In many of the debates about whether building a railway line to Auckland Airport should be a priority or not, most of the focus has been on making it easier for travellers to get between the city and the airport. This is somewhat understandable, as for regular travellers it seems bizarre for the trip between the city and the airport to take longer than the flight between Auckland and Wellington. Furthermore, having a congestion free option, which generally only rail can provide (I’m yet to see how a busway could be provided between the Airport and the central city) provides a level of reliability to travel times that I’m sure would be much appreciated.
But rail to Auckland Airport would be pretty expensive – north of a billion dollars according to a study undertaken in 2008 (although this does seem to have ‘gold-plated’ the cost quite a bit compared to other similar projects). Furthermore, only a proportion of travellers (generally business travellers and tourists) would be making trips between the CBD and the Airport that would be best served by this rail line. It seems doubtful whether that would generate enough demand, in and of itself, to justify such a big expenditure.
However, thinking about ‘rail to the airport’ as merely providing a connection for travellers hugely under-estimates its potential in my opinion. In fact, while “rail to the airport” has been a useful term in gaining public support of this project, I think referring to the line as the “Southwest Line” would actually be more useful in recognising its wider benefits.
One of the main reasons for constructing this line is emphasised by a report that Auckland Airport had undertaken recently: pointing out the growing importance of the Airport to Auckland’s and New Zealand’s economy. Not only is this importance evident in the wider benefits of the Airport, but also in the area around the Airport’s growing significance as an employment hub. Put simply, a lot of people work either at the airport or around the airport and over the next 10-20 that number of employees is likely to increase very significantly.
The study, by consultancy Market Economics, also highlights the increasing importance as an economic growth node of the airport focused and supporting businesses located at or near Auckland Airport – within the Auckland Airport Business District (comprising land owned by Auckland Airport) or on neighbouring land. This growth node has been called the Airport Corridor.
The Airport Corridor already generates or facilitates around $3 billion of GDP annually and its contribution is expected to grow to $5-6 billion by 2031. This growth is expected to increase employment in the Airport Corridor from a current estimate of 21,000 workers to as many as 38,000 by 2031.
The study notes the correlation between jobs created in the Airport Corridor and growth in Auckland Airport’s traffic volumes – as the more vibrant the Airport becomes, the more companies want to locate close to it. Currently, there are about 1,800 jobs within the Airport Corridor for every million passengers passing through the Airport.
The Market Economics study concludes, “Auckland Airport facilitates substantial levels of business activity by enabling and supporting tourism and trade in Auckland and throughout New Zealand. As Auckland Airport (and the air transport sector generally) grows more rapidly than the economy as a whole, its role as a facilitator and generator of business activity is expected to steadily increase into the longer term. Within the Auckland spatial economy, the Airport Corridor will be a major focus of business activity, and a catalyst for economic growth across the region. Its significance as a driver of economic growth should not be under-estimated.”
There are around 80,000 people employed in Auckland’s CBD at the moment, so creating an employment node at the Airport of nearly 40,000 by 2031 gives a good indication of how significant that would be. The table below shows the increase:
The Airport picks up on the need to plan carefully for how this would work, and what infrastructure would be needed to support such an employment node:
Auckland Airport’s chief executive Simon Moutter said, “This study reinforces the important role that Auckland Airport plays in helping grow New Zealand tourism and trade by improving the air services connections between New Zealand and the world…
…“On a regional basis, it is important that Auckland Airport is seen not just as part of Auckland’s transport infrastructure, but a key driver of the supercity’s future economic prosperity and visitor economy.
“By commissioning this study, we hope to improve understanding about the strong growth potential of both Auckland Airport and the Airport Corridor. It is important that this growth is factored into planning decisions in areas such as land development, transport infrastructure and public transport services.”
