We learned the other day the patronage results for rail in June, now we have them for all modes and once again they are extremely good – helped a little bit by there being an extra business day compared to June last year. The results are also significant as June is the end of the financial year so the results are what are compared against targets and compared against other metrics.
For the 12 months to the end of June, patronage was 79.25 million trips which is up 9.5% on the 2014 result. That’s an increase in almost 7 million trips over the course of a year and given the strong weekday growth probably represents around an extra 30,000 trips being taken each working day. When you think of it this way it’s not surprising that so many trains and buses have been full to the point of leaving people behind. The changes for individual modes were:
- Bus (excluding Northern Express) – 57 million trips, up 6.6%
- Northern Express – 2.8 million trips, up 17.2%
- Rail – 13.9 million trips, up 21.7%
- Ferry – 5.5 million trips, up 8.3%
As you can see from the numbers above the Rapid Transport Network (rail and busway) continue to shine with stunning levels of growth once again highlighting that investing in frequent and high quality services is really pays off. And of course the growth is likely to continue strongly following the roll-out of the electric trains on Monday – which should really help drive up patronage – and the Northern Busway which is about to get a capacity and free advertising) upgrade in the form of new double-decker buses which should improve (the new network for most parts of Auckland doesn’t start rolling out till next year).
The results meant that AT smashed it’s patronage targets for the year – although in fairness the Council had agreed to lower them to stupidly low levels. The Long Term Plan sees some much rougher targets
And here’s an update as to how rail patronage is tracking vs the 20 million trip target the government set back in 2013
The patronage increases along with the roll-out of the electric trains on the rail network are clearly having an impact on subsidies with the per passenger kilometre figures continuing to fall.
Not everything is good news though. On the rail network the key stats of punctuality and reliability are some of the worst I can remember seeing. If such poor outcomes continue it must surely start having an impact on patronage at some point.
Things are a bit brighter for buses with results improving since AT started using actual data to monitor where buses where – as opposed to AT being provided data from the operators. While they might be much smaller than the other companies, Urban Express are out performing them on these stats.
Overall it’s been a pretty good year for patronage growth in Auckland. Let’s hope that the same thing happens again this new financial year and that AT and the bus companies have the ability to respond to the capacity needed
Processing...
Matt do you know whether the subsidy graph is in real or nominal dollars? If its the latter then the drop in subsidy per kn is even greater than shown here due to inflation. Either way its definitely tracking in right direction and with various cost saving measures in the pipeline, as well as ongoing patronage growth, the efficiency of aucklands pt network is heading in a very positive direction.
Not sure but if I had to guess I’d say it was in nominal dollars
CPI over those 2 years was 1.9%. However, CPI Petrol dropped 4.8%, so the price movement for AT’s costs would have been even less than the 1.9% (assuming they weren’t slammed for RUCs or suchlike).
Ummm Matt that is the May punctuality
Sure you dont want this one: https://www.scribd.com/doc/271803450/AT-Rail-Performance-Poster-June-2015
Not sure what happened there. Updated
All good
What I find fascinating is that the Northern Express has 2.8m passengers and it is only a single busway – the rail lines are similar. Seeing those numbers it makes me almost want to cry when it is so hard to get something similar for the North Western motorway. I know I might be preaching to the choir here but surely building a busway along the North Western will have the greatest effect on reducing congestion and moving persons.
I think the MOT, NZTA, AT & Co need to focus on how many persons they are moving rather than how many cars they are moving. If they abandoned car flow then we would be able to compare how persons that each mode actually transports.
No, the NZTA know what’s best for Auckland. Like they know what’s best for Wellington.
If it was good, they would have built it.
NZTA are building what WCC and ARC asked them to build.
“NZTA are building what WCC and ARC asked them to build” – not quite: NZTA says what it wants to build and bullies councils into agreement (they don’t have that much choice, since NZTA controls all major expenditure).
No I think that is, or rather was, fair.
Back when the western ring route was being planned Waitakere City and the ARC were very focused on getting the rail system sorted as rapid transit for the west and didn’t want a busway as that was seen as confusing the issue and competing for funds. To their credit we are shaping up with an excellent rail system, but it does seem like a huge missed opportunity.
Also I wonder just how much growth was planned in the Northwest ten years ago.
+1
I reckon AT will beat its targets and get to 50% reliability on the Eastern Line by the end of the year.
The Eastern Line stats don’t surprise me in that every train I’ve caught has been late leaving Britomart, and 5-10+ minutes late leaving from Glen Innes back to town. Hopefully some bedding in issues, but simple fixes like allowing pre-ordering of doors would easily save time at stations, so I’m hoping this will be a major focus for AT, it’s just not going to be good enough going forward if their stats for the EMUs continue to be worse than old trains that broke down constantly.
