As expected, Auckland Transport have announced public transport fares are set to rise.

Auckland Transport (AT) has completed its annual review of public transport fares which takes effect from 9 February 2020.

The outcome builds upon the direction given by Auckland Council’s Governing Body in May 2019, which approved:

  • free weekend public transport for five to 15 year olds (proposed by Mayor Phil Goff in his 2019/2020 budget)
  • the integration of fares for ferry trips into the bus and train network making it cheaper for ferry customers to use multi-mode journeys
  • a small general fare increase to contribute to additional costs resulting from both enhanced services as a result of increased patronage and inflationary cost pressures.

As a result of the latest review, free public transport for 5 to 15-year-olds over weekends will continue and there will be no changes for those travelling longer distances (5, 6, 7 and 8 zone trips). Ferry fare integration will start early this year.

There will be small increases to other fares to take account of operating cost increases (including inflation and the cost of diesel) which are outside of AT’s control, and the costs of providing more services.

Auckland Transport’s Executive General Manager Integrated Networks, Mark Lambert, says more than half of all fares have been kept at current levels, with others increasing by between 3 and 10 cents per passenger trip, to continue to support the exceptional growth in use of public transport in Auckland.

“Operating costs increasing through inflationary pressures on, for example, diesel, and the introduction of many new bus services, unfortunately can’t be completely absorbed, so we have had to introduce some slight fare increases,” says Mr Lambert.

“The fare changes do not cover the full cost of inflation with the balance covered by service efficiencies and AT’s own cost reductions, and funding increases from Auckland Council and the NZ Transport Agency.”

He says the changes have been kept at the lowest possible level so that public transport continues to remain a cheap and accessible option for Aucklanders.

“The cost of short trips on buses and trains in Auckland is still much cheaper than a number of Australian cities.”

Most changes are relatively small at 5 to 10 cents but that quickly adds up and means a daily commuter could end up paying approximately $25-50 more per year. This is particularly egregious at a time when we need to get as many people as we can out of cars and on to public transport as one of the tools to help address climate change.

As for saying that more than half of fares are unchanged, while that may be technically correct it’s a more than a bit disingenuous as many of them will be fares that very few people use. For example how many people have travelled the maximum 9-zones with HOP, which would require travelling from Franklin to Warkworth. As I understand it the 2-zone fares the most widely used followed by 1-zone and then 3-zone and all of these are seeing increases.

The simplified fare structure above was introduced in mid-2016 so I thought I would compare how prices have changed since then.

For the sake of time I’ve only included adult HOP fares – given 90% of trips are made using HOP. It also doesn’t show all HOP zones as the zones, only the most key ones and ferry fares. As you can see, the inner harbour (City Centre – Bayswater; Birkenhead; Northcote Point; Devonport; Stanley Bay), 2-zone and 4-zone fares have increased the most at over 40c over the 3.5 years since the zone structure was introduced. At the same time, trips from the mid harbour (City Centre – Half Moon Bay; West Harbour; Beach Haven; Hobsonville Point) are lower than at that time.

Of course some of you may notice one key adult fare missing from that list – Waiheke fares. Here’s a version with them included and as the song goes, “One of these things is not like the others…..”

Perhaps the most disappointing aspect to this is it comes not long after AT slashed a bunch of services so it’s now costing us more to get less service.

One aspect I think would be good for AT was if they were to provide more information about the cost pressures behind their decision. Stuff’s Todd Niall reports that the increase will cover $3.4 million out of a total cost increase of $15 million. But it’s not clear just how that $15 million is made up, for example it’s not clear how much it is related to ATs obsession with expensive peak buses.

Overall the increases are not surprising but are disappointing.

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84 comments

  1. How much of these rises is driven by the ongoing need to meet the firebox recovery ratio that was supposed to have been reviewed?
    It would have been clearer if AT also made clear how much they “saved” by cutting so many bus services recently and what alternatives they sought to avoid this. Instead they tout the enhanced services that these fare increases will support, the opposite is true, services are worse than when fares last increased.

