under way,” she said of 95 Mt Eden Rd.

The church has a number of businesses and owns several properties to the north and south but that property is the heart of its church operation.

That seems like good progress and given the rise in land values Auckland has been seeing – especially in and around the city centre – it is probably a good thing that they are buying the property now and not waiting until the government commit funding by which time the costs would have likely increased dramatically. The biggest risk is that it’s quite possible that when the government do help fund the project they will ignore the property purchases and enabling works (cut and cover tunnel to Wyndham St) and only fund 50% of the remaining costs.

I’m not an expert on the Public Works Act but is it normal for a public organisation to have to find alternative sites for current occupants? I guess that’s likely the easiest thing instead of forcing a sale but seems like it could end up quite costly.

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66 comments

    1. Some of them are but most of the surface properties needed are around Mt Eden where they will build the junction connecting the existing lines to the CRL. That part like the enabling works are cut and cover.

  1. Under NZ law, land ownership extends downwards to an unlimited extent, therefore to go underneath someone’s property you have to purchase either their right or their property. In practice the second option is simpler.

    In the case of the Life Church, this is likely to be a one-off under special circumstances, as finding a suitable alternative may be difficult.

    “some politicians”? the usual suspects? the unholy trinity?

  2. How long is this curve? Emus have been in service for a year or more. Seems to be a uniquely NZ problem. Having experience of using pt all over the world, including countries that are (cough) considered’third world’ I’ve never had as many problems in all my overseas experience as i have in one week (!!!) of pt use in Auckland. It is beyond a joke and if it wasn’t for the (shrug) ‘she”ll be right ‘kiwi attitude patronage would be nil, and deservedly so. Unless you have a job where it us okay to turn up late at least once (but often twice or more) per week you cannot use trains in Auckland. Unless of course you hedge your bets and leave home much earlier than is required.

    1. How many of those systems you used overseas introduced effectively a brand new network and fleet at the same time. Most cities that introduce new trains do so with models that are just an evolution of what they already have and the integration issues are generally well known so easy to address. As mentioned at least one of the major issues was due to the power supply. It wasn’t the EMUs that were at fault but the way Kiwirail designed the network. The cheapest fix turned out to be make changes to the trains though and so any future train fleets would be built with that as a known issue.

      1. I don’t know your source(s) Matt, although below you imply they’re anecdotal, but your comment is not quite correct. Granted, there was one significant problem on the KR network which was eventually tracked down to a faulty item of equipment. This was hard to find, but was ultimately a supplier issue.

        Regarding the EMU software problems, without going into detail these were in essence a consequence of inadequate modelling by CAF, as all design information was available to them and the built network matches the design both physically and in performance.

        Finally, the ETCS is a learning curve issue. It could be argued that both AT and KiwiRail have been overly cautious, but no-one would thank them should an incident occur attributable to pushing the envelope. KiwiRail has its faults, but there is no doubt about the competence and professionalism of, and sheer hard work put in by, the AEP team.

        1. My source was a very senior person and Patrick was also present when this was said. We were told that the issue was around fluctuating power volumes that would spike over the level the trains were meant to handle and the cheapest solution was to modify the trains to handle the fluctuations rather than the change the network

        2. Hmm, an interesting way of putting it. I assume you mean voltage fluctuations, which involves both the source and the characteristics of the load. Power demand is of course determined entirely by the load.

        3. jonno we were told it was harmonic fluctuations in the supply that was tripping the safety settings on the EMUs and that it was cheaper to adjust the acceptable parameters in the software on the trains than fix the network. Whether this is accurate or not we don’t know but it was not canteen gossip.

        4. I agree that harmonics are at the heart of it. The question is where do they originate? There are two possibilities: Transpower, or the EMUs. But as you say, it’s relatively simple to fix via software tweaks once the correct configuration is figured out.

        5. Don’t disagree on the idea of caution showed by KR and others on ETCS, except that for the most part the existing trains (diesels) did not have this same level of cautiousness, so the entire rail system with EMUs on it could not be safer than its weakest link (the crappiest old diesel on the line, driven by the [relatively] worst driver).