Looking at the Rail Trips vs Govt CRL target graph it looks like the 20million figure will be hit in Jan 2018 more than 2 years ahead of the May 2020 target. We have yet to see the boost from the fully electric fleet (particularly on the western line which should follow along the lines of growth on the southern when that went fully electric). The government is pretty stubborn however I think the timing of the next election (2017) might just be rails saving grace. It will be an election bribe by National if they win, otherwise it is policy for Labour to get started, while it is a policy for NZ First along with additional funding for it. Pretty sure the Greens have it as a policy too.
I wonder if perhaps Richard Prebble was being used as a way to soften up the right to the idea of an earlier start?
So if it was a policy then you could expect requests to be going out in 2017 for a start date in 2018 and completion by 2020/21 by which time it will be sorely needed.
In the meantime extra EMU’s will probably be needed to run more 6 car sets. Another option that has been raised here might be to order additional centre EMU units to created 4 car EMUs. These units are cheaper as they aren’t motorised and could cost-effectively add capacity quickly.
My sense of the Papakura station is that it is busier than ever after a lull in March, seems to have picked up again with people everywhere.
Even though our Diesels to Pukekohe were cancelled this morning “Train Fault”.
Be interesting to know exactly what the “train fault” was. I was waiting to catch a train on the western line a few weeks ago and an announcement came over the speaker that the train was cancelled owing to a crewing problem – in other words there wasn’t enough crew rostered on to cover a sickness or no-show. That announcement was soon changed to “train fault”, and the woman on the microphone was changed a little while later.
the second double decker went into service this week, I understand that there’s a third at Ritchies Chch depot. with some of the NEX buses up around 900,000 kms (but still going strong) the replacements will be welcome
Yes some are certainly starting to show their age. Will be interesting to see how passenger numbers go once most of the buses are double decker as they double the capacity. Lower operating costs per passenger too since still just 1 driver for more passengers will bring that PT subsidy figure down too.
Thought tgat must have been the case as I saw two soutgbound less than half an hour apart yesterday morning
It looks reasonable to expect rail numbers to continue this stellar growth as the main line with longest EMU experience, the eastern, is a whopping 43% for the year compared to the last one to convert, the western’s 14%. So we should expect the ‘sparks effect’ to continue on the southern and western over the year ahead. Then as the western goes to ten minute frequencies early next year (I believe) that should add further growth.
Then the roll out of the New Bus Network, with its focus on interconnection between modes over 2016-17, and fare integration… Capacity at peaks on both bus and rail and stations looks like being the only cap on this for the rest of this decade.
CRL clearly urgent.
How will AT manage a system with twice the passengers and added complexity? There’s a lot of work to be done before we’re ready for the CRL.
Good point. If they can’t manage the service side of things competently now, it will get very messy indeed when patronage soars.
Can i suggest not handing the operations over to Serco might be a good start…?
Not if AT manage the contract as well as Corrections has ..
I would normally agree with you, but… with the right partner they run the most punctual and popular rail franchise in the UK. Weird but true. Maybe we just need to ensure they keep the Dutch partner and give them a 25 year franchise.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merseyrail#Performance
Given the performance figures above…
How many managers have been sacked?
Amazing but not unexpected that half of all growth is on rtn. Bring on the se, nw busways, crl and sw rapid transit
Those performance stats are horrific. Anything below 90% is substandard. Heads should roll if this doesn’t improve this year.
I just hope their ‘fix’ for this isn’t to slow down the timetable even more
They will be very tempted to lengthen trip times but it should not be accepted by the public. Those EMU’s are very capable quick machines without the trainer wheel control system fitted.
The Wairarapa Line got 67 percent in June, and that’s known to be about as punctual as a doctor. What is the Eastern Line playing at?
Wow those Train performance stat’s are truly woeful. The Eastern line that has been solely EMU since December is very concerning. I don’t think Onehunga has ever been that bad either. It was always genuinely reliable as in correctly on time when DMU’s were in service there and even more galling. that was with shorter trip times!
It will be the combination of the slow doors AT opted for, the Nana like ETCS,, too many trains for the junctions, Britomart and as a sum total unrealistic trip times.
Only fix for the rail based congestion now and when the new networks rollout will be more EMUs to make all of the EMUs at peak 6 cars (buy more EMUs?).
Then beyond that point (pre-CRL) suggest AT might like to dust off the idea of buying and adding additional unpowered trailer cars to the existing 3 car EMU “sets” to make “stretch” 7 car EMUs – once they sort out the Dwell times on the door/ramps on those first.