  2. I do get that no one likes any price increase but I doubt $25-50 p.a. will reduce patronage much, if at all. We will just have to suck it up as alternatives are rising in price much faster (apart from active modes obviously).

    It could have been much worse I guess. Faced with capacity constraints many operators will raise fares precisely to discourage users figuring the increased fare will cover the small loss of custom.

        1. 500k trips on top of the 800k trips calculated to have been shifted from the last fare increases, in the context of the need for radical modeshift…

          … is significant.

          Add in that travelling by bus is seven times safer per km travelled than travelling by car, and these decisions are lethal.

    1. Maybe it won’t reduce patronage, but nor will it increase uptake. For people on the fence, PT already is perceived as expensive and unreliable, and this will not help them take that step to move out of their cars.

  3. “He says the changes have been kept at the lowest possible level so that public transport continues to remain a cheap and accessible option for Aucklanders.”

    Does Lambert really believe this? Surely the evidence is to the contrary – if there is a significant expected drop off in patronage because of a small increase in fares Economics 101 says it isn’t affordable (accessible) for all.

    Perhaps we should send Lambert PT fare schedules for European cities to explain what cheap PT looks like.

    1. Curious why you/they expect a drop-off in patronage, when Matt’s post on November ridership specifically stated that growth hadn’t been impacted by last year’s fare increases?

      1. Increased fares absolutely impacted the growth that would have occurred otherwise. There are many things that impact ridership. Fares are just one.

        There may not be an absolute drop in ridership _after_ these fares but there will be a reduction in ridership _due_ to these fare increases.

        1. Matt L they may have put the fares up to cover the wage increases for all the AT staff that sit around doing nothing .

  4. Yet park and ride remains free. This seems a classic case of pricing the thing we want more of, PT use, while keeping the thing we want less of, driving, free. Which is, to put it politely, backwards af.

    1. +1
      Really sad to see fares increasing almost annually.
      Surely pricing park and rides is something that HAS to be done sooner rather than later.
      Why isn’t there a ‘fairbox recovery’ system of 50% to cover the costs of providing for park and rides?

      One thing I recently discovered was when using a HOP card to tag on for myself, I also wanted to pay for a friend who didn’t have a HOP card. The driver said yes sure they can do that – But this just charges you the cash fare to your HOP balance – WTF?

      1. Isn’t that just inflation though? If they didn’t increase annually then they are actually decreasing annually after inflation.
        Agree though that park and rides should be charged for.

        1. Given the modeshift we need, Jimbo, actually decreasing annually after inflation is one of the levers we should be using.

        2. There is a 3 % increase in my zone, on top of a 5 % increase last year, that is significantly higher than inflation in the last few years.

        3. Although my fare is still 95c cheaper than it was before integrated ticketing and possibly even cheaper than 20 years ago!

        4. Mine cost $20 for a ten trip ticket in 2007 and now costs $35.50 for ten trips. I think if you used to have a three stage trip and it became a two zone trip with integrated ticketing then you are right, it is cheaper now.

    2. Except on Waiheke, where the park and ride is $6/day. Which I’d approve of if everywhere else was treated the same (why isn’t it?).

      1. Fraggle those that live east of Placemakers could park in the old supermarket carpark and it would only cost $1.95 perday which is the cost of the bus .

    3. I have always wondered why PNR is not the price of a zone far on the bus. In fact, it should be 50% more than that, in order to incentivize people to use feeder buses within the zone.

      Even at that rate, all day parking would be ridiculously cheap, being ridiculously subsidized.

  5. The cash price from Greenhithe to Massey University (in the same zone) is $7. Yes for real. You have to pay to cross the zone boundary so you can change buses. Then on the second bus you have to pay to cross back. The people who thought up this zone structure are arseholes.

    1. The only arsehole is the guy telling his daughter to pay a succession of cash fares on a system that uses a smartcard.

      Get a Hop and it will cost $2. You will make back the cost of the card in your first return trip.

