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By admin, on November 24th, 2009 Some good news today, it has been confirmed that the government have not cancelled electrification, and will loan KiwiRail the $500 million it needs to buy Auckland some electric trains.
We don’t yet know how many trains we will be getting, or exactly when they will arrive. But it is still good to see that electrification has not been cancelled and will definitely happen. It is slightly frustrating that it has taken from March until now for this to happen, which has meant that any chances of having electric trains by the time of the World Cup have evaporated (although we might well have the wires up by then).
But at least it’s happening. More from me later.
By admin, on November 24th, 2009 There are a number of little things about Auckland that makes you realise how wrong we have our priorities when it comes to transport. Little things that we just get wrong, or things that show how generally public transport is looked at with disdain, or how pedestrians are seen as second-rate citizens, even in supposedly pedestrian-oriented areas such as the CBD. This post is intended to create a list of little things that Auckland just get wrong, which it shouldn’t, and which could be fixed quite easily (and cheaply) if only someone gave a damn.
- Why can’t bus drivers on the Link Bus at Victoria Park tell you exactly how long it will be until their timetable says they’ll be leaving again?
- Why is the pedestrian traffic light near the intersection of Durham Street and Queen Street so pathetic in taking so long to give pedestrians a turn that everyone jay-walks across the road anyway?
- Why is the right-turn arrow phase from Queen Street into Karangahape Road (heading up Queen Street) so short? A lot of buses need to make that turn, so it’s stupid to give them such a short phase.
- Why are pedestrians crossing Jervois Road at the intersection with Redmond Street and Dedwood Terrace held in such disdain that they have to wait two phases to cross the road?
- Why is graffiti around the motorway system cleaned up almost immediately while that along the railway corridors stays in place for months, if not years?
- How on earth can Manukau City Council justify giving Great South Road a speed limit of 70kph as it passes through their town centre? Do they want to kill off pedestrians?
- Why does there have to be a difference between the 004 and 005 bus routes? I mean seriously, what does that do other than confuse people and put passengers off using the service?
- Why is our main street a four-lane highway? (OK that can’t be particularly easily fixed, but it’s annoying all the same!)
- Why is the 224 bus always 15 minutes late?
- Why are we able to roll out real-time information signs for buses (seemingly quite a complicated task), but not for trains (seemingly a relatively simple task)?
Please feel free to add in your “pet peeves” about Auckland and its transport system. Perhaps I will be able to gather them all together and email them to a whole bunch of people at Councils, ARTA, NZTA, KiwiRail or whoever else is responsible and we can get some action on the simple stuff we should be getting right, but just aren’t.
By admin, on November 23rd, 2009 The excellent Human Transit blog reports that London’s Circle Line is being turned into something that more represents a “tadpole” – well at least according to Jarret from Human Transit.
The difference between the old line and the new are clearly visible in the two maps below. Firstly, the old (current) map: And now the new one: The obvious question I had was “why the change?” Circle lines seem very effective – that you’ll always end up where you need to go eventually, and a certain security about the completeness of it. However, with the advantages of circular lines, there are also apparently some pretty significant disadvantages. Human Transit explains how these disadvantages have led to the changes in the operation of London’s Circle Line:
Why did the Circle Line come apart? Because it was hard to operate reliably. Reliability depends on regular breaks that give a late service the opportunity to catch up to its schedule. Human drivers obviously need breaks too. Actually, the transit industry usually distinguishes between two kinds of break:
- Layover is the time a human driver needs at the end of a line, to do personal business, meditate, snack, whatever.
- Recovery is spare time in the schedule whose purpose is to enable a late vehicle to get back on time.
Many labor contracts and operations policies have complex formulas governing these two things, but in broad terms, a bus or tram in mixed traffic needs at least 10% of its time to be layover and recovery, and often closer to 15%, while exclusive right-of-way services may need a bit less.
And since nobody wants to be waiting on the vehicle while these breaks occur, efficient transit lines have endpoints where the vehicle will be empty. Most transit lines that are presented as continuous circles have some provision for this, but it’s often awkward. On the Circle Line, drivers took their breaks by leaving the vehicle and taking over one a few minutes later, a method called “operator fallback,” which provided layover but didn’t solve the problem of recovery. Now they’ll have both, and they should see better operations, and perhaps even happier drivers.