As NZIER says in todays Herald – these are all “nice problems to have” and a lot of NZ cities would love to have these issues over the ones they have now – but even so its not nice for those who actually use the service and who have to bear the brunt of the growing pains right now.
7 Car trains will not fit in Britomart. That isn’t possible.
They will in a year or so once the tunnels on the 2 outer platforms are extended westwards.
A year or so? More like 8 years before the CRL is running and then, what about the other several dozen platforms on the network? What about all the depot spaces that are designed to store multiples of 3 cars? What about the platform capacity issues already evident at Britomart? What about the spacing between signals and points set to accommodate 6 cars max? What about the structural and control system design intended for 3 car sets? It’s not Lego. You can’t just mix and match to suit the latest pipedream.
Its not a pipe dream, its a reality AT and KR will have to address and not in 8 years when the 6 cars are full, CRL is not open and the trains are all groaning at the seams and the frequency can’t be increased..
As for your other issues, well thats just poor design by KR to assume only trains this big will ever use this track. And these trains ARE designed to clipped together like lego, especially the unpowered trailer car.
As for any platform overhang from longer trains – you don’t open those doors at the cab ends – you walk down the inside of the train to the next door – either in the end carriage or the one adjacent carriage and use its door.
See these EMUs have a wonderful design feature which means you can walk from one carriage to the next easily.
They don’t have to fit in. The last carriage people can walk through to the next one to exit. Happens overseas all the time.
I cant understand how the operators dont achieve 100% reliability – that is totally in their control. They should have back up staff to cover sickness and other unexpected absence. Simply no excuse not to be running EVERY service,
I think they have been putting staff through training on the new trains without recruiting more to cover their shifts. Presumably that was with the approval of their contract manager, AT. Which is where the accountability should lie if things continue.
The eastern line feels less busy over the last 2 weeks; less pressure on parking at the stations. I drove into Panmure this morning at 7:00am and the car park was less than half full.
Lots of space on the train too, which bizarrely was only 3 minutes late, best performance in a month.
Be interesting to see the next months numbers.
Last two weeks was school holidays which would have been a factor.
What is the difference between reliability and punctuality on the last graph?
Reliability is whether the train made it to it’s destination at all. Punctuality is whether those that did make it, made it on time i.e. within 5 minutes of when it was meant to be there.
Is there a measurement for how many trains actually stopped at all of the stations that they were supposed to stop at en route?
Pukekohe commuters have been filling up our the inbox at the Public Transport Users Association. Main issues are that train cancellations are leaving passengers stuck for long periods of time at Papakura. Buses eventually turning up but passengers now spending on average an extra hour+ in travel time compared to last week.
We’ll be watching the amazing abilities of Auckland Transport and Transdev over the next couple of months. We hope the disruptions are sorted out quickly, but hope is all we have left. The PTUA will hold a public meeting in Pukekohe if these issues are not rectified within the next month or so.
We are encouraging all disgruntled passengers to complain to their MP for an extension of electrification to Pukekohe. If NZTA come to the party with the $110 million then electrification can be extended through to Pukekohe.
Next time you catch a train to Pukekohe, take a look out the window as you pass under the motorway overbridges at Drury. See how one of those bridges is a lot lower than the other? That’s why there’s no electrification to Pukekohe. You should be petitioning NZTA to hurry up and replace that bridge if you’re serious about getting wires beyond Drury. Of course the bridge isn’t due to be replaced for quite a few years, and would be astoundingly expensive and disruptive to do, so it is just not going to happen early. All the relevant parties already know this, hence their apparent inaction.
There are other factors too. 100 odd million can be deployed more effectively elsewhere at this point than for the relatively small numbers travelling from Pukekohe. Of course it would be ideal to have this stretch completed and the transfer eliminated, and it will happen, but because of the multiple decades of near zero investment in all PT systems in Auckland there are just so many things to improve. And many smaller things will have a much bigger impact for more people.
Probably the best thing is to time it with the addition of intermediate stations at Drury etc as the SHAs start to develop along the line. Wouldn’t it be great to actually have the service coincide with development for once, rather than follow? Imagine those working on them having the option of arriving by train…? What a real revolution that would be. That still could occur with the diesel service, of course, so perhaps, depending on the timing of those projects, it might be clever to lobby for the intermediate stations to be funded first (electric ready of course)? That would be cheaper and a step towards electrification, and would grow pax, albeit slowly at first.
Take a leaf from the m’way lobby; break up a big capex cost into parts and secure each in turn to make it more palatable and possible.