      Send me your details and I’ll post you one of my spares for free if you like.

      1. I have visitors who come to stay to do short courses at Massey. They want to use the bus but I drive them because I know the pricks at AT will overcharge them for a bus trip within one zone.
        There is no way in hell you can possibly think this fare system is just or right. No reasonable person could possibly think you should pay $5 more for a one stage cash fare trip.
        I have a Hop card and so do my daughters. Every one else we drive and we pick them up again. So each one way bus trip gets replaced with a two-way car trip.
        The people who thought this up are incompetent arseholes (which of course is a subset of the set ‘arseholes’.

        1. Hi Miffy, we keep a Hop card at home for our guests. For the sake of (maybe) $10 per week for their trips around the City it is easy hospitality.

        2. So get a Hop.

          I’m amazed that you will host guests in your home and drive them back and forth every time they need to go somewhere… but won’t lend them a $10 card. There is definitely someone who is incompetent here.

        3. I guess the answer is get a hop and register it to Claude Balls. But it speaks volumes that any commenter would think charging a $5 premium for cash for a trip starting and finishing in the same zone is in any way justified.
          This situation occurred because the pricks who came up with the zone structure and the pricks who thought up the New Network didn’t talk to each other and didn’t even bother to consider the effects of each others work.
          They are and will remain a bunch of arseholes.

        4. You don’t have to register a hop if you don’t want to, it works fine either way.

          You can also add extra ones to your existing account. I have this with my spare that I lend to visitors.

          And the people who designed the fare zone structure were the same people who designed the new network. Both were designed specifically around integrated smart card ticketing. Cash fares were only ever intended to be a backup for single trips. If you are making a connection, get a hop. The fact that 94% of bus trips use the hop card illustrates that this works well.

        5. And let’s not even get started on the arseholes who designed the motorway system that destroyed the city.

        6. Or the arseholes that put a university campus in the arse end of Albany… or for that matter the arseholes that choose to live in a place like Greenhithe yet expect to have great public transport when it suits them.

        7. Gosh tempting to add in a few more examples. But to get back to the original point, without the colourful language:

          Cash fares higher than HOP fares provide a useful incentive to purchase a HOP card.

          Multiple-leg journey cash fares, however, are set so high compared to the multiple-leg journey HOP fares that they are punitive and counterproductive. People trying PT out who pay these fares won’t necessarily do their homework; they’ll just not repeat the trial. People who usually use a HOP but didn’t have it with them, and are on a limited budget, are left feeling grumpy.

          There are a couple of easy paper ticket solutions to allow multiple leg cash fares that wouldn’t have to take longer if AT could design some good posters to advise people.

          Miffy’s example seems pretty silly but I can’t be the only one to have heard many people complaining about how high the fares were when they decided to try the bus. This is a simple customer experience fail.

        8. Yes Heidi the idea of an incentive to use HOP is a good one and an idea that was readily accepted. But nobody ever intended the penalty for cash would be punitive as is the case I give. I don’t even think the people who designed the system intended there would be a $5 penalty added to a $2 fare, they just didn’t consider any trips other than those going to the CBD. Both the New Network and the zone structure were designed for trips that many people never make. They could easily fix this by having larger zones. If they wanted an efficient system they would base their prices on the opportunity cost to passengers rather than basing them on their own operating costs plus a margin. But AT don’t, won’t, can’t or just don’t give a rat’s arse.

  6. “The fare changes do not cover the full cost of inflation”: The most used fare, 2 zone, has increased by 2.9%, inflation is 1.5%.

    Although I do think it is a storm in a tea cup. An extra 10 cents is hardly going to make you drive into town and pay $20 for a car park. Maybe it will change off peak behaviour. Weren’t AT considering the possibility of off peak fares?

  7. The lack of parking space at the park and ride car parks is holding back even greater use of public transport. Better to charge a small fee for parking, if it means more room for cars, than to have those same cars driving all the way to work.

    1. This is faulty thinking, I’m afraid David. Feeder buses, and walking and cycling journeys to the station, are severely impacted by the park and rides around the stations. Only a minority of people park, but their parking impacts all the other users.