Basically, because the service operates as a circle once it got behind its scheduled timetable there was not really any opportunity for it to recover. For services that properly “terminate”, there is time for the train/bus/tram/whatever to either wait a while before beginning its run without inconveniencing passengers (if it’s running on time) or make that time up if it’s running late. I remember the first time I caught the Circle Line there was a period where it stopped at a station for quite a few minutes, which was only slightly annoying to me (as we weren’t exactly in a hurry) but could have annoyed a regular user to a greater extent.
In terms of bringing this back to Auckland, the obvious equivalent is the Link Bus route – which in some ways suffers the problems of being a circular service even more than London’s Circle Line. This is because The Link does not run in its own right-of-way – and actually has an embarrassing lack of bus lanes along its route. As all regular users of the Link Bus know, they have a nasty habit of coming in “bunches” – long gaps with no buses and then plenty of buses coming at the same time – as well as having the annoying Victoria Park delays, where the bus waits for five or so minutes before shifting onwards (usually without the driver informing passengers annoyingly) so that its timetable can “catch up”.
I wonder whether there would be a reason to do something similar to the Link Bus route as is being done to the Circle Line – to turn it into a kind of “spiral” type service (perhaps with its new branch out to the Tank Farm area once it develops?) Or would the disadvantages of breaking up the circular route of the Link outweigh the advantages? I must say I’m skeptical about whether the changes to the Circle Line in London will make things better for the user, as it seems like they’re being made with the benefit of the operator more clearly in mind. I’m generally of the opinion that public transport should be tailored to best suit its users, not make life easier for its operators – and in fact I think that the operator based system has caused many of the problems faced by Auckland’s current system. Perhaps with the Link we just really need smart-card ticketing (to speed up boarding times) and more bus lanes (preferably along its whole route) to avoid bus bunching and enable more reliable travel times – which would reduce the need for the “Victoria Park wait”.
By admin, on November 23rd, 2009 The Auckland Transition Agency has released the draft structure of the Auckland Transport Agency (how annoying that their acronyms are the same). The management structure is shown in the diagrams below: And a bit more detail: At first glance I have to say “wow, it’s incredibly roads focused”. In the top structure we see roads mentioned four times and passenger transport only mentioned once. This compares to ARTA’s current focus, which is very much on passenger transport. Of course I realise that with the inclusion of transport departments from the various city councils we will have a tilt back towards roads, compared with ARTA’s current role, but this seems a wholesale massive swing back towards roads. Under the Chief Infrastructure Officer we have a unit dedicated to “Major Roading Projects”, but not “Major Public Transport Projects” too – what’s with that? Under the Chief Operating Officer we have three roading units, but just the one public transport unit.
This is what ARC Councillor Joel Cayford has to say about it:
The draft contains “the top three tiers” of the Auckland Transport Agency. Looking at this structure plan, with all of the boxes and all of the activities, I was reminded of a typical Council Traffic Engineering Department. It’s mainly about roads: planning new roads, project specs for new roads, planning options for new roads, assessing new road options, designing new roads. And of course I appreciate and understand that roads are part of the transport system.
However, in established and built up cities, new road projects are thin on the ground. Because there’s no land left for more roads. Instead emphasis is on re-allocating space on existing road reserves, providing much better share and quality for pedestrians and cyclists, and very much improving the look and feel of road edges, so that local economic development and economic activity is stimulated and thrives and flourishes.
Auckland needs to move to that way of thinking if it is to ever climb out of its current sprawling, energy and transport time wasting habits. And it needs institutions that reflect that need. ARTA – what we have now – does reflect that need. Its emphasis is travel demand management. Its driver is a Regional Land Transport Strategy which – while recognising the role that roads play in transport – calls for the delivery of multiple objectives and co-benefits.
There is very little balance in this proposed Auckland Transport Agency structure. It reflects colonial times – roads, roads roads – and roading infrastructure construction priorities.
I agree entirely. I wonder how much influence on this structure there has been from Wellington?