A lot of the land surrounding the Airport is currently used for carparking. But with the area becoming such an important employment node in the future I do wonder whether wasting such valuable land on parking (surface level parking at least) will be feasible and desirable: both from the Airport’s perspective and from the perspective of Auckland as a whole. But if the attractiveness of the area as an employment node is going to continue it will need to be easy for people to get to work there – which is where the Airport Railway Line comes in.
As far as I can see, there will be three main users of the Airport Railway Line:
- Travellers themselves
- People working around the Airport and nearby employment centres (this is likely to be the biggest share of potential users)
- People living in Mangere and its surrounding suburbs, who work in Newmarket, the CBD, Manukau or other parts of the rail network
It’s pretty unlikely that spending close to a billion dollars on constructing the Airport Line would make sense if it were only to fulfil one, or even two, of these three functions. But the fact that it can provide all three – coupled with the predicted speedy growth of the area as an employment hub – means that I think it would be viable. Certainly in my opinion the CBD Rail Tunnel is more necessary, but in 10 years time if we haven’t built the Airport Line I think we’re really going to leave Auckland in a bit of a messy situation of having another car-dependent Albany or East Tamaki: just bigger, uglier and more congested.
The full study into the contribution of Auckland Airport to Auckland and New Zealand’s economy is here.
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Following on from my post the other day about Just how fast our electric trains might be I have also estimated the times from the airport based on having stations at Kirkbride Rd, Bader Dr, Walmsley Rd and Rimu Rd which were all roughly suggested in that 2008 report. Using conservative figures a trip from the airport to Britomart would be about 34 minutes and with probably more realistic figures it could easily be lower than 30 minutes which sounds pretty good to me.
I do think that with times like that and assuming it is priced right, i.e. no huge surcharges like there is in Sydney, then I think this will be a huge success in attracting both travellers and workers. I can also see it being pretty popular for business travellers also, the company I work for has large offices in both Auckland and Wellington and every day there is a lot of people that fly between the two cities every day for work purposes. With a reasonable fare of say $5 it would be much cheaper and quicker using the train than all of the taxi’s and car parking that the company currently has to pay for.
My employer has offices in Auckland, Wellington, Sydney, and Melbourne. We don’t travel often but video conference every day using Skype. My boss is in Sydney and it can be six months at times without us having a face to face. Why are you guys flying so often?
Wellington airport to the CBD is $8… which I know because the bus is cool and I refuse to spend money on a taxi. That’s only about 5km in a straight line. I think your suggested $5 fare is super optimistic.
We do use both call and video conferencing quite a bit but there are times when face to face meetings are required. It might not be that often that you will fly up/down but when you have thousands of employees in NZ alone it does add up.
As for the fare, the distance is about the same from Henderson to Britomart which is 4 stages or $5.10 currently. I do think the fare is something the Airport will have a hand in dictating as they will want to have some way of recouping the costs they will incur when a line is built.
I’d love to see a breakdown of the current employment because I can’t think what 21,000 people are doing at the airport currently. I assume that all the employment must be directly related to travel, logistics, or tourism services because I can’t imagine any business locating themselves at the airport otherwise. But still… that’s an employment figure about the same as Nelson, and that’s quite amazing.
The report doesn’t deal with anything other than growth scenarios, which is understandable since it is intended to promote the airport. I’m not a believer in peak oil which I regard as Malthusian nonsense. But other people do and their policy responses might impact on growth. We’re already seeing the UK taxing air travel to NZ heavily. Is it possible that environmental and peak oil concerns might cause economic activity and jobs at the airport to stabilise or even shrink? Also, if the high growth scenario comes to pass then is there a temptation for some other airport to seriously compete for a percentage of the business? Whenuapai, perhaps. Or even Hamilton.
That employment isn’t just in the airport itself but in the airport zone which includes all of the commercial areas around Montgomerie Rd I believe. The airport still owns that land and just leases it out.
Absolutely! Rail or Bus and Rail connection at the nearest rail stations.
I remember using Auckland airport and the shuttle bus between terminals and the bus between the Airport and the Auckland CBD (which seemed to take eternity). I would far prefer a train.
