Transport Committee Meeting
The second meeting of the Auckland Council transport committee is happening on Monday (today for most of you reading this) – at 9.30am in the Reception Lounge of the Auckland Town Hall. There are some interesting items on the agenda: A discussion about the “Next-Bike” bike hire scheme, and what the preferred future form for this scheme is – given that the current business unfortunately hasn’t been profitable enough to continue.…
14 Comments Integrated Ticketing: more questions than answers
Well I wasn’t quite right with my guess about what today’s integrated ticketing announcement was going to be – in that it’s not an announcement over the name of the card. Instead, it’s actually a useful bit of information that we’re heading towards resolving some of the difficulties associated with implementing the project.…
“Hop Card” unveiled tomorrow?
I received an email today from the communications team at Auckland Transport, advising that there is to be a media conference tomorrow at 2pm to announce something to do with the “next phase of integrated ticketing”. Unfortunately I can’t make the media briefing tomorrow – though I’ll blog about it once I know for sure what has been announced.…
Integrated ticketing: what’s going on?
Call me cynical, but if I don’t hear anything about a public transport project for quite some time I start to get suspicious. This generally is for good reason – with examples including the near screw-up of electrification last year and the consistent delays to the Onehunga Line’s opening almost passing under the radar without a ‘peep’ from the powers to be.…
Vancouver vs Auckland: the case for openness
I’ve talked a lot about the need for the new Auckland Transport CCO to be open, transparent and accountable about what it does – and how this will be a dramatic change from the highly secretive agency that ARTA was. There were some very positive steps towards this last week, with Auckland Transport announcing at the first meeting of their board that all future meetings will be held in public.…
ARTA’s Public Transport Vision
At the July 2010 Board Meeting of NZTA, ARTA made a quite interesting presentation – what they called “Auckland’s Public Transport Strategy”. The whole presentation can be downloaded here (it’s really just a quick Microsoft Powerpoint display), and there are some parts of it that are worthy of sharing – and of further comment.…
Fares rise – again
With perhaps the shortest notice ever, we have now learned the extent to which public transport fares are going to rise on October 1st because of the hike in GST from 12.5% to 15%. Here’s ARTA’s media release:
Public Transport fares to rise in line with GST increase
The Auckland Regional Transport Authority (ARTA) announced today the government’s GST increase will come into effect for all public transport fares in Auckland starting on Friday
1st October 2010.…
Is fare-free a fair go?
It’s been a while since I posted anything so I thought I’d step in while Josh is away to help keep things ticking over, my apoligies for the length and wordiness of this one!
The outcome of last Sunday’s motorway closure in Newmarket left me with some sense of vindication as a public transport advocate.…
Faster boarding: the great opportunity
Next time you catch the bus, especially a bus like the Link which stops frequently, have a think about the amount of time the bus spends between stops and the amount of time the bus spends halted, waiting for passengers to hop on and off.…
Integrated ticketing: latest news
We are still yet to hear anything much from ARTA about the progress of integrated ticketing, aside from a rather bizarre press release from NZTA a few weeks back that some agreement had been reached on a technical standard. Big questions like whether we will have zoned based ticketing, whether we’ll have free transfers, whether we’ll have time-based ticketing and so forth remain unknown for now, although hopefully ARTA will decide at some point in the near future to share their grand plans for integrated ticketing with the rest of the world.…
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