If you haven’t already make sure you submit of AT’s simplified fare proposal. It’s a nice, quick and easy form to fill in so doesn’t take long. I’ve talked about it here and in general I think the changes are good although there are a few little improvements I think are needed.
I think the boundaries suggested are good although the overlap areas need to be larger to help address the issue of short trips over a boundary being very expensive. Another option – although one that is likely to be more complex to explain is a short distance fare.
I think the standard HOP fares proposed are good and will see prices reduce for most people which is a pleasant surprise. Public Transport getting cheaper and more useful is bound to see huge increases in usage.
I think more work is needed on the pass options for which AT say one will be available. This is ok for the likes of myself who travels on PT a lot and over long distances but the changes work against those who only do shorter trips. In addition I’m disappointed that the monthly pass is going up in price when almost all other fare options are decreasing.
I like how AT have said that in the future they will move to daily and weekly caps however again I’m concerned the same issue will exist of the cap being very high and only benefiting a few people. AT say they are also planning a Family Weekend pass which is good.
I would also like to see more done to integrate ferries into the fare structure. I realise AT are a bit hamstrung in this due to Fullers running the Devonport, Stanley Bay and Waiheke services commercially however as a monthly pass user I find it absurd that I can take unlimited trips on buses and trains but that it doesn’t cover me if I want to use a ferry – which is the option I have if I want to go home via the city with my bike.
So if you haven’t already go to the AT site and fill in the form to give your feedback. It closes at 4pm today.
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I agree the ferry issue is absurd. It will cost me $5 to take 3 buses from Hobsonville Point to Newmarket (3 fare stages). But it will cost me $11.60 to take 2 buses (one at each end, $1.80 each) and a ferry ($8) to travel the same journey.
I would love to see a better option for visitors to the city. Shall I keep a set of spare HOP cards for the times when family visit? The cost of the day pass implies many journeys – far too much say for one AB fare to the city and back. I would also love to see seniors encouraged to get HOP cards, rather rely on gold cards and tickets as must of us do. Have submitted these things…
yes you should have a spare HOP card for visitors. I have 3 already :).
Bother. I travel from Mt Albert to the Hibiscus Coast every weekday and with this plan it would be cheaper (less zones) to go via West Auckland rather than more directly through the North Shore. But in the scheme of things I think this plan is awesome – perhaps more overlap between zones is needed though.
It’s naff that the zone doesn’t extend as far east it does South, and that Orakei is considered outside the Central Zone despite being the first one on the line.
Someone else has already made this point on a previous post, but I find the reasons for not including ferries to be questionable. Sure, Fullers can have all sorts of commercial agreements in place. But there’s no reason apart from increased cost that AT can’t include ferries in any monthly passes, say, and simply pass the same amount onto Fullers for each ferry journey that they would under the existing HOP fares.
It is AT that operate the HOP system, not Fullers. All Fullers require, presumably, is to have a certain fare per trip credited to them. Whatever arrangements – weekly passes, monthly passes, discounts etc that AT make with the end customers around how this is funded is nothing to do with Fullers.
Or AT could just grow a pair and negotiate with Fullers. I’m sure they have enough carrots and sticks at their disposal if they used their imagination.
Agreed 100% Nick – be sure to say that in your feedback to AT!
The problem there is that the ferries are much more expensive. Take devonport to city for example. The ferry costs $4.40 on Hop. Under the fare system that would be a two zone trip, $3.30.
So with your reimbursement scheme AT would go from not subsidising the route at all to losing $1.10 on every Devonport ferry trip made… and that doesn’t even allow any revenue for the use buses before and after.
Its clear that any inclusion means renegotiating the whole ferry arrangement, there is no simple ‘just pay them back’ answer unfortunately.