      The land use is also an enormous waste of money which should be going into sustainable transport improvements.

      Park and ride is important for people who need it, such as people whose usual schedule is thrown, who don’t have a feeder bus or who have mobility needs. The problem is, they can’t get a park because all the other people who could use the feeder buses, or who could park on a feeder bus route, or who could walk or cycle, are parking there. This is a huge subsidy to them.

    2. David, evidence indicates that around 2/3rds of people using a new park and ride previously took public transport for their whole trip. So for the most part, it’s not taking cars off the road, it’s taking people off buses and putting them into cars.

    3. At Albany Park n Ride represents a small percentage of people taking the bus. If they all stopped it wouldn’t actually make that big a difference. And then something that would actually add more passengers, like apartments, could be built on that space.

      However, I agree that if we have to have it, it should be charged for. At least $5 per day.

  8. The graph infers that the Waiheke adult HOP fare is increasing from $1.95 to $3.00. As the whole island is one zone surely this should be $2.00. Where is the $3.00 fare mentioned by AT?

    1. The graph is not the fares but how they’ve changed over time. So most fares have increased by 10-40 cents since mid-2016 but Waiheke ferries have increased by $3

      1. Matt L you forgot in your graph a spike in the christmas/newyear of 2018/19 of the $5.00 holiday fare increase . And my 10 ride ticket which I got last Feb went up in Dec by $3.00 to $153.00 for the ticket without them notifying the public that use them .

  9. In terms of fares, the more relevant price index is wages rather than consumer goods. Wages drive most of AT’s costs and also tend to define people’s ability to pay, more so than CPI. So when thinking about % changes in fares I’d suggest looking at WPI rather than CPI to understand the relative change. Typically WPI > CPI.

    Also, I’m a big fan of PT and I think climate change is a major issue. That said, I don’t really get the desire to link the two issues in the context of fares. The contribution of PT to reducing emissions seems fairly marginal for two reasons:
    — PT demand comprises many things, with only a smallish chunk diverted from car. When you lower fares, many trips are new (i.e. represent an increase in demand) while many others are diverted from non-car modes. Neither of these sources of demand will serve to lower emissions.
    — even where car trips *are* diverted to PT, this will free up road capacity that will induce extra car travel. So even if you get say x% of car trips on PT you’d expect to lose half of the emissions reductions due to additional demand for car travel induced by the mode shift.

    So, basically, I’d put the contribution of PT to lower emissions a long way down my list of ways to abate carbon emissions. It’s probably ridiculously expensive when you calculate $ / tonne CO2 etc.

    In contrast, the most effective way to reduce CO2 emissions from transport is to increase the costs of vehicle travel. That means uses road pricing, parking charges etc to reduce demand. Second best is probably investment in walking and cycling, although even is sensitive to the same issues noted above.

    1. I would argue the best bang for buck in reduction of transport CO2 would be to increase the costs of all CO2 emitting vehicle travel (including stinky diesel buses but not including electric cars/buses/trains). This is probably best captured in an additional fuel tax (including on diesel).
      As this would probably not politically acceptable, the next best bang for buck is probably electric car subsidies.

      1. We’re beyond stepping back from necessary action due to “political acceptability”. The communications has been so poor we haven’t even attempted what other cities are managing. We aren’t doing what we can do. We have to push the envelope.

        Yes, pricing. Also cheap measures of radical circulation improvements to keep traffic on arterials, making areas safe for radical modeshift to walking and cycling, which boosts PT use too. And road reallocation on the arterials to enable the space efficient modes to succeed.

        This is so apparent if you watch what other cities are doing. And AT is failing at it. The problem is that the same people who have been widening roads for decades are tasked with making these wholescale changes.

        The personnel involved are out of their depth and out of touch with what’s required. It’s a farce.

        1. So Auckland Council declares a climate emergency and does nothing. Diesel buses still make the downtown area the worst area for air pollution in Auckland. The government promises climate will be their “nuclear” moment but typically fail to deliver any real action.

