What’s happening with Northern Busway ridership

A few months ago I took a look at what was happening with ridership at train stations ahead of the City Rail Link opening. I also asked Auckland Transport for data on Busway stations.

So here’s a similar look at what’s happening with the Northern Busway stations.

To start with, let’s look at a bit of history of the busway and ridership along it.

• In November 2005, the first Northern Busway stations opened – Albany and Constellation – with the new Northern Express (NEX) buses running along the motorway shoulders between those stations and the city, much as is now happening with the WX1 on SH16.
• Then in February 2008, the Busway itself opened – along with the Sunnynook, Smales Farm and Akoranga stations – resulting in a surge in usage.
• In March 2013, Auckland’s first double decker bus was introduced; they’re now a staple on many of Auckland’s bus routes.

• While the Northern Express is the main service along the busway, there are a number of other services that use it for part of their journey. A prime example of this is the 83 which runs along the busway between Constellation and Smales Farm and so can be used for trips between those stations.
• In mid-2014, Auckland Transport started reporting on not just the NEX but all ridership along the busway.
• In late 2015, some NEX services were extended to the Hibiscus Coast along with one of the first rollouts of the new bus networks. Originally it was just some basic bus stops on the side of the road, but in early 2021 a proper station was completed.
• October 2018 saw the launch of the new bus network for the North Shore. Along with improved feeder services came a major change for the busway itself: a second Northern Express route, this time servicing midtown and the universities in the city centre. That gave us the routes we have today, the NX1 and NX2 – with the NX1 being the busiest bus route in the country and the NX2 not far behind.
• May 2022 saw an extension of the busway itself from Constellation to Albany, providing a 10km dedicated busway from Albany to Akoranga. The original intention was for a new station to be built and opened at the same time at Rosedale. This has suffered repeated delays, and has only just recently started construction and is not due to open until early 2028.
• As with all public transport, the COVID pandemic knocked ridership around. Northern Busway usage peaked in early 2020 at 8.2 million trips. And, as of June 2026, ridership is back to about 7.5m trips or about 91% of pre-COVID levels. This is far above rail recovery, which was at just 65% in June – and only a little bit behind overall bus recovery, which as of June was sitting at 96%; though that is in part due to new routes since COVID, such as the WX1.

The data Auckland Transport provided allows me to break down the ridership by station. You can see below how it has changed over time. Note: I’ve excluded boardings from the city centre, as around 82% of all busway trips are to or from the city, so including that data would completely overshadow the chart.

A couple of things stand out.

1. Just how much busier Albany is than all of the other stations. With over 1.35 million busway boardings last year, it is head and shoulders above Constellation in second place with just under 900 thousand trips.
2. The biggest mover is Hibiscus Coast, which will largely be due to the proper station opening in 2021. As a result it is up 21% on pre-COVIDlevels.
3. Akoranga has also improved compared to before COVID, being up 13%. One of the key factors behind this is likely the upgrading of the 942 to become the 94 frequent service. Prior to the pandemic, the 942 carried 480k annual trips. It was back to over 460k when it was replaced by the 94 in July 2024. The 94 it is now carrying over 700k trips annually, and a factor in that will also be the huge growth in population around Northcote.
4. Smales Farm has had the lowest recovery, at just 78%.
5. The combined number of boardings at just the Busway stations for people travelling on the Busway is 4.58 million trips.

The data also allows us to see trips by the time of day. Auckland Transport says the morning peak is counted as 7am to 9am and the afternoon peak from 3pm to 6:30pm. The off-peak figures include weekends and public holidays.

A couple of things that stand out to me in this:

1. Generally, the further out you go from the city centre, the more early morning boardings there are.
2. There is a marked difference in pattern for Smales Farm and Akoranga compared to the other stations. The latter are clearly much more commuter-focused, while Smales and Akoranga have much more balanced all-day usage. I suspect a large part of the Smales boardings being stronger in the PM peak is massive influx of students it gets in the afternoons, most notably from Westlake Girls High School which is right next door.

A lot of focus often goes on the provision of car parking at stations – as Councillor Maurice Willianson complained about recently – so it’s interesting to consider the impact of available parking on station usage.

Using the time-of-day data above, I’ve taken just the morning and AM Peak usage for each station. That said, in reality a lot of the interpeak usage will be just after 9am and should probably be counted too.

Dividing that morning usage by the approximate 250 working days a year gives us an average number of boardings each weekday morning at these stations. This is shown below, compared to how many carparks are provided.

Another interesting angle is that all busway stations – except Sunnynook – are major interchange stations. As noted earlier, there are around 4.58 million boardings from the busway stations for trips along the busway. But there are also another 2.59 million trips from these stations on local buses.

While some trips on local buses to busway stations will be people visiting destinations around the stations, many will also represent people transferring from busway trips.

Finally, I added the busway stations to one of the charts I included in my rail ridership post. And, as you can see below, there’s quite a stark difference in boardings.

I think there are two key reasons for this.

1. The busway consists of six stations covering a large area, so the ridership is more concentrated.
2. The rail network was still in a recovery phase – as noted, at the time of the latest data in hand (June 2026), rail was at only 65% of pre-COVID levels. That’s due in large part to all of the work on the network.

We know there’s been huge growth in rail usage since the City Rail Link (CRL) opened in September, with Auckland Transport stating in a recent press release:

Waitematā remains the busiest station on the network, while key transport hubs including Panmure (+42%), New Lynn (+47%) Sylvia Park (+56%) and Newmarket (+17%) have also recorded strong growth, highlighting the benefits of a more connected network.

So, that would suggest that at least stations like Panmure and New Lynn are now likely to be back in line with some of the busier busway stations.

It will be fascinating to look at this again in a few years, as I expect the CRL effect to change the results significantly. It would also be great to be able to add in the Northwestern and Eastern busways in the future.

Curious to hear what else readers spot in the data, and what questions you might have.

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