          Therefore it was sheer folly to turn ETCS to the max (or even higher than what a diesel would have), especially when the diesels that would be ahead and behind the EMUs would not be similarly controlled.

          Would have been better to ramp the ETCS down initially to match the diesels while they were in mixed running, then as each line became fully diesel free (will that ever happen in practise because of the freights mixing with EMUs?) then ramp up the ETCS protections to a level that gives the superior protection that ETCS offers – but only once all drivers and trains are on the same page ETCS-wise surely?

          I think KR lead AT down the “safety first” rabbit hole without explaining all the ramifications clearly enough.

          This is not to belittle the hard working folks who worked on the AEP project – I think this is more aimed at the pencil-pushers who were not listening to the actual boots on the ground guys about theoretical and 100% impractical decisions being made.

        6. I’m no expert on ETCS but am inclined to agree with your reasoning. However, MBIE via Energy Safety is keeping a very close eye on this project so I can also understand AT’s and KR’s caution. Compliance and public safety are very big issues in Auckland due to its lack of historic experience with rail traction (unlike Wellington).

          Edit: Signage is another big compliance issue.

        7. Considering that MBIE is the most incompetent, dysfunctional and also least cost-effective government ministry merger, pretty ever conceived and executed by any recent government – and that’s according to the Governments own reviews of MBIE.

          I think I am even more accurate in my earlier comment: “this is more aimed at the pencil-pushers who were not listening to the actual boots on the ground guys about theoretical and 100% impractical decisions being made”.

          Those pencil pushers overriding the decisions, obviously reside in MBIE – either in the ESS division or elsewhere in the rest of the ministry.

          Another Wellington based “Its a technical thing” decision being forced upon Auckland to its detriment I suspect.

        8. I’d agree that MBIE is ridiculous and dysfunctional – all blame can be laid squarely on the shoulders of Steven Joyce. It’s his baby. Never seen so many civil servants without a clue what they’re doing, but paid well for whatever it is anyway… Nice work if you can get it.

        9. Buying all the properties along the route you’re digging is a pretty standard move when digging underground lines, so that if there is any subsidence, you only have to deal with your own company to fix it. Otherwise it is a legal nightmare to resolve if any cracks are discovered above ground…

      2. Funnily enough, this is all the sort of c@@p I said would happen here in rolling out a new network while everyone posting here seemed to be going “no it will all be wonderful, nothing to worry about”
        Now you’re all like “not unexpected when rolling out a new network”

  3. I believe under the Public Works Act you have the right for a like for like replacement. The old Waitakere Council tried it on with a few commercial properties he owned, they offered him a fraction of replacement cost and he told them he wanted a like for like replacement with land the council owned on the same street

    1. The Public Works Act 1981 is based on flawed economics. Section 62 says you are entitled to compensation equivalent to what the property would sell for from a willing seller to a willing buyer. But that only matches the properties true value to the owner if it is already on the market. If a property has a higher value to the owner then it wont be on the market. The Act ignores that simple truth. You only sell something if its market value is higher than its worth to you. You keep it if its value to you is higher than the market value. In that sense the Public Works Act is a means by which the Government (central and local) steals or appropriates value from private owners. No wonder projects take a long time to get going!

      Equivalent reinstatement only exists in section 65 for land used for a purpose of a nature where there is no general demand or market. A church probably meets that definition so AT have no choice but to find them somewhere else and get them a resource consent.

  4. EMU/Diesel reliability:

    That curve you call a bell curve is usually called a “Bathtub curve” by engineers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathtub_curve).
    Because it looks like a side view of a bathtub that you’d find in your house, that is a steep slope down at the left hand side, a long flat area in the middle, a steeply rising slope upwards at the other end.
    This represents a graph of faults (Y axis) versus time (X axis)

    The EMU’s they’re in the initial “phase in” (left hand side) of that curve, where a lot of faults occur early on, are worked through/out and then run trouble free for years and years once the bugs are ironed out.
    And at the other end – at end of life the faults keep accumulating as the system wears out from a lifetime of use (or deferred maintenance).