It’s Auckland Airport, you have the biggest city in NZ right there, it should have rail to the Airport. There are a few tips though:
* DO NOT USE PPP: This is the big mistake Brisbane and Sydney made. The railway operations are profitable, but only at the expense of ridership and service quality. No trains after 8.30pm are a huge complaint in Brisbane. The government can borrow funds at a lower interest rate, use that advantage.
* Have a good frequency and scope of service.
* Try not to gouge the passenger. Melbourne has ideas about only charging normal transport network fees for its rail line, and a feeder bus to rail has now begun operation there (SmartBus orbital).
Reasonable pricing is good way to go to get patronage. The problem in Brisbane is not only the service frequency (half hourly) and scope of hours (ends at 8.30 pm ish) but the different ticketing results in a quirk that causes an unintended surcharge on rail passengers if they travel using the Go Card.
To add insult to injury, because the price and scope of hours puts people off, there is now a parallel toll road project that costs more (billions) than it cost to construct the Brisbane Airport line because people have been put off. Actually, the construction of the Brisbane Airport line was very very cheap at only $220 million for 8.5 km, and the whole thing is elevated too. That’s only 25 million/km (See http://www.airtrain.com.au/aboutus.php) so I feel that perceptions that “rail is expensive” is a bit misplaced. It depends on the project and how competently it is conceived and governed.
Do it right the first time, learn from our mistakes…
Just to clarify, Melbourne does not have rail to the Airport- but is thinking about it.
The current government has been elected on promises to that effect.
I really think this is one point we have to hammer home admin, it really isn’t just a rail line to service air travellers. The last report makes this clear, even the title neglects to mention the airport (Planning for Rapid Transport Corridors in South West Auckland Metropolitan Region). The fact is it can’t be rapid transit just for air travellers (there will never be enough to support such a service), but there is a huge demand for travel among workers and residents so a line servicing everyone is a very good idea. Having a ‘normal’ rail line that stops at the airport will avoid much of the mistakes of Brisbane and Sydney.
The modelling in the ARTA study estimated that only one third of peak hour trips on the section from Onehunga to the airport were air travellers, or in other words two-thirds of the people using the line would be workers or residents of the south-west. That is critical.
Obi, I have to wonder if you have ever been to Auckland Airport with comments like that! Yes, while there are a lot of people employed in the terminals and in logistics and air service companies, plus a heap of rental cars, tourist agencies, fast food etc… there are a heap of businesses located there that have nothing to do with aeronautics. Indeed, the airport and surrounding business park are (by my estimates) the second largest employment zone in Auckland already.
Brisbane, QLD and other airports such as The Gold Coast Airport, QLD are building “Airport precincts” which house offices and businesses and big box fashion and clothing wholesalers, which are very popular. So the Airport can be a mini-city and hub of activity if its planned well.
I fully agree with the need for a different view on the purpose and target user of the line- cities form around transport nodes, airports being the most modernt form of transport interchange leading the shapes of cities worldwide. There are plenty of examples of developing ‘airport cities’ around the world which are forming in isolation to the cities that they are notionally attached to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airport_City
The real challenge is the format of the land uses that comes with this type of development, particularly at the laissez-faire end of development planning as we have in this country. Much of the business interest that is generated around these opportunities is focussed on uses which are very different from the traditional downtown patterns which rail serves well. Logistics and freighting operations don’t often attract PT commuters. Even if offices start to represent a higher proportion of the mix they are often relatively highly based on mobility-based functions, such as sales, which are attracted to the mobility opportunities of the air system and will have a strong bias towards road transport at a local level. I physical terms, this mix is likely to minimise the potential for walkability in the precinct around any rail station, further undermining the potential.
How to resolve? The airport company has a big hold on the type of development, and there is little that the city appears to want to do in such situations. How will we maximise the uptake of rail – which I fully support as the right mode – without intervention in the land ownership…?