By admin, on November 22nd, 2009 One gets the feeling that the transport “powers to be” in Wellington are a bit grumpy with things. Their plans to shift transport policy towards greater roads-centrism haven’t exactly gone done well in Auckland, with the Regional Council releasing a draft Regional Land Transport Strategy that is the most balanced transport strategy Auckland has seen in 60 years. With great concerns that Auckland’s isn’t exactly “doing what it should”, in following their lines, there seems to be a new strategy to ensure that Auckland can’t get on with transforming its transportation system from one that is roads-centric, into one that is balanced with public transport more. That policy is to starve its funds. A very handy part of starving Auckland’s public transport from the funding it needs is NZTA’s new draft “Farebox Recovery Policy“, which is currently out for consultation until November 30th.
“Farebox recovery” is the technical term for “the proportion of the operating costs of public transport that are paid for through fares”. If no public transport subsidies would be required, the farebox recovery would be 100%, while if public transport were free, the farebox recovery would be 0%. This is further explained in the Policy document:
The primary source of revenue to fund public transport services is the amount paid by the users in the form of fares for the journey, the ‘farebox revenue’. Where the farebox revenue covers the costs, the service is recognised as a ‘commercial service’. In cases where the farebox revenue does not cover the costs, but the regional council or ARTA considers the service necessary, it will contract an operator to provide that service (a ‘contracted service’). The shortfall between the total cost of providing the service and the farebox revenue is made up by payments from the regional council or ARTA.
The NZTA assists the regional councils and ARTA with these payments for contracted services by providing a subsidy of approximately half of the amount of the payments through the National Land Transport Fund. If farebox revenue is covering 40 percent of the total cost of providing the services, a subsidy of 60 percent must be provided. Since the subsidy is split roughly 50 percent regional authority and 50 percent NZTA, the regional authority would have to contribute 30 percent of the total cost of providing the services, and the NZTA, 30 percent. This three-way (user–ratepayer–government) contribution is an important funding principle for public transport services in New Zealand. All three contributions may be required to provide an adequate level of service, but it is preferable that users make the greatest contribution through fares, and if possible that contribution should be grown as a proportion over time.
Most of the above is fully understandable, although the very last sentence is quite interesting – that it’s preferably for users to make the greatest contribution, and that contribution should be grown over time. That’s an interesting position for the document to take – rather than working out what the wider benefits of public transport are, working out the level of subsidies provided to private car users, and then examining whether current levels of “farebox recovery” are appropriate, this document has jumped straight to the assumption that farebox recovery levels are too low, that people should pay more for public transport and that over time people should continue to pay a greater proportion of the operating costs of the service.
The current farebox recovery ratios of the different regions of NZ are included in the table below: Now for a start I must say that I don’t disagree with the need to ensure that there is “value for money” in transport expenditure (not just public transport expenditure, all transport expenditure). As I pointed out a few posts ago, the growth in subsidies to public transport providers over the past decade in Auckland has not had the results that one would have hoped for (250% increase in subsidies for a 44% increase in patronage isn’t great). I think the obvious solution for this is greater co-ordination of services so that we can eliminate much of the “duplication” which the current system seems to encourage. The Public Transport Management Act was specifically passed to allow for greater co-ordination of services, as can be seen in the draft Regional Public Transport Plan. So, much of the cause of this “problem” is already being tackled.
Two options are being looked at for the Draft Farebox Recovery Policy. The first of the options is:
Option 1: Formalised status quo – regional authorities set their own farebox recovery ratio target based on the NZTA’s objectives and principles for farebox recovery policies
This option requires all regional authorities to set a farebox recovery ratio target for their region based on the NZTA’s objectives and principles for farebox recovery policies. Not all regional authorities have a formal published farebox recovery ratio target. It is thought that formalising and publishing this target (in the regional public transport plan), and checking performance after three years, will encourage measures designed to improve farebox recovery ratios, and therefore arrest the decline of farebox recovery ratios. This option provides regional authorities with greater flexibility over, and ownership of, the farebox recovery ratio target for their region.