    For an interesting take on how that affects Nuclear power plants see this link: http://allthingsnuclear.org/nuclear-plant-aging/

    There are a couple of interesting points made in that article that are relevant here.
    One being that had Fukushima Daiichi plant not been at the “end of life” stage of the bathtub curve, the plant owner (TEPCO) probably would have invested sufficient money in improvements to the tsunami protection seawall to cope with a higher level of tsunami once that was identified as being possible every 1 in a 1000 years back in 2008.
    As it was the Fukushima Daiichi plant was nearly 40 years old at the time of the Tsunami (and 37 when the issue of higher levels of Tsunami was discovered).
    Pretty much 40 was the end of design life for most nuclear reactors of the type at Fukushima so such investment would not be warranted for a plant with a few years of operational life left.

    As we all know TEPCO made a (wrong) bet – this being that there would be no such 1 in a 1000 year “seawall topping” Tsunami event any time soon.

    Similarly with the Diesel trains – AT (and presumably KR) are cutting back on maintenance (and driver recruitment) on the basis that these diesel powered trains won’t be needed from “next month” but as we keep seeing, the exact phase out date i.e. “next month” keeps moving back – largely due to lack of drivers to run the new EMUs, not because the electrification is not yet finished, And there is a shortage of Diesel drivers able to be cross trained in EMU operations as well.

    And you can’t just go and hire folks off the street and let them drive a train very easily, you have to be trained and certified first, and even then someone who is a certified train driver, still has to get certified in the section(s) of track they will drive on, all of which takes time and then you have to keep that certification up, so we can’t “recall” old train drivers very easily either.
    So you can’t over-train drivers to keep some in reserve easily either.
    In essence train drivers are like milk – must be used before the used by date or its no good. And for that you need a whole dairy herd and related systems to keep the milk fresh and keep it coming regularly.

    Up to now, AT and KR could share drivers because of a single type of fleet (diesel), with EMUs coming on board most trains drivers will do one or the other (hauling people or freight) not both.

    So right now AT is facing its own Tsunami of issues, some were quite predictable given the lead in of new EMUs, some were not, and some like lack of train drivers were likely quite foreseeable and were no doubt prompted by a domino effect of some diesel drivers not wanting to be trained in EMUs leaving/retiring etc, that causing additional stress on the remaining drivers and so on as some of the (shrinking) pool of Diesel drivers are retrained to EMUs.
    Without an ongoing recruitment/training program this problem will not go away. But its really ATs problem to solve now. KR has pretty much walked away from the scene.

    As for the land buy up issue, this is a non-issue – it AT hadn’t bought those properties in the last year, then the 12+% annual property (land) inflation ongoing in Auckland would make any delayed purchase foolish sooner than later.
    In any case, the holding costs of the land are a fraction of the annual land inflation price currently, so AT is winning buy buying sooner no matter what – especially as many of those properties would be able to be redeveloped for quite some profit post CRL build. As for finding a alternative venue for the church, wouldn’t be normal, but maybe it helps avoid a protracted PWA negotiation process for a key site then maybe its a wise move.

    You are right that this Gov’t will only fund 50% of the unspent CRL budget so these purchases made to date will be outside that in all likelihood, but I’m sure the next Government will play ball and stump up the missing $ – either in cash, or in kind (such as by funding the purchase of more EMUs).

    1. Okay so given that reliability is expected to remain poor or in fact worsen, where does this leave the punters?

      1. Which fleet?

        The EMU, as introduction finalises things will get better. As all of the trains are not yet in country, that probably isn’t as close as people expect.
        The Diesels, depending on what you see the future of these trains, they will continue to cause issues, which is why there is a push to get the EMU into service and reduce the maintenance costs overall.

        The drivers, (whilst not a fleet are critical to the whole situation), as the numbers of EMU trained and certified drivers increases and becomes sustainable through normal recruitment and replacement, it effectively stops becoming an issue.

        More concerning is the lack of resilience in the network, primarily because issues involving the key constraints of Britomart and Newmarket stations won’t get any better until the CRL is in operation. Without the possibility of re-routing services, an issue has a ripple effect of disruption across the whole network.

