We have been hearing bits and pieces about it but the Draft Regional Public Transport Plan is finally here. It won’t be without its challenges but if AT manages to complete what is proposed in the plan, they will have truly revolutionised public transport in the region for the better. One of the big influences on the direction for this plan over previous versions of it is the creation of The Auckland Plan which among other things set some challenging but achievable targets for PT use, in particular:
- Doubling public transport from 70 to 140 million trips by 2022 (subject to additional funding)
- Increasing non-car (walking, cycling and public transport) mode share in the morning peak from 23 to 45 per cent of all trips by 2040
- Increasing the proportion of all vehicular trips made by public transport into the city centre during the morning peak from 47 to 70 per cent by 2040
- Increasing the annual number of public transport trips per person from 44 to 100 by 2040
- Increasing the proportion of people living within walking distance of frequent public transport stops from 14 to 32 per cent by 2040
I haven’t had a chance to fully read through the plan yet but the general theme is to use our existing PT resources to get as much out of the public transport system as possible before large infrastructure projects like the City Rail link are built. In a way it could be also be described as finally addressing all of the things that aren’t always as sexy as a big new infrastructure project but that need to be done. Many readers will know that improvements over the last decade to both infrastructure and services has seen patronage rapidly increase but sometimes it pays to put that into perspective. The image below shows our historic patronage by mode all the way back to 1920. It perhaps important to remember that back in the mid 50’s when patronage was still over 100 million per trips per year, our population was less than 1/3 of what it is today.
While patronage has been improving in recent years, there is still a lot of challenges that need to be addressed which range from funding pressures to infrastructure requirements to how the PT network operates. To address these changes there are a number of key changes that anticipated to take place over the next decade, they are listed below:
A couple of these are going to have a massive impact on the general public with the biggest of them being the new route structure that is proposed and is the same as we saw a few weeks ago. As a reminder here is the frequent network on which services will run at least every once 15 minutes between 7am and 7pm.
The other big piece that we have been waiting to hear about is moving to proper zonal fares that doesn’t penalise people for transferring. Its great to hear that that is officially the plan. Here is a map of the proposed fare boundaries. I like how the boundaries overlap in the major transfer points.
There is quite a lot of detailed information in the plan and over the next few weeks we will break down the various components, give our thoughts on them and come up with a model submission should you wish to use it for yourself. Consultation closes on November 5th. At a high level at least, things appear to be going in the right direction so I can’t wait for the revolution to begin.
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So exciting! PT in Auckland in a few years time will be unrecognizably different and better from where things are now. Well done Auckland Transport.
Generally a good movement, however we won’t be able to tell for sure until the actual fare structure is out especially for monthly passes as to whether the current penalisation of workers outside the CBD continues
The new fare zones should hugely benefit non-CBD bound trips Karl because the zones allow pretty big crosstown trips all within one zone.
Sorry for late clarity but I mean people who live and work outside the CBD. And the juicy zones mean nothing depending on the structure of the replacement to the monthly passes (presuming they do at some point actually get a replacement) the current monthly passes dont allow you to get a zoned pass that excludes the CBD – they all radiate out (IE there is no zone 2 monthly pass or 2+3 zone without 1). Which makes them more expensive than the 10 trip passes
Not sure what you mean by this Karl. If you live outside the city centre (i.e. further away) then should you not pay more for PT? Also don’t forget that the local proportion of PT funding comes from a targeted rate that means that properties downtown pay much more towards PT than little houses in the burbs.
But as for the RPTP; this looks like a very good news story.
He said workers outside the CBD Stu, not residents… I presume he means people that live and work in a local area. But I don’t agree with his comment, those big juicy zones would make intrasuburban travel cheapest, and radial travel to the CBD more expensive (which I think is appropriate).
Right – but he said “workers” I interpreted that as “people who live outside the CBD but travel to work in it” as opposed to “people who live in the CBD and travel to work outside it”.
Not immediately clear, but either way we agree – radial travel should be expensive; crosstown travel cheap. That should benefit people who do not work in the CBD actually.
