ARTA’s June 2010 monthly business report has been released, and shows the figures for the 2009/2010 financial year as a whole. What is most exciting is to see that public transport patronage for that year has hit 60 million trips, which was a major goal for ARTA and is a significant achievement for Auckland’s public transport system. Goodness knows the last time we had 60 million trips in a year.
Here are the basic patronage statistics:
What is particularly pleasing is to see how the PT system rebounded from the NZ Bus lockout in October last year. I do think that if that hadn’t happened we would have probably got more trips than the 61.279 million ARTA estimate above, as generally month-on-month we’ve seen growth of around 5% for patronage as a whole.
It’s particularly pleasing to see bus patronage increasing by a very healthy 6.7% for June 2010 compared to June 2009. While a lot of attention goes on the rail network (and rightfully so given the investment we’re currently putting into it), the bus system really is the “meat and drink” of Auckland’s public transport system, with close to 80% of public transport trips being on the bus. Therefore, if we want public transport patronage as a whole to keep rising, then a lot of focus needs to be on the bus system. Below is a graph showing changes in bus patronage is recent years:
Yet again there is spectacular growth in patronage for the Northern Express. I do wonder whether we’re going to hit a ceiling in patronage growth for the Northern Express service soon though, as I have heard the buses at peak times are packed out completely – it sounds like we need to somehow encourage people to shift their travelling to outside the peak hours – cheaper off-peak tickets perhaps?
An analysis of bus patronage around Auckland has been undertaken yet again. Throughout all this year most of the growth has been in the northern and southern sectors – where there has been a relatively recent reworking of bus routes to simplify the system and offer better frequencies. It is heartening to see on the isthmus that bus patronage for June 2010 was higher than June 2009, as in general bus patronage on the isthmus has been declining throughout the year compared to the same month the year before.
There’s quite a lot of interesting other stuff throughout the report, including a mention that ARTA are looking to rework the bus routes for the Western Bays area – which probably includes the buses that I catch on a daily basis.
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Does it say how they are going to rework these buses
Not in any detail.
They will provide consultation once they are ready to go public with it. Generally, as admin has pointed out recently, it involves fewer different types of routes, but better frequencies on the remaining/updated routes.
Oh, and admin: Could the reduction in Isthmus bus boardings be a result of some passengers switching (back) to rail? Now that the worst upgrade works on the Western Line are done?
Possibly, although if we exclude October 2009 as a “rogue month” the two months when patronage declined the most were November and April. I struggle to see the pattern myself (particularly for April as November might have been a hangover from the bus lockout).
It is very pleasing to see and hopefully it will keep growing stronger and stronger. Do ARTA have an idea of what the impact on subsidies is as a result of this. Surely the cost per person per KM must be decreasing and the farebox recovery improving.
The northern express could hit a ceiling and might need some more services, there is still plenty of capacity left on the busway and every bus that uses it reduces the chance of cars being allowed on it.
To answer my own question
Rail Fare Revenue is $0.6m more than budget due to higher patronage than originally planned.
Rail Contract is $1.2m less than budget year to date due to fuel price savings and lower than anticipated reactive maintenance at stations partially offset by an increase in Veolia leave liability.
Is the Super Gold Card subsidy part of the farebox recovery equation? ARTA and Government pay a big chunk of offpeak PT patronage that way.
They perhaps need to start introducing larger buses for the NEX – any ideas why articulated buses aren’t being used on some of those routes? A few buses like this would help in the peak:
http://photo.proaktiva.eu/trolleybus/hegibach_199.jpg
Because (typically) ARTA under-estimated the popularity of the Northern Busway and didn’t think that articulated buses would be necessary.
Sure they could just request Ritchies runs some articulated buses?
Really makes we wonder what sort of patronage growth we’d be getting if some of that 800 millio was spent on building a busway on the North Western rather than merely adding more lanes.
Ferry transport hasn’t enjoyed strong growth like the other modes
For ferry patronage to grow I think that we desperately need integrated ticketing. Ferries have a pretty small catchment, so therefore to grow the catchment you really need to make it easy, convenient and affordable to catch a feeder bus to the terminal.