I agree, but unfortunately, it could be argued that car-maximisation has been pursued, at least at Brisbane Airport. The number of roads and more roads around the Brisbane airport is just off the planet, and are multi-billion dollar projects. There’s Airport Link, then Gateway Motorway Upgrade bridge duplication (12 lanes now!) and now also Kingsford Smith Drive. The airport itself has large amounts of parking- presumably because they can make money out of that- come Christmas there was huge congestion. Looks like a similar thing at Auckland Airport too
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Auckland+Airport&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=28.611123,83.671875&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Auckland+Airport,+Auckland,+New+Zealand&ll=-37.002913,174.790013&spn=0.007026,0.020428&t=h&z=16
I must say, I’m a bit surprised that you don’t have a freeway directly into Auckland airport already!
in my opinion the DFO and commercial area at the Brisbane Airport is an example of very poor planning. Just the State Givt try to make money off land and ignoring the City Council planning regieme.
>Obi, I have to wonder if you have ever been to Auckland Airport with comments like that!
I don’t take much notice up until the point where I have to find signs for arrivals versus departures and domestic versus international. I’m genuinely confused as to why a non-air travel business would choose to locate itself in an airport precinct, and to why city planners would promote non-air travel development around an airport rather than in an existing center such as the CBD or Manukau center. Surely this represents commercial sprawl that should be avoided?
Presumably because the airport company leases them relatively cheap land, and there are good motorway connections etc. As for city planners ‘promoting’ non air related development, city planners don’t get to promote anything, they don’t have any controls over the specific types of business that set up within a zone. And while I agree focusing that sort of development into the CBD or a centre like Manukau would be a great idea (and avoiding sprawl in general) that’s not how it works in Auckland. There is a very laissez faire approach to planning that effectively says the market will decide where to put things and that will be most efficient. Does it really look like Auckland’s planners can or want to control sprawl to any great degree?!
Yes, the development around the airport seems a classic case of induced demand. Outlet stores and a supermarket popped up by the airport round about the time that the motorway extension out there was complete and running smoothly.
“city planners don’t get to promote anything, they don’t have any controls over the specific types of business that set up within a zone”
Surely this isn’t true. I couldn’t set up a jet engine testing facility or heliport on commercially zoned land in the CBD or Manukau center.
Adding to the complexity of the issue is the large council shareholding in the airport. I have a sneaking suspicion that the council is allowing sprawl development of these greenfield sites because they make money out of it. Good planning loses out to an income stream.
The zone defines what is permitted. You probably actually could establish a heliport in the CBD, in terms of compliance with zoning, but the CAA would be getting pretty leery about granting you the appropriate licence. A jet testing facility would not be permitted under the zone’s rules, because it’d almost certainly be deemed heavy industry and thus inappropriate for the zone.
As an example of zone restrictions, a theatre I’m involved with has recently got consent to expand. Part of the expansion is onto adjoining land zoned for the neighbouring water treatment facility, and that had to be re-zoned from industrial to recreational before we could build on it. We’re only adding a couple of metres to the side of the building, but it was still an activity that was outside the rules for the existing zone.
The planners cannot tell you that your light commercial business must be a music shop, or a dairy, or an internet cafe, but the rules they set for the zone say that you cannot put a 20-storey office tower on a light commercial zone, and you cannot build a manufacturing engineering business there.
If the airport precinct is zoned commercial 1 (or whatever it actually is), then anyone who fits that bill can set up there. There is no mechanism where the council can zone for just aviation-related commercial and exclude non-aviation-related commercial… although perhaps there should be.
It’s probably not such a bad thing, all that area under the flight paths is subject to a lot of noise, it’s not like you could build much else there except industry and large format commercial.
There’re a lot of freight and logistics companies basing themselves out there, because it’s close to a primary transport modality. There’s also a lot of scope to develop warehousing and offices to requirement because it’s largely a greenfields development area. That’s attractive to some companies, and there’s good accessibility by road to large residential areas.