          Today, the New York Times reports on moves around the world to offer free public transport. Around 100 cities in the world offer free public transit, the vast majority of them in Europe, especially France and Poland.

          The City Council in Worcester, Massachusetts’ second-largest city, expressed strong support last week for waiving fares for its buses, Larger experiments are underway in other parts of the country. The cities of Kansas City, Mo., and Olympia, Wash., both declared that their buses would become fare-free this year. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/14/us/free-public-transit.htm

        2. It would be interesting to see what the increases in their public transport budgets would be, and whether the money would have more effect if it was spent on targeted fare reductions and other improvements to wayfinding, services, pedestrian safety, etc.

          I think what is needed is an increase in budget. Free fares would also be nice, but most systems aren’t even set up to cope with the ridership that free fares would generate.

        3. AT and / or the MoT should look at what demand increase they would get from lower / no fares, coupled with analysis of where and when public transport projects would stack up economically (with an appropriately high shadow carbon price) to see whether fare reduction / increased PT patronage would provide a cost effective form of abatement.

          It will be interesting to see how the zero fare experiments overseas work out.

        4. “AT and / or the MoT should look at what demand increase they would get from lower / no fares”

          AT and the MoT should look at what ridership increase they could get with $250m more annual opex funding. I’ll bet my bottom dollar that free fares wouldn’t be the best use of that money. You could probably make every urban route in Auckland a 10 minute or better frequency with that much money.

      2. Actually the reason they are bringing in the vehicle emissions standards and will probably keep on tightening them is that even with a $100 carbon price in the Emissions Trading Scheme, the projected petrol price rise is something like only 28c per litre, so they don’t think they will get much of a response to petrol demand from the ETS. I think the cost of abatement from the vehicle standards is pretty low since there is the payback from reduced fuel consumption.

    2. Stu
      I agree that we have to look at this issue from an economic perspective, or in my case a business perspective as that as how I trained.
      Yes undoubtedly the cheapest way to reduce emissions is to get the user to pay more for carbon; by a road tax, fuel tax, congestion tax, or whatever. However this could well come at a political cost.

      I believe a better way is, as you increase costs you offer a cheaper alternative to vehicle transport, that is cheaper PT fares.

      There are cities who have managed car mode share almost totally by providing cheaper PT. I always look at Vienna because they write so much about their success and they do so in English. Over the years they have significantly reduced car mode share. Their target over the next five years is to reduce mode share by a further 7% to 20%. They have managed to decongest their roads. I accept that sometimes adding roads induces demand, but I struggle with the concept that this might always be so. Expensive, or no parking at the end of the journey, as you point out, might cause this not to be so. In Vienna very cheap fares seems to have achieved this -$700 approx for a yearly pass.

      I also want to say that while the provision of PT might be expensive, the provision of roads is hellishly more so. Nowhere is this demonstrated more so than the Northern Motorway extension. The extension is $700 million. For only $300 million we will get a busway that will probably carry the same volume as all the existing roads plus extension. Can we afford not to build PT?

      As much as I am very supportive of cycling and walking it is not the answer to reduce our car mode share from 82% to a level where emissions are greatly reduced.

        1. Sailor Boy, yes my comment was poor. I meant walking/biking would not be the largest part of the answer.
          Mode share in Vienna is car 29%, PT 38%, other 33%. However, unlike Vienna which is more compact I think Auckland will struggle in the near term to reach “other” at 33%. I would be delighted to be be proved wrong.
          For me Auckland should be investing heavily in PT and walking/ cycling and apart from “road renewal” road expenditure should be quickly tracking towards zero. That is of course not the same as no road expenditure because developers are providing that in new developments.

          https://www.wien.gv.at/english/administration/statistics/vienna-in-figures.html

  10. I’d love to see the ‘citylink’ hop fare used for all short (2-3km) trips as well. Currently using a bus for short trips (like to the local village/shops and back) seems to be really expensive.