This option seems fairly reasonable, in that it understands the need for flexibility in farebox recovery ratios. I think flexibility is key, in that there are so many different variables that need to be taken into account – such as Wellington’s electric trains having much lower maintenance requirements than Auckand’s diesel trains, but how this will change over time as Auckland gets its electric trains. Flexibility is also required to reflect the Regional Land Transport Strategy focuses for different regions – with Auckland’s specifically having a goal of providing public transport supply ahead of demand, so that people can be ‘pulled’ towards using public transport. Over time, such a strategy will get more people on public transport, but obviously in the shorter term the farebox recovery might be lower than expected. So I think flexibility is key.
Option 2 is quite different:
Option 2: The adopted farebox recovery policies set farebox recovery ratio targets of 50 percent for Auckland, Wellington and Canterbury, with the ability to seek funding approval from the NZTA for the activities on the basis of an alternative target (if satisfactory justification is provided). All other regional authorities set their own targets.
This option requires ARTA, Greater Wellington Regional Council and Environment Canterbury to adopt policies that set a farebox recovery ratio of no less than 50 percent. All other regional authorities set their own farebox recovery ratio target according to the NZTA’s objectives and principles for farebox recovery policies. ARTA, Greater Wellington Regional Council and Environment Canterbury can apply for funding for activities based on an alternative farebox recovery ratio target. These applications will be considered on a case-by-case basis.
Applicants (ie ARTA, Greater Wellington Regional Council or Environment Canterbury) for an alternative farebox recovery ratio target should supply evidence justifying why an alternative is necessary. The NZTA will consider all or some of the following matters:
• evidence that the efficiency of operating costs has been maximised
• evidence that further improvement to ridership numbers is unlikely
• evidence that increasing fare prices will make the service or services unaffordable, significantly impact ridership or lead to significantly reduced levels of service
• an assessment of the impact that higher fares or reduced services are likely to have on the transport disadvantaged
• any other information considered relevant to the NZTA’s funding approval decision.
The NZTA considers that setting a target for the larger regions is justified and reasonable for the following reasons:
• It sets out clear expectations from the NZTA on the total levels of subsidy appropriate for the larger regions (25 percent of the total operating costs, unless significant wider benefits can be demonstrated).
• It is similar to the targets already set by these regions.
• It is reasonably close to the ratios ARTA, Greater Wellington Regional Council and Environment Canterbury are already achieving, but still constitutes a stretch target or a reasonable and challenging target to continue to achieve.
• It places emphasis on regions where the biggest gains in terms of operational efficiencies and patronage growth can be made.
• The larger regions can apply for approval of services based on an alternative farebox recovery ratio.
Auckland, Wellington and Canterbury receive approximately 90 percent of the NZTA’s expenditure for public transport services and operations, and account for 91 percent of the patronage.
This option enables all other regional authorities to set their own target based on the NZTA’s objectives and principles for farebox recovery policies. Services in these regions tend to be provided primarily for social rather than economic reasons (eg congestion relief), although in some cases it may be a mixture of social and economic reasons. It may be harder to achieve operational efficiencies and significant levels of patronage in these regions because of factors such as the supplier market, population densities, the number of services, plentiful and cheap parking, and staff resources.
Both options allow for an extension of time to be sought to achieve the target in circumstances where patronage growth from significant service changes may take time to build up. In the future, the NZTA may require that farebox recovery ratio targets are set by mode as well as by region.
This option would be incredibly stupid. There’s no justification for the “50 per cent”, other than a broad assumption that what works in Wellington would work in Auckland, or Christchurch for that matter. It ignores the need for flexibility that I outlined above and completely ignores the regional priorities outlined in the draft RLTS. This option would lead to significantly higher fares, potential service cutbacks and force people back into their cars. While that’s possibly what NZTA are hoping to achieve, it certainly runs against what basically everyone in Auckland is saying.
Fortunately, the Auckland Regional Council are onto this, and a report in the latest Regional Transport Committee meeting agenda outlines their concerns. Here’s a good extract from that:
It is considered that the consultation document is a simplistic approach to management of public transport. It appears to be driven by a desire to manage NZTA costs with no recognition of the contribution made by public transport to wider issues such as more sustainable urban form, reducing congestion, reducing emissions (including greenhouse gases), supporting economic productivity (through getting commuters to work), providing greater resilience against system shocks such as increasing oil prices, and social inclusion.