Does it not mean that someone going from say Henderson to Manukau pays the same as someone going from Henderson to the CBD even though the former is a much longer journey.
Yes – but remember that the peaks are the key cost driver of all your infrastructure and rolling stock. So people who travel in peaks should pay more.
The other way to get around this is to offer an off-peak discount (30% in Brisbane) which is something I would definitely support. Is this discussed in RPTP?
Given that the new hop cards are only going to be available from Britomart, Newmarket and New Lynn my hope is not high.
Cheer up sad sack, just look at that graph baby yeah.
Higher demand will eventually mean much more than just HOP. It means we can progress a whole raft of PT improvements that have relatively high fixed costs and can only be justified through the economies of scale that come from a system that lots of people use. Every extra passenger is a small vote of confidence that (without going too far) all of us should recognise and respect. You only have to go back to the early 90s to see how grim things were for PT at that time … we have many. many reasons to be optimistic about PT in Auckland. About twice as many from looking at that graph :).
One final thing: The city was much smaller back in 1940 in size as well as population than it is now. So if you plotted passenger-km over time rather than patronage, we’d probably see an even larger jump in recent performance.
While I can say the same as Stu (morning) in cheer up I can also hear Karl’s concern around his hopes. Found something interesting though for the Transport Blog community, just give me a second to scan and upload it to Scribd
I don’t get your comment. Why not order a hop card online? I presume that is feasible.
Would love to – but haven’t seen anything about them being available online?
That graph of PT patronage is wonderful; it’s really the “pulse of the city.”
It is, although I am not liking the reading in yesterday’s Transport Committee Agenda where I see fare rises above inflation are being touted.
Mean time some literature on the rail network this morning (Matt you get one yet?) http://www.scribd.com/doc/108892273/AT-HOP-30001
Fares simply have to rise because of NZTA’s Farebox Recovery Policy, which in turn is because of the National Government’s cuts to PT spending in the GPS. It’s nothing to with AT and more to do with National Government.
Only other option is to improve the efficiency of services, but that’s hard to do in short-term especially when you’re working to implement a new fare structure and a new operating model.
AT has my sympathies given the challenges they’re facing.
Also hard to increase efficiency when the money available for capex from our taxes is shrinking at the same time. It is hard not to conclude that this government will be happy if they can at least slow down the growth in PT use in AK as it makes fools of both their statements in parliament that no one wants it and of their crazed rush to spend every available dollar on massive motorways elsewhere.
Why are AT Hop sales only available the day before AT Hop use starts?
Wow – I was just thinking about zoning issues this morning, as choosing Grafton Train Station instead of Auckland Hospital almost doubled my bus fare for 200m extra distance… zone overlap, and you get the cheapest fare that could apply. It’s such a simple and smart way of dealing with the sudden price jump on shorter trips near the zone edge.
Yep zone overlaps are a really nice and simple way of dealing with boundries. The other thing is that based on the geographical zones in the image above, Auckland is pretty much ideally suited as there are only a handful points where it needs to apply.
I hope the overlaps are a bit more generous than what’s shown on the map, though, especially at the city fringe. Is it really fair for a trip to Parnell to cost the same from Midtown as it would from Papakura?
Oh sorry, I was looking at the map wrong: I didn’t realise the city zone was a bit bigger than the current one. It’s not quite that bad, but it’s still going to lead to much bigger fares for people who are currently taking short trips.
Quick look at that zone map and it seems that the upper North Shore gets an better deal than South Ak [plus ça change]: The Albany area is 2 zones to the city but Mangere, Manukau, and Botany one is 3, despite about the same distance as the crow flies…. what’s that about? Lack of natural barriers to make a boundary with? Need to subsidise the poor Shore people? Local politicians getting big mitts in there?
You could add in a “virtual zone” for the bridge crossing & ferry trips to even it out. I might even submit on that.
But doesn’t that penalise those going from say just Devonport to the CBD even though they are really close. Why not just retain the current North/South zones that exist for the northern pass?