  11. So much for the climate emergency. We should of seen fares come down. At least we have had ferry fare integration & kids free weekends introduced. Once again we have disconnected thinking.

  12. This keeps re-enforcing my belief, that all public transport functions is taken away from the regional councils and comes under a national public transport agency, that can deliver affordable, co-ordinated frequent public transport and a national ‘tap n travel’ payment/ticketing system across all 16 regions in NZ, to get people out of their cars in regards to non-essential travel.

    1. we’ve seen what happens when Govt Agencies take control over Auckland planning, transport etc etc. Just look at NZTA and SkyPath, LR etc.

      People voted for the current Council, they have a mandate to improve PT and have also declared a Climate Emergency, its up to them to shakeup AT or use other money such as dropping the stupid Devonport Shuttle and charging for Park and Ride.

      1. Joe – A national public transport agency would be a dedicate state agency independent from NZTA but under the Ministry of Transport and cash strapped regional councils operating as a strategic climate change public service cost recovery agency eliminating such things like ‘cash box’ recovery, etc.

        The current setup of region’s operating is financially in-efficient to a region ratepayers and disjointed and dysfunctional to the country overall.

    2. Be careful what you wish for. I think Auckland Council and AT are much more pro PT than the NZ government are. Even the current government seem to do more talking about mode shift than actually doing anything.

        1. At the expense to the regions rate payers and not cost effective to the other 15 regions in the country.

  13. Every time AT increases PT transport fares I look at the Parkopedia site to see how AT manage their car park buildings. Helpfully the comparative hourly charges are set out in pictorial form.

    https://www.parkopedia.co.nz/parking/carpark/quay_park_health_car_park/1010/auckland/?arriving=202001160830&leaving=202001161030

    Why does AT in a climate crisis charge significantly below the market price for an activity that encourages vehicle trips (cheap parking)?

    Where is the annual increase for parking?

    Why does AT simply not sell its parking buildings for redevelopment if it can’t run them effectively?

    1. “Why does AT simply not sell its parking buildings for redevelopment if it can’t run them effectively?” – oh God no. Wellington City Council sold off all its parking to Wilson Parking – WCC were making a loss – and now Wilson are ruthless and prices are eye-watering. They really are a mafia, and you would not wish that on anyone. What we really need is for AT / AC / WCC to learn how to run a parking building, without turning into a force for evil.

      1. Who said to sell off as Car Parks? Some of those Carparks are on prime real estate, look at Downtown for instance, perfect for Harbour facing development. Wilsons charge what the market rate is, want to park your car in prime areas then that’s what you should pay..its called private transport for a reason.

        1. Joe,
          I agree. Downtown must be one of the best sites in Auckland with great harbour views and a significant land holding. Flog it off for re-development.
          The sale of this would enable AT to avert a PT increase for the next six years. The sale would enable the price to be raised at other AT parking buildings to fund the following six years.
          Auckland Council / AT need to move on and address reducing carbon – not deal with climate change, as they will interpret that as building a wall somewhere, or some obscure mitigation of the effects.

      2. “now Wilson are ruthless and prices are eye-waterin” – so driving is discouraged because parking is expensive but a profit is now being made.

        Excellent!

  14. On the bright side, I have escaped a fare increase (after a 20c increase last time!) and they’ve also made the tables more user friendly by listing the current fare (honestly, I don’t pay attention to the zones just my fare since I see it more often).

    On the downside, I see from some of the other comments they still haven’t aligned their parking charges with the private operators… and what is especially disturbing after the LRT fiasco (and the previous govt’s motorway mania) the suggestion that these fare increases are evidence central govt. should be in charge. Central govt. is surely one of the main reasons we have these annual increases via the farebox recovery problem.

    It’s ultimately the same deal as universities voting to increase fees by the maximum allowable amount every time… central government is incompetent and more local institutions do their utmost to work within these systems. And then get slammed when the consequences of central policies cause them to do unpopular things.