The discussion does not recognise that the farebox recovery ratio is the outcome of the combination of the pattern of transport demand and the services offered. For a given transport demand, setting a farebox recovery ratio will determine the funding available for services, which will in turn determine the set of services that will deliver that target. The farebox recovery ratio target will effectively be the public transport policy for the region.
I could not agree more. Submissions are open until November 30th – and you can either write up your own or fill in NZTA’s feedback form and send your outrage off to chad.barker@nzta.govt.nz .
By admin, on November 21st, 2009 A fairly significant chunk of the book “A Very Public Solution“, by Paul Mees, that I am slowly making my way through, is dedicated to comparing Melbourne with Toronto – and in particular the success (or otherwise) of their public transport systems. Now for a start, both systems are far better than Auckland – both in terms of how extensive they are (which I guess is obvious considering both cities are much bigger than Auckland), but also in terms of the level of use the systems have. Here’s a quick look at the extent of the two rail systems, Melbourne on the left and Toronto on the right: Sorry about the relatively poor quality, I scanned these pages from the book. What’s clear is the Melbourne’s rail system is extremely more extensive than Toronto’s. Both systems also have tram systems (once again Melbourne’s is bigger than Toronto’s). All of Melbourne’s lines are reasonably well used too – with frequencies of between a train every 5-10 minutes at peak times on many of the lines, and trains at 30-40 minute frequencies on Sundays or late in the evening.
The difference between the “size” of the systems is also evident in the diagram below, which shows not only the extent of the lines in the rail and tram systems, but also the number of vehicles on each comparative system. Overall, Melbourne has about 1500 trams & trains, while Toronto has just over 900 vehicles. Overall, it’s clear that Melbourne’s public transport system (at least its rail and tram components) is much more extensive than Toronto’s. Most of Melbourne’s system is a ‘legacy’ of the 19th century, while Toronto’s rail (subway) system was constructed from the 1950s onwards. However, Melbourne’s system still serves the city very effectively, travelling to most corners of the city as can be seen in the top diagram.
So, how does the patronage of the two systems compare? As we can see, in the 1950s Melbourne’s public transport usage was quite spectacular – at over a trip per person per day. However, in subsequent years (things have improved since 1990, with per capita trips at 125 per annum in 2008) patronage tailed off – both in absolute levels (until 1980) and on a per-capita basis (also until 1980). This is not really particularly surprising, as car ownership spread people had more choice in making their trips – so weren’t so ‘captive’ to public transport anymore. But what is interesting is to compare Melbourne’s patronage trends with Toronto’s – which has had almost continuous growth in patronage since the 1950s, and has just about maintained its per capita ridership.
I think a good question at this point is “what the heck’s going on here?” Melbourne, a city with a more extensive rail system, a more extensive tram system, more trains and more trams, is getting absolutely hammered by Toronto. Mees spends quite a few pages of his book explaining how it’s not to do with land-use patterns – as generally Toronto’s urban form is not particularly more public-transport-friendly than Melbourne’s (although compared to Auckland it is much much better, with high-density developments along the subway lines). So if the difference isn’t that Toronto’s system is more extensive, if it isn’t that land-use patterns are more helpful – why on earth are people two and a half times more likely to use public transport in Toronto than Melbourne? The answer, interestingly, can be found in how people get to the train stations – as shown in the table below:
As you can see, in Melbourne most people who use the rail system walk or cycle to the station. This is because Melbourne has generally struggled to provide an integrated ticketing system and route integration as much as Auckland has. In contrast, three out of four people catching a train in Toronto have got to the station on a feeder bus or tram. The limited extent of Toronto’s system doesn’t work against them, because of the ease of transfering, and actually means that the trains and trams that are provided are used to a far greater extent than in Melbourne. Therefore, it is a highly efficient system.
So what can we learn about this for Auckland? I think probably the biggest lesson is co-ordination is critical. In the end, it isn’t necessarily massive investment in infrastructure that will create the best outcomes, but being smart about creating a system that works. It’s about integrated ticketing, about route co-ordination, about feeder buses, about highly frequent services (trains on all Toronto’s subway lines run at no worse than 8 minute frequencies from 5am-1am) and about making it easy (and worthwhile) for people to transfer between services.