It just seems frustrating that there isn’t some middle ground that can be found. There’s several different levers that can be pulled – AT subsidising the cost to some extent, increasing the fare for those zones slightly, tinkering with the zone boundaries in some way to result in a somewhat higher fare for those trips most suited to ferry use, and most obviously negotiating a reduced journey cost with Fullers. Through some combination of these I’m sure we could get a solution. But instead we get “can’t do it. Too hard”
If you read the consultation materials it sounds like they haven’t just given up:
“Ferries are not included as part of the 3 leg journey. Auckland Transport will continue to work with ferry operators with a view to extending the new system to ferry travel as soon as possible. “
Nick R that is just the same as the 50% fare recovery that buses and trains aim for, so I don’t see any problem with it.
One monthly pass designed only for those who travel from the furthest edges of the city will drastically limit take up of the passes, and ensure people choose to drive outside of their daily commute.
Are there any examples of cities who have a zonal pass system, and then offer daily/weekly/monthly/yearly passes only for the most expensive all-zones variety?
Using London as an example of a city with zonal pass system you choose which zones you want on your weekly/monthly pass (ie zone 1, zone 1+2, zone 2, zone 2+3, zone 1-3, etc). They also apply these zones to daily caps on the Oyster Card so there is a daily cap for zone 1, zone 1+2, zone 2, zone 2+3, zone 1-3, etc.
I want a 2 zone monthly pass. Happy for any trips over 2 zones to be charged the HOP price. I’m even willing to elect the 2 zones it applies too.
My feedback as per survey/submission. . .
I think there should be a monthly capped rate and an annual pass / capped rate.
Monthly passes should also be available to benefit customers in the current 2 stage zone.
Signing up to a Direct Debit system to allow for a continued monthly payment would be so much easier to self manage. Each time you are asking customers to manually top up is another chance for them to stop using PT – think about Easy Pay approach for other consumer products like phone, power, rates.
I am concerned about the monthly pass going up, as this seems like the most loyal group – shouldn’t we be incentivising this as the ultimate customer end point?
I would like to see term or annual passes made available to school and tertiary students. These are our future of PT, so if we convert them early then this will be much easier than trying when they get their first job and already have a car.
It would also be ideal to have a low flat fare to school students to significantly increase patronage and reduce congestion in the key morning peak e.g. 50 cents in Perth irrespective of distance. Suggest working at $1 for Akld which aligns closely with the average fare revenue per customer trip.
Why have regions like they do, such as Lower North Shore and Isthmus, or Manukau North and Waitakere?
They should simplify things by combining them for example put a ring around lower north shore and isthmus and calling it Zone 1. There’s no advantage in splitting the zones geographically. Zone 1 plus Manukau North, Waitakere and Upper North Shore equals Zone 2. Another concentric ring, the way they do it in Perth and elsewhere.
I believe simplicity would be improved with this small change.
This is my suggestion, seems to be the same as what you are saying.
Yeah, I like your proposal Nick. How do we get that into the submission?
I described it in my submission, but there doesn’t seem to be a way to attach pictures at all.
I copied a link in to your comment. Maybe it’ll work.
Very sensible and easily understood. Why can’t the council ‘experts’ think as simply?
Interesting, but some flaws: for example a 40km trip from Titirangi to Long Bay across upper harbour would be 1 zone fare, Whereas a 5km trip from Mt Eden to Mt Albert would be two zones. Doesn’t seem entirely fair.
Is such a trip possible without going into another zone for a transfer?
That’s not a flaw, it’s an intentional feature: all true crosstown trips are only a one zone fare, and trips that go radially via the centre are priced higher. It’s kind of a two in one concept, radial trips are priced roughly by distance (ie charge people full price from high value, high cost to provide trips they are willing to pay for), while crosstown trips and trips around your local area (low cost, low value trips people aren’t so willing to do by public transport) are effectively a cheap flat fare. Best of both worlds perhaps?
So Mt Eden to Mt Albert would be one zone if you went on the direct crosstown bus, or two if you went into the city to connect out again. Likewise Titirangi to Long Bay would be one zone if you took the crosstown route across the upper harbour (best of luck to you good sir), but three zones if you went into town then out the other side.