Really it’s irrelevant whether or not you understand it, because it’s what’s happening. Operations at the airport itself, be they retail, flight service, or engineering, are increasing, and so is commercial activity in the surrounding area. It becomes self-sustaining, with or without the airport, because enough businesses will establish there to allow a network effect of sorts as well as encourage the development of support businesses such as couriers, minor retail, major retail, etc.
“It becomes self-sustaining, with or without the airport, because enough businesses will establish there to allow a network effect of sorts as well as encourage the development of support businesses such as couriers, minor retail, major retail, etc.”
Network effect is a good explanation. I used to live in Amsterdam and remember the huge cluster of businesses around Schiphol Airport. Most were multi-nationals and the airport precinct was a handy location for their European regional headquarters. The multi-nationals then attracted service businesses.
I don’t get why the rail to airport should cost $1bn
All that is needed (at least stage 1) is to build a short 5 km branch from Puhinui station to the airport across mostly flat land free of houses with only 1 bridge. How is that going to cost anything close to $1bn
Of course such a route might further congest the southern line, but an alternative could be an airport-puhinui-Manakau shuttle service, with those traveling elsehwere to change trains at a revamped Puhinui station. Latter the Onehunga line can be extended south to link in with this new line
Because such a line won’t service anything except the airport. There is no significant employment catchment between Manukau and AIAL, except at the eastern edge of the airport grounds and it is unlikely that a station would be placed there in any case.
To justify its existence as more than just “airport rail”, the line must come south from Onehunga. Otherwise it’ll have low usage and justifying its expansion will be incredibly difficult because the naysayers will say “See, we told you there’s no demand.” Plus it’ll bugger up services on the Southern, as others have said, which makes it worse than doing nothing: disruptive and self-defeating.
Plus coming from the east requires a bridge at Puhinui Creek, as you’ve identified, which will probably cost upper eight figures given that it will be quite long, very strong, and at least wide enough for two tracks (I think it would be prudent to build it for three tracks, in case a freight track is added in future).
A Puhinui spur would be pretty useless though. It would take trains forever to get there, it would not offer a transport option for people working at the airport unless they lived in Manukau, it would not service Mangere and so on.
In fact, I doubt many people would find it useful at all.
Nicolas that would be fine if all you want to do is reach the airport, but it will be way more useful to build, also for less than one billion, a whole South Western loop from Puhinui to Onehuga. Way more than just getting travelers between the airport and the CBD, a line that links the domitory suburbs of Mangere not only with the airport, but also to the CBD, the rest of the whole network and, importantly Manukau City. It would finally make sense of Mangere Town Centre; a fairly isolated place [not least by the new motorways that nearly surround it]. Remember the new bridge has been engineered to take a rail crossing, this loop is relatively low hanging fruit in terms of multiplying the worth of the whole network. Of course it will be really good if the airport stations are properly integrated into the terminal buildings and feeder bus stops are co-ordinated with the stations along the SH20 route. The place building that such an amenity will do for a fairly neglected but promising part of Ak is of considerable worth…. Mangere and Mangere Bridge are potentially increasingly cool places and with connectivity, both North and South, it could at last begin to reach its potential.
The airport is a big help on this line but not the whole story.
For airport-to-city public transport links to work well, they need to have frequency. Where I am, over twenty percent of airport passengers use the bus to get out to the airport (that’s over 2m passengers per year for a 9m passenger oer year airport). Apart from vehicles which are fit for purpose, having a service once every seven-eight minutes is essential. That is why the light rail link to London City Airport works so well – not far to walk, and a train almost when you want it.
(refer here for how airport rail links can work:
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloads/gettingaround/london-city-airport-local-area-connection-map.pdf )
What sort of frequency would be possible on a south-western line?
Actually, if we want better public transport to the airport, the idea of a connection to Puhinui (or better: Papatoetoe), by bus, could be a good first place to start. A frequent connection in something the size of a shuttle bus, is something that just might get used.