        Where it leaves the punters? Effectively they see things get better slowly until some tipping point is achieved and the bottom of the bathtub curve is reached, which is why communication on what issues are being faced is critical. There will continue to be disruption while implementation issues are resolved, but I’m guessing the project plan for this is fairly massive.

        1. Actually it leaves punters late for work, late for appointments and sees them paying for a service that is not delivering on any rational level. Keeping in mind that the curve on the ‘bathtub’ has, in the case of the emus been going on for approx 18 months whilst for the DMUs it’s been a decade or more. I have no faith that it will improve, although I hope to be proven wrong.

        2. Wellington had issues for over two years but they now settled down. Similarly Kiwirail’s new freight locos had issues for a while but those too have now been sorted and I believe they are now much more reliable. I suspect we might get more issues than other countries as we have only tended to buy fleets of trains very rarely i.e. there were no major purchases of new kit for ~30 years. Other cities tend to buy new rolling stock much more regularly due to them having larger networks and constantly having fleets age out.

    2. Are you sure the EMU issue is the start of a bathtub curve or simply because they were built in Spain? Let’s face it who says “I want a high quality item with moving mechanical parts, I know I will buy a Spanish one”.

      1. Got any evidence that says that the EMUs are crap because they are Spanish assembled?

        Or is just your innate prejudice showing?

        As I’ve said before CAF ain’t no “Kamakuza Industries #123 Factory” churning out trains when they’re used to making to making tractors.

        And as CAF have a 10+ year maintenance contract if they ship shit, they have to fix it and wear it – unlike those Chinese locos and wagons KR bought that weren’t up to snuff.

        1. CAF is the same manufacturer as the Heathrow Express I think!………….which seem to work ok.

        2. They have also supplied the Hong Kong MTR including the Airport Line which works real well. Hong Kong Metro is one of the best run transit organisations in the world

      2. I love this “slam the southern europeans” game I would be good at it but i don’t play coz I’m too lazy since I’m from there.

    3. Can you point to a time where Auckland has ever experienced a sustained period in the flat of the bathtub in the case of trains….? Its never happened, so the metaphor is moot in this case.

        1. Really? Based on that claim I’m guessing you don’t actually use the trains.

          And assuming your claim is true, is an 18 month period of consistency across the recent history of trains in Auckland an acceptable ‘bathtub’ line?

        2. I use them daily and that view is backed up by the numbers which showed that reliability and punctuality improved over that time but has started falling away again quickly since then. I’d expect that if the expensive maintenance on them wasn’t being cut then they probably wouldn’t be failing as much as they are.

        3. Note the flat bottom part of the curve doesn’t mean no faults, it just means faults are still occurring but their cause is random, that is they still happen from time to time but the “average fault frequency” is flat and the average number of faults is neither going up or down.

          No transport system is 100% fault free and problems will happen from time to time – like Motorway melt-downs or fog delaying flights in or out of a city with impacts on the rest of NZ.

          Wellingtons train system is a lot more fault free after 2 years of the new Matangi’s than it was ever before with the previous fleet – yes faults still happen (stoned train drivers hitting the end of track buffers for one), but the overall fault curve is pretty flat.

          We will get there too.

      1. Maybe that’s true historically – buts its the premise on which the whole modernisation of the rail network (including electrification, double tracking, new signal systems and buying electric trains – the EMUs) was based upon.

        And if we are ever going to get to that “flat bottom” part at any stage **and remain there** we have to do something different, because the last 70 years has shown not doing so or doing the same old “patch it up and hope” hasn’t worked very well for Auckland Inc – or NZ Inc in fact.

        Certainly in business any new process or factory takes time to bed in, its understood and allowed for as part of the process, and there are some unknowns as you do so.

        Big guys like Fonterra don’t just turn on a new milk processing plant and assume “its all apples” and expect milk powder thats 100% to spec will flow out the other end on day 1.

        They also know that keeping kit past its use by date costs more that whatever short term $ figure it saves in the books.
        Thats why they are always upgrading their factories, and building new ones.