That’s a concept that hadn’t occurred to me and should increase patronage as well as giving more incentive to leave the car at home.
re Weekly caps
TransLink in SE Queensland runs a variation whereby the user pays for the first 9 journeys each week (Mon – Sun), and every subsequent journey is then free until the end of the week. This has the advantage that the reward is for regular usage, and not for reaching an arbitrary value threshold.
…but it also means some long distance commuters spend their Monday lunchtime making eight very short trips around the city to get a whole week of commuting for a few dollars. Our system should be better as it could calculate those same weekly caps, but within the zones so your cap is relative to what you do personally.
very few people do that
Every time restrictions get imposed, it makes things more complicated for punters. Who cares if someone occasionally has 8 trips for the price of 1? Isn’t the bonus for us all that those trips are on PT and not by car? The number of people who would do more than simple daily commutes would be small, and so long as they are all on PT it’s money well spent. The simpler the system is to understand and the less restrictions, the bigger the take-up. Make it hard to understand and people will simply get annoyed and give up.
The Sydney system is similar, 8 journeys, but they get around the lots of short trips by having a 1 hour transfer window, so you might get a third trip in during a lunch time, but not 5 or 6 extra ones.
I think the system needs to be simple enough that it can be fully explained as a graphic on an A4 piece of paper or poster.
True but people still find a way round that too as four trips is the maximum for a journey (in addition to the one hour transfer window).
http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/opal-card-shuttle-sydney-light-rail-stops-in-pyrmont-help-commuters-beat-the-system-20150415-1mk2r1.html
Though unlike Sydney there are no such places in Auckland where it would be reasonable to walk between two tag posts the required 27 times.
But Dion, do we really care if someone gets an occasional ‘freebie’? Isn’t it better they use PT than make those trips by car or taxi? Make it easier, not harder. Get a quicker takeup by punters. That’s the goal surely?
Hi Alan W, that’s good out-of-the-box thinking that will encourage users all week, and not just for their work commute. The carrot approach is so much more attractive. Love it.
How will pricing work when you pass through another zone within a journey that starts and ends in the same zone? I.e., will a train trip from Avondale to Penrose be 1, 2 or 3 zones?
It’s based on how many different zones you pass through. So two if you go via the city, or one of you go direct crosstown. Passing through a zone counts, going back into the same zone again doesn’t.
One question in my mind is how travelling through zones will work. I’m in Kingsland, so going from here to New Lynn is the same as here to Britomart on the train. Awesome!
But, if I go from Kingsland to Greenlane, does it pick that up as two zones since I’m going through Mt Eden and Grafton? If so, it sends me from here to Mt Albert, get the Outer Link to Newmarket, then onto Greenlane in order to totally be in the isthmus zone. Otherwise my transport costs potentially double by only making the one transfer. Seems counter-intuitive to me if that’s the case, clarification would be nice.
I’m pretty sure that if you don’t actually tap off or on in that city zone then you won’t get charged for that as you are just transiting through. Would be different on a bus though probably if you changed bus.
AT says the number of zones you travel through is counted, so under that scenario, you’d pay for 2 zones (Isthmus zone and inner city zone).
However, if you got only buses, you’d pay 1 zone fare only provided you only took up to 3 buses and/or trains in the zone all within 2 hours.
Having said that the system is supposed to calculate the cheapest route you could get there and charge accordingly, so that should mean the train is charged like the buses would be.
Confused? Yeah me too, and their examples all go into the CBD or 1 example goes across zone by bus. None of the boundary cases are explained well.
Except how Orakei station users will pay twice what they do now.
So different modes or routes between the same two points will have different fares? Doesn’t that go against the point of integrated fares?
Nothing to do with modes, but yes routes. If you use a route that goes through the city centre it can cost one zone more that if you went direct. That make sense as citybound routes are the most crowded and the most expensive, while crosstown tends to be underutilised.