Yes, agree there are plenty of things we need to invest in to bring Auckland pt upto a standard where it should be. However, this Govt can thrown good money after bad on roading projects, so it would be good to get them to throw a bit more at electrification extensions.
However, with some intrigue I almost see you are thinking the same as the Public Transport Users Association and the case of getting Nor West Auckland trains extended to Huapai with your lines “Wouldn’t it be great to actually have the service coincide with development for once, rather than follow? Imagine those working on them having the option of arriving by train…? What a real revolution that would be. That still could occur with the diesel service, of course….” Given the Huapai-Kumeu developments underway, or almost about to start and more SHA’s in the pipeline your thoughts make complete sense. And the railway to Huapai is the only congestion free way to get there now or in the next 10+ years.
But Jon aren’t you complaining above about a train-train transfer at Papakura which is exactly what you propose at Swanson?
In short I don’t really see these corridors as similar. The train south is direct to major attractors, especially the Centre City, and does have very serious growth planned along its route as well as current demand (a population the size of Hamilton is planned down there!). It is clear that the rural area around Huapai is best served by a more frequent bus service for the foreseeable future. This may not be for ever, but to subsidise an infrequent rail service there now is crazy however you do the math.
It is very hard for a high capacity mode like heavy rail to be optimised for rural or semi rural catchments, especially if the route is indirect, requires a transfer, and is using high cost clapped-out kit. Just cos a line exists it doesn’t mean we should automatically serve it. Especially when we are struggling to serve denser existing areas with sufficient frequency, capacity, and adequate stations…
No, Patrick, there are two issues about Pukekohe:
1) Auckland Transport needs to prove it is a professional organisation that can effectively and efficiently operate trains. The shuttle will work as an interim measure ONLY IF Auckland Transport can ensure the trains actually meet each other. We don’t want passengers stranded at Papakura.
2) Electrification is ready to go to Pukekohe ONLY IF the Govt comes to the party and provides $110 million. It has shown it can willy nilly find ways to borrow for motorway interchanges so we’d like the same for electrification.
While it is easy from an armchair to say the buses are suitable for Huapai passengers, they are not! No bikes can be carried, prams cannot be transported. The Western bus timetables even recently became an additional 10 minutes longer. Rail is reliable because it congestion free( if Akl Transport can manage the trains).At our public meeting people told us, they won’t get out of a car for the very,very slow and infrequent buses, but they will for a train which even with a transfer at Swanson will be quicker than driving at peak times and almost comparable off peak. Build it and they will come.
Jon I get you’ve got this angry man approach but I really don’t think there’s any need for you to lecture me, especially with the term ‘congestion free’.
And I’m sorry but your various claims about how ghastly buses are instead of incredibly expensive to operate, infrequent, and empty trains on an indirect shuttle route are just prejudice. Hey I would always prefer to take a train over a bus if all things were equal, but out on the fringes this can just never be the case. For the same cost to serve the small catchment out there they could pretty much be picked up by limos. So vehicle preference without understanding cost just isn’t relevant. The fact remains that heavy rail requires population and density; it just can’t be justified otherwise. It really is romantic to to dedicate yourself to lobbying for heavy rail services to dispersed rural communities. But I love a romantic so I have no wish in trying to stop you, anyway, there’s room for every view, and it’s great to have your energy directed at improving PT in AKL. But perhaps you could restrain yourself from attacking those of us working for more realistic outcomes in the exciting and at last fast improving Auckland. Especially on our own forum.
Build (useless things) and (fiscally conservative politicians) will come (to slash your budget).
Just wondering if anyone has noticed an improvement since 20 July? Most of the service I have taken have been on time and some of them are early ( I have missed a couple of trains because they r 2 minutes early). It might be just the luck of the draw but things do not seem as bad as they were in June.
Looking at the twitter feeds with all those stories of overcrowded buses and trains.. does AT record any train and bus performance stats that quantify overcrowding? 120 people on the platform at Ellerslie..??!!
From a customer’s perspective, a train that arrives full up is no different from one that doesn’t turn up at all. Actually it’s worse.. a full up train shows on the real time board.. you wait for it and you expect to get going. Then you get let down. Not good. Especially in the rain in winter. A cancelled train is generally flagged up in advance and you may choose to make other arrangements.
If the trains are like this now, a week after electric roll out, what’s it’s going to be like next year*? How are rail trips going to get from 14 to 20 million without more capacity?
There’s really only three options.. more trains or longer trains or faster trains.
Sure off peak is a huge opportunity but that doesn’t address the _problem_ ..the motorways are fine off peak.
*Any decision to buy more rolling stock now won’t dent the customer experience for a year.