What are they like Matt? NS divided through Sunnynook looks logical to me…?
Current northern pass boundries
Perfect.
Not quite perfect, I think Greenhithe is should be in the upper zone. Otherwise to get from Hobsonville to Albany would require a three zone pass, the same as Pukekohe to town.
Patrick, it looks like the focus was on making the North Shore one contiguous zone, the same way West Auckland is it’s own zone and the former Manukau City is it’s own zone. That would be really great for local travel, at the expense of making trips to the city ‘unfair’. The problem isn’t with the Shore zone, it’s actually with the CBD zone, in particular the fact it is on one side of the isthmus zone rather than being in the middle of it. The lower north shore is right next to the CBD in the same way the isthmus is, that is a simple fact of geography.
I can see three possible solutions to this quandary:
1) Extend the isthmus zone halfway up the North Shore so that the CBD zone is in the middle of it.
2) Remove the CBD zone and just have a single isthmus zone
3) Break all the zones up into smaller chunks with a focus on maintaining even spread on radial trips.
No. 2 is probably problematic because you lose fidelity, you’ll have to bump up the price of a basic single zone fare quite high because most trips in the region would be single zone. That penalises people who travel locally and aren’t isthmus to city commuters. No. 3 is probably no good because you start to have zones to small and you lose the benefits of unlimited travel within a zone, it becomes more like a stage system.
No. 1 gets my vote. Costellation station is about as far from town at Panmure or New Lynn, so why not have a zone boundary. In fact they already do on the Northern Pass, the line runs across between Greenhithe, Constellation and Mairangi Bay. You could join the area there to the zone on the isthmus to form a big ‘inner zone’ in a ring around the CBD zone. After that there might be the case for joining the west zone and the remaining north zone together.
Max, I think that would go too far the other way . Then you’d need a three zone pass to get from Northcote Pt to town, while on the other side you could get all the way from Onehunga or Glen Innes on a two zone pass.
There are
I see your point. One could make the “ferry/bridge zone” cheaper, but that would kinda defeat the simplicity. Thanks for the other good suggestions.
Yes I agree, Devonport is Ponsonby and Akoranga is like the Mt Eden/Dom Rd station. Without the water the nearer parts of the Shore would be City Zone. After all Devonport by ferry is one stop away, like Parnell by rail.
The concentric rings every 10km on that map do sort of highlight that.
The scale and breadth of impact of this process cannot be overstated. It truly is a revolution. It will be at times a messy process with room for all sorts of misunderstanding and suspicion, especially at the detail level. Current PT users will be faced with their routines and patterns having to alter and that always provokes a reaction. Hopefully AC and ATs communication processes will be improved and increased to help people see the bigger picture, to see how the changes will be worth it. They will also need to be good listeners as some feedback may be useful.
Because it is essentially a philosophical change, a change in the very idea of Auckland, there is already ideologically based objection, although of course it is never expressed as such. There is and will be attempts especially to prevent any investment required by powerful arms of the auto-highway complex at every level. The AA will keep up its infantile whine. Councillors Brewer and Quax will attack every single detail, amplify any compliant and generally try to delay, filibuster, and blacken each stage of this important change. Why? It seems they represent some part of the community that is threatened by Auckland becoming a viable place to live and work without having to only using a car to get around at all times. As well as seeing some political advantage for themselves in opposing this. Are they right? That will be interesting to watch, looking at the upward slope of that first chart it looks like the tide is against them, but then they seem to want to build little fortresses of disconnection in their respective suburbs….
Then there is the current government who are also making this work much much harder than it should be, especially by jealously retaining the vast bulk of Auckland’s transport levies for their own mega motorway projects, an agenda based on an opposing worldview. Even the fractional sums that apparently available for PT infrastructure investment necessary for this process and from our National Land Transport Fund are often greedily snatched back through technicalities such as new line charges paid to Kiwi Rail, increased pressure for fairbox recovery, or indeed are only loans to ratepayers anyway.