Good that you have the option of a cheaper crosstown route.
yeah I think Geoff’s got a point here: Should the fare not just be based the zone where you tag on and off? That is the definition of integrated fares that AT promoted in their video a while back. I think they even explicitly said “you pay the same fare for a journey no matter what path you take”.
Rather than zones entered? The latter seems arbitrary and may be defined by route alignments that are beyond users control.
agree, not only you have to know where the bus is going but also all the stops it’s going through. Dumb as. AT are muppets.
Which is dumb as there’s no stops on that line but the one heading West has three stops within the Central Zone.
I submitted that the Central Zone should extend to Mission Bay and that there were effectively no residential areas east of Britomart in the Central zone while there were only two ‘mainland’ suburbs in the outer Isthmus zone to the West. Extending the Central Zone to Mission Bay makes that slightly more symmetrical and actually captures some residents east of Parnell, which seems fair considering how far south the Central zone extends. It doesn’t even make sense from a distance travelled aspect either, as Ngapipi Road is the cut-off point, which is under 4km from Britomart (in effectively a straight line with few stops), while Mt Eden seems to be in-zone. So you can’t justify it by distance travelled or area within the zone or that the area serves an equal number of residents in any direction or the time taken to complete a journey. The shore is literally on a different coastline, but this seems pretty arbitrary for the city side of the Harbour Bridge.
The other benefit of extending it to Mission Bay is that it brings Mission Bay, Kelly T’s and Bastion Point to within the Central zone, and they tend to be places people want to go and use PT to get to already. I know it involves acknowledging the waterfront exists to the east beyond the Ferry Building and the Council isn’t very good at that, but extending out to Mission Bay and bringing in St Johns, Remmers and Greenlane would help drive public transport in areas with some pretty congested streets and that you would associate with SOVs.
Do these zones apply to HOP users as well?
Surely HOP can charge based on distance travelled, eg 20c per KM, which is fare and easy for all.
Why does some invisible zone boundary matter?
I understand when you buy a paper ticket (in advance, using cash) that the zones will simplify things for you. I don’t like how short Zone B trips involving bus changes in Zone A (newton) will now be more expensive. There are very few crosstown options currently.
yes distance based fares would seem to be simpler.
How about, super simple, regardless of distance, each time you used your HOP, $2 was deducted? Super simple. Sure longer distance users would get a bargain, but the more trips / patronage (seeing as PT is heavily subsidized anyway) the bigger, quicker benefit to the city overall in all aspects? Shorter trip users would not complain about $2, and so easily sold to punters and understood by all. Very easy to police, no ‘signoff’ required. Everytime you hop on PT, bingo, $2 deduction. Tourists would love the simplicity too. Easier to budget for within families.
Yes this is how it works in London for busses, one flat fare. But people don’t often take long distance busses there, rather the bus trip is just to their local shops or as a feeder to the nearest rail/tube station, where you transfer and pay a further zonal fare. I don’t think you can ignore the costs of different length trips and just have one flat fare, the system has to be affordable for the council.
Hi Dan, being heavily subsidized currently, with the goal being increased patronage, why don’t we ‘go-for-broke’ and get the numbers up fast and then the government, any government, would have to pay attention and accept that Auckland and Aucklanders are serious about PT. Then more good things can happen. As with all start up businesses (and PT can be considered so in this context) let’s get a massive customer base as quickly as possible and then fiddle with the charging model. But for now, during the growth phase let’s just keep it simple and make it grow?.
What venture capalists did you have in mind to fund the network while you grow the customer base and think about how to make them pay?
I proposed the above idea primarily because all the above discussion is over ‘zones’. This idea would resolve any zoning issues as effectively there would be no zones, just trips. The costly administrative overhead would be reduced substantially. Only other thing to sort would be auto top-ups from bank accounts which is the next area of angst.
Having recently used UTA (Utah) system where the fares are like that I can say that it was a very easy way to do it and the vending machines were ideal in that there was one at each end of the train platforms and the buses were good fro the same ticket.