Hopefully ARTA officials might stop off in Toronto on their current overseas sojourn.
By admin, on November 20th, 2009 I know it’s not exactly transport-related, but it is pretty big news today that the future structure of the Auckland Super City has been released. Well, by that I mean the boundaries of the different wards have been released, as have the boundaries of the local boards, and how they will be comprised. The southern boundary of the region has also been finalised.
At a basic level, the 20 councillors will be elected from 12 wards. Eight wards will have two councillors and four will have one councillor. The full report is available here, and the associated maps can be downloaded here. The population, names, number of councillors and so forth are included in a useful diagram below: Probably the most interesting column in this table is the one on the far right – which effectively shows the level of ‘unfairness’, or deviation from the idea of everyone having their votes count equally. Some level of discrepancy is to be expected, as the ward boundaries have been generally aligned with the local board boundaries – which need to take into account ‘communities of interest’. Plus the legislation required that Rodney and Franklin would have their own wards, with one councillor each.
However, despite this, I really think there’s a problem here. Some discrepancy is not the 24% under-representation that we’ll get in the Mangawhau-Hauraki Ward (which just happens to be where I live, which probably explains part of my annoyance) or the 24% over-representation in Rodney District. This basically means that someone’s vote in Rodney counts almost the same as two votes in my ward.
In terms of the local boards, things are a bit fairer. The Mangahwau-Hauraki ward gets split into three wards: one for the central area, one for Waiheke and one for Great Barrier Island. I guess the gulf islands are different enough to warrant a local board, but once again the central area seems particularly big to be one single local board. However, this is nothing compared to pretty much all of existing Waitakere City – which gets lumped into a single local board. One last thing that’s strange, is that the Central Auckland Local Board will be called Mangawhau. Mangawhau is the Maori name for Mt Eden, which is fine, but really the central part of Auckland isn’t Mt Eden. In fact, the suburb of Mt Eden is not even in the Mangawhau local board area, while the mountain itself is only just within the local board area. What’s wrong with “Central Auckland”?
I think I’ll be making a submission on this. Submissions can be emailed to info@lgc.govt.nz
By admin, on November 19th, 2009 Here are a couple of aerial photographs of different parts of Auckland’s CBD. The first aerial photograph highlights the area covered by the Central Motorway Junction in red. The area highlighted is around 35 hectares in size. This second aerial photograph shows the core part of Auckland’s CBD. The area in red is bounded to the west by Hobson Street, to the north by Customs Street, to the east by Kitchener Street and a relatively arbitrary point, and to the south by Victoria Street. This area contains much of the heart of Auckland’s CBD. It is also approximately 35 hectares in size. A sad reminder of how much of our city we have given over to motorways.
By admin, on November 19th, 2009 ARTA has today released their Regional Public Transport Plan. Yes, that’s right, another plan or strategy that relates to transport. This plan does get a bit more down to the “nitty gritty” than most of the other plans and strategies that have been come up with this year, although at the very same time it generally avoids the topic of “funding”, so comes across as a bit vague too.
Basically, the plan outlines the ways in which we can improve the performance and the efficiency of the public transport system in Auckland. One of the big aspects of this is the shift towards a four-tier structure to the public transport system, with the tiers being the following: Overall, I think it is excellent to have a co-ordinated planned approach to Auckland’s public transport system. A lot of money is wasted in creating the current ‘ad-hoc’ system where we see much service duplication. There’s no point that we have a bus that travels from Swanson into downtown when we also have a railway line that does the same trip, there’s no point that we have many Papakura to Britomart buses when the train does the same thing, or that along parts of Great North Road we have some services being run by Urban Express and other services run by NZ Bus, but with no integration between their timetables. Eliminating this service duplication, and the pointlessness of operating long-haul bus services, will certainly be beneficial.
Here’s what the RPTP says about the overall approach of the Plan: There are certainly many good things here, although once again I must say there’s not much that I haven’t heard before in the Auckland Transport Plan, the Auckland Regional Land Transport Strategy and so on… It’s also good to hear that there’s some commitment to the CBD Rail Link.