Once the Hobsonville ferry starts up and that area starts developing, that should be quite a decent boost. It’d be nuts trying to get from Hobsonville to the CBD by any means other than ferry.
Yes I am soon to be moving back to Auckland and am looking to be living in Birkenhead, working in Newmarket. I don’t know think I will use the ferry without integrated ticketing, unless I decide Ferry/cycling is a goer.
If I were you I’d use the 966 bus.
Thanks, yeah that looks pretty good – a direct service. Something about cruising across the harbour every morning does seem quite appealing though, although maybe the novelty would wear off after a while!
Yes, I’ve gone on about ferries before,
Te atatu and beachaven are real goers man, maybe even hobsonville if more density there.
The halfmoon bay ferry I took was a joy every morning and there’s a large carpark here too
so parknride!
If fullers had competiton, things could really get interesting as I’ve always
felt were more expensive than neccesary and fullers know the monopoly dynamics.
The harbour ferries are a goldmine while the cbd tunnel is delayed.
Not as much as I have banged on about ferries!
Ferry patronage looks flat in the figures but Fullers pulls $2m a year from Government for Gold Card travel. A tidy sum if it was available for competitors.
Lord knows we could have done with a competitor this morning: Jet Raider was put out of action by fog on the harbour (Fullers obviously can’t afford the fog horn or radar operator) causing a 75 minute delay in sailing from Waiheke. No complementary coffee, needless to say.
There used to be competitors on the Waiheke run, they didn’t last long for whatever reason, and weren’t all that much cheaper.
The lack of competition on the harbour and gulf is a structural and political one. More on that here: http://fullerswatch.blogspot.com/search?q=pacific+ferries
Beachhaven and Te Atatu ferry terminals would have upgraded by now if it wasn’t for Steven Joyce’s change from the regional fuel tax to the increase in the excise tax on petrol on the whole country
Looks to me that the bus lockout cost isthmus riders who have stayed off since… They need a better plan than B-line to reverse that… Free day a month maybe..?
They had a major FUBAR here last week (most of the rail system shut down after a cable snapped) so they decided to make last friday free on all trains, trams and buses all day.
I must say everything was noticably busy that day, in particular some of the counter-peak and evening services I normally use quite comfortably were full to bursting point. While I’m undecided on the long term outcomes of free public transport, it does seem that people will leap in to take advantage of a one off.
So maybe the odd free day would be a good way to drum up new patronage… however they would need to be able to deliver a good standard of service despite an increase of 50-100% pax so as not to drive first time users away with a ‘nightmare experience’. Not sure how capable the system is in Auckland to absorb a large lump of one off patronage without big delays or super crowding.
I was just walking down Queen St on my lunch break and saw a bus go past, I think it may have been the city circuit but couldn’t tell (was in Metrolink branding). All I could see was the destination sign had FREE BUS on it and looking in the windows the thing was packed to the gunnels. Every seat was taken and people were squeezed up against each other in the isles.
It would have been The City Circuit
“Yes I am soon to be moving back to Auckland and am looking to be living in Birkenhead, working in Newmarket. I don’t know think I will use the ferry without integrated ticketing, unless I decide Ferry/cycling is a goer.”
Ferry/cycle to Newmarket should work fine. You can use the shared path along the waterfront from the ferry terminal, then the gentle hill up Gladstone Road past the rose gardens. Parnell Road and Broadway can be a bit busy but aren’t too high-speed, so you should get to Newmarket without much hassle.
Plus, Fullers Ferries doesn’t charge for bicycles!
Is there a publicly available Excel spreadsheet of quarterly (or monthly) rail patronage numbers for Auckland going back a few years?
I have just been looking at the relatively strong relationship between changes in petrol prices and changes in Wellington rail patronage (see: http://macilree.blogspot.com/2010/08/wellington-rail-patronage-largely.html ) and am wondering to what extent there might be a similar, albeit not so strong, relationship in Auckland.
I don’t know if there is a publicly available spreadsheet but the ARTA monthly business report has a graph in it showing the by monthly patronage data for the different transport modes, there is a link at the top of this post. For the last year or so at least you could get the data from the relevant MBR and they are mostly posted on ARTA’s website which would be the best place to look http://www.arta.co.nz/