    Of course, AT/Council are still far from perfect… see the carpark thing. But is it just me, or is the council that makes people pay the cost of their parking going to get slammed by voters? The headlines aren’t going to be “AT brings prices in line with competition” but instead “How much more is AT making you pay to park?” Let’s just call AT’s carpark pricing predatory and slam them with ComCom. That way, headlines will be “How much more is ComCom making you pay to park”.

  15. Another reason we should build the North-western busway: to save me $1.40 one-way. My current bus commute Hobsonville to city via north shore is four zones; via Westgate & Northwestern busway it would only be three.

    Phil T and Phil G need to turn some sod ASAP

  16. I thought the council wanted a compact city?

    Why are we encouraging people to live further away from their place of work/study by increasing the 1/2/3 zone fares and not increasing the fares for longer trips.

  17. Maybe a good article would be on the costs of AT PT services?

    Could do farebox recovery ratios by service routes, and profit/loss of each parking buildings and Park n Ride?

    Even passenger numbers by route would be.

    Could make interesting reading.

  18. To be honest: These fares don’t seem too steep at all with a HOP card.
    These hikes are between 5c to 10c, that’s almost nothing.

    1. A dollar a week here and there for struggling families can mean a huge difference and completely throw them out…however, I think in general you are right. However its the precedent they set that AT are unable to run a functioning business so they increase fare above inflation after increasing last year, despite declaring a climate emergency and knowing that it will likely result in 500k lost trips. So price for your normal person of course it isn’t much, but its so much more than just a couple of cents impact wise.

      1. We deserve to see action on climate, but we also deserve to see wise use of funds. There is no wisdom in raising fares while also expanding the wasteful ‘pick-up-by-car-people-who-would-have-walked-or-bussed’ Devonport scheme to other areas. Nor is spending money to build more park and rides in areas where the walking is already so dangerous the children are getting injured.

      2. I’m skeptical of this claim of a loss of 500,000 trips.

        Especially when the alternative of operating an automobile remains more expensive.

  19. Auckland has the third highest annual pass in the world – not steep?

    Many cities have such a cheap public transport price proposition that it causes massive usage – in one case by a figure of nine times.

    Auckland’s emissions problem has been caused by cars and so logically we need to remove people from cars, PT being one part of the solution. The part of the solution that many propose, EVs, are years away and the problem is now.

    I note that Mayor Goff has a slush fund, $80m from memory, to ameliorate the effects of climate change, whatever that might mean. I suspect it’s for things like building a sea wall at St Heliers, closing the door after the horse has bolted. Surely here is a great opportunity for the Mayor to say, “reducing emissions, and reducing them now, is very important and so the Council will step in and hold fares.”

    If we had a progressive Council they would also say, “we have asked AT to discuss with us how they can find ways to fund reduced PT fares so that Auckland can move further along the path towards reducing emissions” (obviously the last part isn’t true because they haven’t moved at all, but this is what you put in press releases).

    1. I don’t think Auckland has annual passes at all, does it?

      It really should be offered at a substantial discount.

      1. Goosoid, you are right, it doesn’t. I assume the comparison was made by multiplying the monthly pass by 12.

        I completely agree with you about the annual pass. You and I have both seen Prague and Vienna where the yearly pass seems to have caused people to abandon cars. It seems a clever model to me; you “buy into” the PT system by spending a reasonable amount for the pass; you are then more inclined to use it (just as for a gym membership). It amazes me that Vienna sells 800k annual passes each year to a population of 1.6 million. I do accept that a significant number of people travel into Vienna to work.

        It remains a huge disappointment to me that AT seems stuck with a transportation model locked in the 1960s. Where is the change inspired by newer graduates to the work force who have a wider perspective than the modest PT transport networks of NZ and Australia?

  20. “The cost of short trips on buses and trains in Auckland is still much cheaper than a number of Australian cities.” What a comparison… I take that no one told him yet that wages in Australia are also much higher. Not to mention PT being much more reliable as well.

    Petrol prices don’t seem to increase so at least that’s a good news for some people trying to get around this city.

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