Extraordinary really because in many ways AC/AT are doing the governments work here, doing everything they can to keep Auckland connected, able to function well, getting people to work efficiently, making the county’s biggest city and biggest centre of economic activity still function, at a time when everybody comes under increased pressure from static incomes and rising transport and housing costs.
Because come 2016 the proportion of the whole city that it will be possible to live in without having to rely on your car for every journey is going to be far far greater than it has ever been since the 1950s. And in particular this also includes centres of employment other than the CBD. This will make living in less expensive parts of town more appealing and even more affordable as households will be able to enjoy life without the burden of quite so many vehicles and will therefore be able to spend that income elsewhere. And of course, even a small reduction in driving will free up the our extensive road network enormously for those that choose to drive.
Great work AC + AT.
Hear hear. It will be a messy process (change almost always is). But we’ll get there … keep on trucking.
Submissions close on Nov 5th, indeed, let the revolution begin!
Does anyone else think it’s interesting how much of the patronage growth in the last 10-15 years has come from buses?
Actually it isn’t as much as it looks, I have figures back to 02 and since then patronage has increase by 9.2m on buses but rail has increased by 8.5m so not that much in it
Maybe Stu was tricked by the fact that the top graph is cumulative – so the green bus graph seems to rise a lot higher, when in fact, that line is the cumulative growth also propped up by rail?
Maybe he was confused, at least it dispels the stupid comments from the likes of the government that rail just takes trips off buses as both have grown.
No, if you go back to when patronage bottomed out in 1994 bus trips were about 30 million per annum, Fast forward to now and they’re 55 million per annum. Max, no I was reading the graph right. In the same period rail has gone from 2 million to 11 million, but that’s only 9 million extra trips, meanwhile buses added 25 million. And before anyone says “we only started investing in rail in 2002” I’ll just say that “we have never really invested in buses” :).
You could argue that the bus growth in the last 10-15 years has just been a recovery of what was lost in the 70’s and 80’s so isn’t really growth 😉
Really though we should just be happy that things are improving and doing so rapidly.
I agree – but I’m genuinely interested in the drivers of the resurgence in bus patronage, which is probably not driven by capital investment.
Demographic changes maybe? Student numbers? International students in particular?
I do wonder if some of it is genuinely from a result in having more confidence tin PT. By that I mean that from the 50’s to the 70’s the only focus from a transport perspective was on cars and motorways. People pick up on that perception and change their habits. In the 70’s there was obviously the oil shocks but we also saw Mayor Robbie get close to building his proposed rail network which would have given people confidence that PT was worth using. Of course after that was cancelled patronage declines again as the focus shifts back to cars.
In the 90’s there were various plans and proposals for PT systems which culminated in Britomart being built and while that was for rail. It helps to propel PT into the media spotlight. Since then further improvements have kept going but I wonder if it has given people a sense that we have started caring about PT and so gives them confidence to give things a go. To me this is one of the reasons why major rail station upgrades like Newmarket, New Lynn and Panmure are so important as they tell people that we do now care about having a quality system (even if those particular stations are focused mainly on one mode)
But capex has also made a diff; obviously with the northern busway, but also simpler things like the route with new buses that I use the most; The Link [Green]. The gentle creep of bus lanes helps too.
Matt is clearly also right also, there is no [or at least less] shame associated with using PT now, even the lowly bus! Just wait for those double deckers and then electric units and bus riding is going to get downright sexy!
Hmm … what you say is right, insofar as it helps to explain the recent growth.
But let me put it this way: More PT patronage growth (in absolute and percentage terms) happened in the 10 years before Britomart opened than has happened since. That’s not to say that Britomart has now been a spectacular success, because it has. But the numbers suggest that somewhere in Auckland’s recent PT history there is an equally important story going untold.
I have a feeling the growth is more related to the removal of restrictions on residential development and abolishing minimum parking requirements in the central city. There I said it, without a shred of evidence beyond my spleen instinct: What do you guys think?
I’m not so sure but your level of evidence is about the same as those who fight to retain minimums have.
What’s your spleen telling you about the reasons for the 1994-2003 growth Matt?