        AT (and KR) is guilty of both extending the existing kit’s life too long so that the right end of the curve is in play, at the same as the left hand curve is play on the new kit.
        Ideally they should have had the EMUs in a lot sooner than they did, part of that is due to the current governments decision to call in the EMU tenders for a re-look which cost at least 1 year.
        Secondly the electrification that KR was doing was running years behind schedule – that didn’t matter until the new EMUs arrived, but by then the existing diesel kit was well past is use by date.

        And to connect the dots to the buses, the lack of new network rollout is due to delayed consultation, which meant existing PT contracts have had to be rolled over because the transfer stations like Otahuhu have been delayed and the integrated ticketing has been difficult to bring in – because basically the existing PT operators don’t want to share any of their revenue with any other operator, be it AT, or another bus operator.

        So while AT is the perceived villain of this piece, in fact they are a victim of circumstance too, very much like the PT users being squeezed in the meantime.

        However, what is lacking is a proper “mea culpa” and “heres how we’re fixing it” from anyone involved.

        I think the issue here is that its not the breakdowns thats the problem – they’ll continue to happen just like what happens sometimes on the motorways, but truly “its the putting right” that counts here.

        But one thing is certain, if AT doesn’t try to make it better or if people stop using PT then the outcome will be far far worse than it is now.
        And instead of some people being late, everyone will be facing 1-2 hour commutes every day whether they use bus, train or car.

        1. See my comment above, at least one of the issues was the result of the network that had it have been in place before ordering the trains the issue would have been known.

          In some ways I don’t think you can blame the government for delays as being a cause, the issues with the new trains would likely have happened regardless of when it was built and the diesels would still have suffered from reduced maintenance owing to the fact they were about to be retired.

          Yes the new network is another good example although it isn’t really delayed consultation that’s the problem (that’s still on track), it’s the delayed implementation due to not having the interchanges in place and not having the PTOM contracts signed off (more on that this week).

          Have been talking to various levels of people within AT about the messaging. One example is that bus network was overloaded despite them adding 46 extra buses to services in March. Better comms would have said “yes services are busy despite extra capacity but that’s because PT is now getting so popular”. If people actually knew what AT was doing to address the issues they would be much more accommodating of the issues.

        2. Noted, and thats the KR design issue with the OLE that was fixed by changing the EMUs?
          So not an EMU issue at all then (and that should have been made clear by AT BTW).

          Yes, looking forward to an update on PTOM, but isn’t the root cause of that simply that some of the bus operators are not wanting to let anyone have part of “their” slice of the cake while happy to help themselves to others slices of the cake?
          Because some (most?) of them are still wedded to the idea that they’ll “own” the bus routes they bought from the ARC 20+ years ago and not AT under PTOM?
          And are the interchanges being delayed (like electrification was) because the dependant thing (PTOM in this, EMU’s in the OLE case) is not ready? And if so, why?

          As for 46 new buses added to March services?

          Truly a drop in the bucket – with Bus services running at 7.6% Year on Year growth then logic and PT growth tells you that March 2015 bus patronage will be 7.6% bigger than March 2014.
          53 million bus trips last year at 7.6% growth is about 4 million more trips a year, or about 335K more trips a month if pro-rated over 12 months evenly.
          No way will 46 new buses cope with that sort of growth, even if the bulk of that 335K growth is taking up on routes with capacity to cater for it.

          So thats another failure right there – failure to plan for the growth you know is happening, let alone not bothering to tell anyone what it is that you’re doing.

          But thats probably a Pt operator issue with no enough drivers or buses to cope with peak demand
          – which if we had PTOM in place now and the bus/rail interchanges all built and working as they should and the EMUs running everywhere on time and without problems, would be issues we would not have.

          so the best way forward to keep moving forward.
          As Winston Churchill said, “when you’re going through hell the only option is to keep going.”.

        3. PTOM – yes in part due to operators although I suspect it’s not the only issue.

          As for buses – given the lead in time to get new vehicles I’m not sure it’s entirely predictable that growth would be as strong as it has been. Six months ago annual patronage increases were only about 5% and the big gains weren’t expected until the new network comes in. Also the growth hasn’t been even, in the board report I think it said some peak routes are seeing 12% growth. That kind of growth is hard to predict (and how many extra services that are needed would depend on how much capacity there was on existing services too).

