Public Transport hits 60 million trips
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.…
29 Comments Bus service changes
ARTA are in the process of altering quite a number of bus routes around Auckland at the moment, with the main idea appearing to be a simplification of the current route structure – a reduction of the number of routes, which means an increase in the frequency of the routes and an easier system to understand.…
Integrated ticketing: wow, some news!
It has been a while since we heard anything about the progress of implementing Auckland’s integrated ticketing system, so it’s welcoming to see a media release by NZTA today saying that some progress is being made in the establishment of the national ticketing standards that will ensure inter-operability between all public transport smart-cards in New Zealand in the future.…
Northwest Busway – update
Somewhat as the result of my pleading, the Regional Transport Committee back in April resolved to take a further look at the best way to provide public transport along the Northwestern Motorway in the medium and long-term future. As I have outlined before, SH16 is to be upgraded by NZTA over the next few years – at a cost of over $800 million.…
Onehunga Station stuff-up
At times I do wonder why it’s so damn difficult to get public transport projects in Auckland right. After the numerous stuff-ups that surrounded the opening of the Newmarket station, we’ve had a reasonably good run in recent times (although the huge celebration to open the partially finished extension to the previously upgraded Kingsland station was a bit strange).…
Simplifying bus routes: the western bays
To continue my process of working through Auckland’s myriad of bus routes (having previously looked at Sandringham Road, New North Road and the Eastern Isthmus) I’ve today turned my attention to the part of Auckland where I actually live: the Western Bays of Auckland City.…
May 2010 Patronage – further good growth
ARTA’s May 2010 Monthly Business Report has been released and as always it makes for interesting reading (I hope that the Auckland Transport CCO will continue to publish something like these reports). Here’s a brief summary of the report: The long-term patronage graph shows that May 2010 was the third or fourth highest month, patronage wise, over the time tracked.…
How do Auckland’s Bus Subsidies Work?
The process by which Auckland’s bus system is organised seems very very complicated, with strange relationships between ARTA and the different bus companies, which seems to vary according to route, and even down to particular services.
This is my understanding of how bus subsidies work in Auckland:
– Routes and services are identified by ARTA via documents like the Regional Public Transport Plan (RPTP).…
My thoughts on “b.line”
Tomorrow ARTA will launch the next step in improving Auckland’s bus system – their “b.line” project. I first got wind of this concept a few months back, and I did a hopeful post that it seemed as though we were starting to see the rollout of the “Quality Transit Network” that ARTA have been promising for many years now, but haven’t got around to actually implementing.…
MAXX finally joins the 21st century
The MAXX website, which is the “front-door” for many people’s experience with Auckland’s public transport system: working out when their next bus/train arrives, downloading timetables and finding out about service disruptions, is slowly dragging itself into the 21st century with some useful steps to make it easier and quicker to find out when your next bus is.…
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