Auckland’s Commuting Patterns

Statistics New Zealand has compiled a very interesting document that analyses commuting patterns in the Auckland region. While commuter trips generally account for less than half of all trips within the Auckland region (“errand trips” like dropping kids at school or driving to the shops account for the highest proportion) because commuter trips generally happen around the same time they tend to cause congestion and also tend to be the trips for which people are most likely to use public transport.

Here’s a summary of what the document says: I’m most interested in the parts of the document that analyse where people travel to and from for their commuting, rather than how Auckland relates to New Zealand as a whole, although it is interesting to note that the metropolis’ commuting zones extend well beyond the region.

Just sticking with those who live outside Auckland, but work within Auckland, the table below shows where all those who work in the Auckland region live. Of course the vast majority of people also live within Auckland, but there are some surprisingly high numbers of people who commute seemingly vast distances from the Waikato and Northland regions (and even a few from the Bay of Plenty – I assume they don’t go there and back each day!) to Auckland. Well over 1000 people sit in three Waikato districts that would potentially be well served by a Hamilton-Auckland commuter train.

But getting back to commuting patterns within Auckland, while it’s well know that only around 12% of the Auckland region’s jobs are within the Auckland CBD, it seems as though commuting patterns in Auckland are still fairly “Auckland City centric”. Some interesting bits of information from the above statistics show:

• 28,000 people who live in North Shore City work in Auckland City, with only 7,000 doing the opposite.
• Almost 31,000 people who live in Waitakere City work in Auckland City, with only 6,000 doing the opposite.
• 41,000 people who live in Manukau City work in Auckland City, with only 16,000 doing the opposite.

Other cross-city flows are perhaps lower than I thought they would be. West to north is around 4,000, and west to south just over 3,000. I always thought that there are a lot of people trying to do Waitakere City to East Tamaki commutes and getting nailed by much of the worst traffic Auckland has to offer, but perhaps the numbers are lower than I had anticipated there. Also, only around 4,400 people travel either from North Shore City to Manukau City or vice versa.

A lot of these statistics are fairly promising. They show that, at least in terms of looking at things from this rather “high-level” breakdown, people generally seem to live in the same part of the city that they work. Waitakere City is probably the lowest in this respect – as almost as many people who live in Waitakere City work in Auckland City as they do in their local area. Patterns across the whole city are shown below: To put things simply, it seems as though either people work within their own areas or they work in Auckland City. A very interesting next question would be “where in Auckland City”, but unfortunately the document only produces a pretty hopeless map for that (page 6, I am not even going to bother inserting it here). It would be interesting to know whether commuters to Auckland City from Waitakere, Manukau and North Shore are more likely to have their jobs in the CBD, or whether they’re more likely to have their jobs in parts of Auckland City closest to them. I would assume that commuters from the North Shore would be more likely to have jobs in the CBD than the Penrose/Mt Wellington area, but this might not be true for those from Manukau City, because Penrose/Mt Wellington is much closer.

So what to make of all this? From a transport perspective it is good to see a large proportion of people working relatively closer to where they live – as this puts less pressure on the transport system. I certainly don’t think Auckland would be better off with more people going from Waitakere to Manukau, or from Manukau to the North Shore to work. It would seem as though Auckland City is certainly still a major magnet for jobs – both from within the city itself but also from North Shore, Manukau and (perhaps most particularly) Waitakere.

Looking at Waitakere City in a bit more detail, there’s a rather interesting map that attempts to show the dispersal of trips from Waitakere City residents either within the area or to other cities (most predominantly Auckland City). These trips do seem quite “CBD area” focused, and certainly come from a variety of parts of west Auckland. A map like this seems to show that a Northwest Busway might be a pretty damn good idea. I must say I’m surprised that the flows to other parts of Auckland City – particularly the Penrose/Mt Wellington employment centre, aren’t higher.

All up, whilst it would certainly be interesting to see more detail on commuter patterns to different parts of Auckland City, data like this is certainly useful in helping to form an understanding of what’s actually going on around Auckland. The next census is taking place next year, so it’ll be interesting to see if the data has changed much since 2006.

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