The 1994-2003 jump is an interesting one. Perhaps it was the result of bus companies finally investing a bit in new rolling stock plus something of a resurgent CBD compared to the dire trends of the late 80s and early 90s.
In other words, perhaps as is suggested above, the 94-03 jump was really just recovering what was lost in the immediately preceding years and occurred because the trends which led to the 87-93 drop stopped (i.e. the CBD starting growing again).
Remember that post 87 sharemarket crash a huge number of buildings had bee demolished but the sites not yet rebuilt on (some empty lots still exist from that time!) This meant that not only were there now fewer downtown jobs, but also there was an absolute abundance of very cheap CBD parking. I remember when parking at the university was $2 a day! This combined with much cheaper imported cars really crashed PT patronage over the few years after 87.
Yes that seems reasonable, 94-03 is a recovery to a previous base level, then the Britomart led rail plus ferry resurgence. Now with the buses joining in and we’re at the start of a full PT renaissance, about to go fully mental over the next four years. Oh the chaos! Any predictions on when we’ll hit 80 million? Which would still only take us back to the the mid 50s. Of course rail can’t add much until the EMUs are running, 2015 really, so how many more can we fit on buses, and how many more buses can we fit?
What baffles me is the late 1920s to mid 1930s dip- is that the beginnings of the car, followed by depression then war return to the trams?
Wow. Warkworth gets a bus service.
Hm, I see a mapping error – the Devonport Ferry is shown as FTN but its 2016 frequency as shown on page 75 will be only one service every 30 minutes off-peak as per current. It will also be a separate fare. I don’t think it qualifies to be on the map 🙁
Is the outer south zone (4 zones to/from CBD) from Pukekohe to Manurewa?
Will there be Common Fare Zones like they have in Vancouver?
A Common Fare Zones is “Certain designated locations of fare zones along fare zone boundaries have been classified as common to each adjacent zone. Passengers are permitted travel to/from such designated common fare zone locations for a one-zone fare”, http://www.translink.ca/en/Fares-and-Passes/Fare-Zone-Map.aspx
That’s the “zone overlap” circles shown on the map! The actual areas probably need to be tweaked, but it’s good for high-level consultation.
So even though zones have long boundaries, you catch the bus in the correct circle over the boundary do you get the one-zone fare.
It looks like the western boundary of the city zone is Ponsonby Road. Given I live near the bottom of College hill, it’ll cost me two-zones to catch a bus to Grey Lynn, but someone can catch a bus from New Market to Panmure for one zone.
Does the frequent services map mean that these will be the only bus routes that will operate from 2016 or are these just the ones with more frequent services in addition to what currently exists? I am very concerned that some areas will lose their current routes completely and therefore people will not be able to access the more frequent routes because it will be too far to walk from home to the arterial routes. Can someone please advise? Thanks
No, these are just the services that will run all day, every day (7am-7pm even on Sundays) with a frequency of at least one bus/train every 15 minutes. On top of this there is another series of routes that fill in the gaps but that run at least once every 30 minutes. Combined they form the all day network and on top of that further there will be special peak only buses, school buses etc. Here is a map of the all day network, blue is the really frequent ones (15 mins) while the green is the less frequent ones up to every 30 mintues.
One part of this secondary map that is not covered well is the Penrose/Southdown/Westfield area. It currently has regular services along Gt South Rd, but if they are replaced by train and Westfield closes there is nothing showing to replace it. They will need a regular Ellerslie-Otahuhu bus service, perhaps diverting down Station Rd, Penrose and Maurice Rds to service a greater area.
Another great part of the plan (page 75) is that the new electric trains will be every 10 minutes: not just during the peak but all day on every line but Onehunga, and even on Saturdays on the Southern and Eastern lines.
Yes that is pretty fantastic (just writing up something about it now)
I guess they will drop the off peak services down to a single 3 car set, (ideally they would have some inter-peak stabling near britomart [the strand??] to minimise dead running across the network to and from Wiri….
Eh?
Comment of the day!