        4. The sooner “new network” is in (even if integrated ticketing is not ready) and the bus/rail interchanges are working, the sooner there will be spare buses (from whatever operator) available to redeploy elsewhere in the bus network to cater for growth and demand surges like March Madness.
          Without that fundamental step (and EMUs on all lines) nothing will get better.

        5. My belief is that there is an equilibrium between population, traffic volumes and PT trips. As population grows and the number of trips across all networks grow, people make decisions on whether it is better to use PT or other means to travel, so as the economy expands and the congestion increases PT becomes a better option, leading to growth.

          You should be able to roughly model the growth given the inputs and figure out where services need to be added.

          I do agree that things won’t get better until network issues, (EMU fleet or redesigned Bus networks and interchanges) are resolved.

        6. Equilibrium isn’t really the right word, especially as it implies static proportions between population, traffic, and other modes. Because what is observable is sudden changes in demand depending on various forces and contexts. Currently we are experiencing extremely strong PT demand growth, some of this can certainly be put down to improving services, yet as this post attests this strong demand growth can adversely impact on quality of service as a negative feedback. No what is observable now in Auckland is the growth in scale and density of the city to a point that the utility of PT grows strongly ahead of population growth, we’ve passed some balance point.

          The marginal user, as the economists say, is much more likely a PT user than the existing user now. The driving market is pretty saturated, so growth is in the alternatives. And in this context the smart thing is to supply to the growth market; the marginal user. You are more certain of uptake there.

    1. PWA doesn’t distinguish whether the land owner pays taxes (land or otherwise) or not, but it is likely that *AT* will end buying a rateable property for the church to move to in return for their current site.

      So *AC* will lose that properties rates income in the process.

  5. Why don’t church’s pay rates? They recieve council services and often have huge areas of land ripe for development.

      1. Schools don’t pay rates because they’re owned by central government.

        Churches don’t pay rates because religious people have historically had a lot of political influence. Churches should pay rates, and I for one look forward to the day that they are required to under law.

        1. Neither pay rates because historically they were considered to provide a useful community service to the community – schools for education, and churches for their charity and social works.

          Schools probably should pay as much rates as Churches should do, but as it would then be local government taxing central government in practise and the schools would end up paying out of their annual grant rather than Central Government upping their grant it doesn’t get traction. And in any case, the argument goes, the money churches get generally comes as tithes from its constituents who already pay rates so rates on churches would be a tax on a tax too.

          I think Stu we actually need a better system than the current system of levying property taxes (rates) for collecting the money needed to run the services each council provides its residents. LGNZ says so, as do a lot of others (law Commission), it just seems Central Gov’t isn’t listening.

          Yes rates are the easy option thanks to laws that allow rates to be tagged to the property if not paid so that the rates can be recovered whenever the property is sold.

      1. They pay on most of their properties but not on the part that’s used for the church which is listed as 16 Shaddock St which has a capital value for the 2015/16 year of $6m (vs $7.75m for 95 Mt Eden Rd)

  6. Matt L, what information do you have that the EMU’s are becoming more reliable? Its certainly not looking that way at the present from a passengers perspective and Onehunga trains were cancelled last week because of door faults. I think its comforting to say this is teething issues but they have been in use in one form or another for over 18 months now so one has to wonder.

    I think whatever the case is with the diesels, for passengers sake AT must ensure they are maintained properly right up until they are withdrawn or the farce that has been happening over the last few weeks will continue. And better still the diesels are withdrawn once the EMU issues are sorted and not before otherwise once its entirely electric there is nothing to fall back on..

    1. How many of the faults that occur, for which the TM tells the EMU users what the fault is, are in fact the cause and thus correct?

      Who is to say that the “door faults” are in fact door faults and not some other issue and that the TM is either taking the lazy way out and saying “door fault” or is simply stating what they think the issue is without knowing for sure?

      Yes the EMUs have been running on the network for some 18 months, but only in paying service for just under 12 months. A lot of the issues never surfaced (like trailer car doors/ramps) until they were in paying service.
      the problems affecting ETCS and such were also not showing up until revenue services and mixed running were happening.

      I think that “door fault” is becoming the de-facto excuse for EMUs like “track fault” is for Diesels.

      AT does track faults in the monthly reports, you can go February one and take a look at the faults reported with the trains in February and see for yourself.

    2. The only information/knowledge I have on the EMU’s comes from comments from various people including drivers.

      On the diesels it’s all very well to say that they should be maintained properly right up until they’re withdrawn but there are cost implications with that and on a financially constrained system like we have difficult decisions need to be made e.g. do you do a $10 patch job that might fail again or do you do properly maintain it for $1,000 that will solve the problem for 2 years (not actual figures). The $10 patch job might mean that once the diesels are withdrawn there’s enough money to run extra services compared to what would have happened otherwise. Point is it’s a balancing act.

      1. I thought some of the diesels were going to be used for Pukekohe. Will this service be cancelled because there are no units in a usable condition? The others were to be sold. Does the lack of maintenance mean they are only worth scrap metal value?

        1. They are meant to be refurbishing some of the ADLs (DMUs) to use on the Pukekohe service. I imagine the rest will be sold/scrapped. The locos on the SA sets will go back to Kiwirail who own them (leased to AT) while the carriages will presumably be sold.

  7. What annoys me is that before this piece in the Herald AT were blaming “aging diesels” when they knew damned well is was their lovely shiny new toys that were (mainly) at fault.

    It would be nice if AT told the truth just once.

    1. Hmm, okay Chris, I believe you’d know the low-down on faults at least on the KR side of the ledger.

      But since we don’t actually have any EMU’s running out west, and issues with Western line trains seem to be a large chunk of the reported issues of late, particularly with “too small a train to carry the train passengers” – how does that situation with Western line trains square with your assertion its mostly EMUs causing issues?

      Note: Broken down diesels that hold up a slew of trains – EMUs or otherwise really don’t count as multiple faults – the root cause is the same single event, even if the knock on effect can be huge though.

      And also, since the Eastern line stopped having Diesels on it late last year, that should have freed up some Southern line trains to run on the Western line too but hasn’t.
      And the obvious reason for that is the diesel locos that haul those SA’s (or the SA’s carriages themselves) are also breaking down a lot too.

    2. Southern line EMU’s run really nice, haven’t had any trouble on them in terms of reliability etc.

      Weekdays only as per the timetable below.

      BRT-PKA 1038-1130
      PKA-BRT 1136-1232
      BRT-PKA 1238-1330
      PKA-BRT 1336-1432

  8. At the time the EMUs were introduced the Southern timetable went to 10 minute frequency from 15 minutes shared South and East so there were no spare diesels anyway.

  9. Meanwhile, we had a ‘track fault’ this morning, disrupting the entire network. Who knows what that was about… (all I know is that my sister was late to work and has completely lost faith in the railway system).

    1. I just missed being caught in that delay. Got the train from Morningside just before 7am, ended up with a slightly longer than usual delay at Newmarket (no explanation given) then a very slow crawl down the Britomart slope to a berth (with a very cursory explanation given). Only when I got to Britomart did I hear what happened.

      Much worse for others – I had a colleague whose train was 20 minutes late, then when it arrived was jam packed, forcing him to wait again. He got in about 40 minutes later than he was hoping.

      It starts to get beyond a mere annoyance when you have a job that is built around time-critical events that cannot be moved or delayed, and you feel like you’re taking your employment in your hands every time you entrust Transdev to get you somewhere on time.

      1. huh a genuine track fault. What a turn up.

        Seems AT are not the only people “who don’t test stuff properly” before they let it loose on the fare paying public eh?

        Or did an EMU passing over it somehow shoot a bolt of electricity in to as it passed causing it to fail prematurely?

  10. It’s not even a peak time thing anymore. I was just late leaving Britomart after hearing a driver telling another that it was not good. Something about losing regen constantly. The train surged a good part of the way from Britomart to Panmure. Maybe they have deployed a couple of fixes that haven’t worked so well. I want to be positive and say that it’s getting better but really am starting to lose the faith.

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