Is there a breakdown of the $1bn infrastructure investment over the next 3 years, as mentioned on p. 9 $461m on the CRL, but what about the other $533m? Tellingly just $78m has been requested from NZTA.
‘Tellingly’ as in what Cam?
That there is a real struggle to get meaningful funding from central Government for PT infrastructure. Compare that with the planned operational expenditure of $1bn where NZTA contribute 53%.
Well ‘no surprises there’ as they say. With the current govt so anti-PT, no meaningful funding will be forthcoming until there is a change in government – which hopefully will occur in 2014…or we will have to wait until after the 2017 election.
My belief is that AT really have to get serious (starting FY2014) about revenue generation through watertight farebox protection and comprehensive advertising space rental agreements / concessions.
What was the nature of the Advertising Concession EOI that AT put out on 28 Aug? Closing date for submissions on that was 26 Sept.
Would the capital expenditure on the EMUs be in that other $533??? ( I know they list the finance costs separately, but the purchase is a definite capital expense)
No I don’t think so as while they are a capital expense, the loan to pay them is being paid off over a period of 35 years and is being considered as OPEX (and the NZTA is eventually paying for 50% of the loan payments)
Do you know if Auckland is getting a transfer system like that in San Francisco and Vancouver, where
the one fare covers you for 90 minutes of travel within the same zone.
See http://www.translink.ca/en/Fares-and-Passes/Single-Fares.aspx and http://www.sfmta.com/cms/mfares/transfers.htm
I couldn’t see any mention of it.
There will be 2-hour, daily, and monthly fare options, but I don’t know if the 2-hour fare is the basic ticket or whether it costs extra.
The page is now password protected. Open government at work!
You forgot to include Waiheke in zone 3.
Ferries aren’t included in the zone system, they’ll have their own point to point fares. If you think that should change them make a submission on the draft.
Not sure if they can as the ferries don’t come under normal PTOM contracting. It doesn’t say anything about fares for Waiheke buses though.
Thats a shame – Ferries are currently the least subsidised public transport mode and they are the mode most likely to require connections at either end.
Ferries are subsidised less because their fares are so high. Bring them into the zone system and that changes hugely.
If people are willing to bear the high fares, then they must get a lot of value out of them – subsidise them and make them part of a network and use may skyrocket. Ferries are also fairly high capacity (low marginal cost) So I can’t really see your point. We pour loads of money into rail, why not ferries and see what happens. We continually hear about the issues of buses on city streets, ferries are a great alternative, especially from the shore where those buses come from. But they are only useful to a decent number of people if they are part of an integrated network. Not many people live in devonport and work downtown.
My understanding is that ferries have a great overall farebox recovery rate because the Waiheke and Devonport services are extremely profitable and in effect hide how poorly most of the other routes perform. I think it’s a case of ferries working extremely well in some locations but being very marginal in others.
But we currently don’t have integrated ticketing! It is a fact that out of all modes ferries would benefit the most from being part of an integrated network.
Let’s leave Waiheke out of it for a moment. Devonport and other ferries do not have fares substantially higher than buses. The question is, would the increased patronage outweigh the extra per passenger subsidy, as well as the benefits from the network effect (run less buses and have higher frequency)? I believe the weight of logic lies with the affirmative.
Swan I absolutely agree that ferries should be included. I guess I am just saying that we need to recognise the impact that would have on farebox recovery. Devonport in particular looks like a critical part of the network.
This is interesting because I know quite a few of people who already live the ‘Transfer Model’ way avant le lettre and all of them live in Devonport or Narrow Neck. In other words people who transfer between modes in order to get work include: Two architects in Narrow Neck who bus to the Devonport Ferry then walk to their High St practice. The charming health professional who described her commute, a bi-modal, three legged journey, as she pulled the stitches out of my face just yesterday: Narrow Neck [bus] Downtown [Ferry] Ponsonby [bus]. She is of course paying three fares for the pleasure of living overlooking the Rangitoto channel but working on Ponsonby road; sans car commute. Or six a day.
It seems to me too that the ferries need to be integrated too, as the whole idea is to build a network, the busy routes cross-subsidise the weaker ones providing the service and connections that can build them up to becoming more viable.
I suspect that the problem is the private operator jealously guarding a profitable route, but also failing to build their business beyond it, and therefore failing to help AK’s transport network much [as Swan says above, lots of space on the water], or helping us to become more involved with our beautiful harbour on a daily basis. Like Sydney is.
No, let’s not leave Waiheke out of this. It’s high time that the Fullers monopoly is brought to heel. You said “ferries have love marginal cost”. So why are the Waiheke commuter fares the highest in the world?
We already have integrated ticketing in the Waiheke monthy passes, which allow unlimited travel on the Waiheke ferry, Waiheke Buses (which gets a $1,000 subsidy a day from AT), NZ Bus, Howick& Eastern and Birkenhead Buses (iirc). Not Ritchies or the others.
What we need is the Discovery pass to include Waiheke, after all we are part of the supercity.
And bear in mind that the Supergold card integrated system already includes Waiheke, so why do you want the discrimination based on age in integrated fares?
Had a brief look at this earlier today and thought I would read the whole document later, only to find that it’s been password protected???!! Isn’t it supposed to be a consultation document, or am I missing the point?
It was meant to go up tomorrow morning but I think someone might have pushed the go button a bit early. I checked with AT that I could go ahead and publish this first and they said yes but I guess someone else higher up may had it pulled for the time being, check back tomorrow
Here it is: http://greaterakl.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/RPTP-full-update.pdf
Something I am curious about is the apparent doubling of ferry boardings around the mid 90s. Does anyone know the cause of this surge in ferry popularity in that period?
Is there a figure with per capita boardings for each mode over this period? Or the raw data such that one could be made?
Yes I would very much like to see the raw data for it also
the extraordinary thing about the patronage data over time is that back at that peak around about 1945 the population of Auckland was just getting upt to around 400,000, not much more than a quarter of what it is today! The 1960 figure, which is about where we are getting back to now was at a time when the population passed half a million. We’re doing well, but we have a ways to go!
The 1940s are, of course, a rather special case; there was this little thing called World War II which was very big at the time. Not only did this drastically restrict access to any alternatives to PT it also flooded the city with tens of thousands of enthusiastic young men looking for a good time but who carelessly left their cars back in the US of A……
But still that line will keep going up unless supply is choked off for that demand.
The interesting thing is how the high WWII patronage was retained right through until the mid 1950s. I know that petrol rationing lasted a few years after the war, but surely not through to the mid 50s.
And then in the space of 3-4 years between 1955 and 1959 we somehow lost about 40 million PT trips a year. I guess that’s what happens when you start building motorways everywhere and rip out your tram system.
Cars were rather hard to get hold of, not just petrol for them.
Wasn’t it mentioned somewhere before that enabling transfers at intersections where lines cross are going to be made easier – revolutionised even? For example, when transferring from a north-south route to an east-west route at a major intersection – at say Balmoral between the green and blue lines. Any word on that? All I could think of is having a stop right before and just after a major intersection for both routes, so that you won’t ever have to cross the intersection by foot and won’t have to go far to transfer…
Stuart – we did make some really major changes to our immigration laws in 1986. That may have had an impact? I don’t think it’s unfeasible that having a lot of mainly young (because that is how the points system worked) migrants from densely populated cities in Asia and the UK who didn’t have drivers licenses arrive in NZ, could have changed our travelling habits as a city. but there’s a bit of a time lag there from 1994…
Looking at that tram, train and ferry usage in the first graph age that was wiped out in the 1950’s makes me want to cry. People didn’t just decide to use their cars it was forced on them, as shows in the increase in bus patronage since then.
I’m SO looking forward to the proposed (orange) route from Onehunga via Mangere to Airport and Manukau. Having been to take flights numerous times last year it’s ridiculous that I can’t easily get from Mangere Bridge to the airport which is 10-15mins by car, but is currently maybe an hour and a half with 2 or 3 bus changes via Papatoetoe.
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