I’m also very supportive of the ‘layered approach’ to public transport routes, of RTN, QTN, LCN etc. It is the RTN that can best compete with the convenience offered by private vehicles, so it is essential that steps are taken to ensure the RTN can operate effectively as it is more likely to attract new users (from cars) than any other part of the network. However, for this system to work it is utterly essential that way make transfers easier – requires integrated ticketing, high frequencies (or well co-ordinated timing of services) and easy transfers (cross platform etc.). At the moment Auckland does this pretty badly, and until we make transfering far far easier I think that a tiering of the system might actually make matters worse. This is because the changes will probably mean that people have to walk further to their bus stop, and they will probably mean that people will have to transfer between bus and rail, or between one local bus and an express bus. These “negatives” will have to be outweighed by the positives that become possible through the tiered system (better frequencies, faster journey times, more understandable system etc.) otherwise there is really little point to changing – other than to save money, which will probably result in lower patronage and a return to the bad old days.
One thing that slightly confuses me is the continued reference in the RPTP to a distinction between commercial services and contracted services. My understanding of the Public Transport Management Act was that ARTA have the ability to stop the “cherry picking” of best routes as commercial services, as a result of lobbying so strongly while the PTMA was being legislated last year. It seems strange that ARTA would simply give up this hard-fought gain.
I will be making a submission on this, and will put something together like I did for the Regional Land Transport Strategy a few days back once I have a clearer idea of what I’m going to say.
By admin, on November 18th, 2009 There was a very concerning article in the NZ Herald today about possible cuts to funding for rail, and public transport in general, in the near future:
Auckland rail passengers are likely to face fare rises early next year and pensioners may have their free travel trimmed to meet a funding shortfall.
The Auckland Regional Transport Authority will next month consider fare rises it expects will be required by a new policy of the Government’s Transport Agency, which believes Auckland rail passengers receive heftier subsidies than Wellingtonians.
Holders of SuperGold cards in Auckland may also have to make do with free public transport trips during off-peak periods only, rather than through the afternoon and evening rush hours, bringing them into line with pensioners in other centres.
Other cost-cutting measures the transport authority will report to an Auckland Regional Council finance meeting this morning include reducing its Maxx customer contact centre staff and delaying the return of passenger trains to Onehunga by five months, until July.
Although KiwiRail has indicated it may not be able to complete track signalling work for Onehunga by then in any case, the authority will similarly hold back timetable improvements on the southern and eastern lines in response to a potential funding shortfall of more than $60 million over three years.
That does not include a cut by the national Transport Agency of $4.5 million to what Auckland territorial councils have sought for building and maintaining bus shelters.
Potential rail fare rises in February are not directly related to the funding shortfall, but to a new fare-box policy being formulated in Wellington by the agency, which shares operating subsidies with regional councils.
Regional transport authority chief Fergus Gammie says the agency has highlighting a difference in fares between Auckland and Wellington, and he believes the proposed policy will “most likely” mean increases for his rail passengers.
“Any potential rail fare increase would be implemented from February 2010,” he said in a letter to the regional council.
Although that will be three years since the cost of Auckland rail travel last rose, regional council chairman Mike Lee said more effort should be put instead into recovering an estimated 6 per cent loss of revenue from fare-dodgers.
The authority meanwhile intends reducing its purchases of spare parts for rail rolling stock, to the extent possible without affecting services, although it has ruled out skimping on heavy maintenance on safety and reliability grounds.
It has confirmed a decision to stop the daily Helensville passenger rail service on December 24, although the regional council is investigating ways of keeping trains running as far as Huapai or Waimauku without Government funding.
A potential loss to pensioners of free public transport trips around Auckland during afternoon peak periods is expected to save $1.3 million a year. That would see them joining SuperGold card holders in other centres, who are entitled to free travel in off-peak periods only, and they would have to make do with a 40 per cent discount on fares in the afternoon peaks.
Mr Gammie said in his letter that the three-year national land transport programme, an $8.7 billion Government package of which about 75 per cent is earmarked for roads, made no allowance for inflation for bus, rail or ferry services.
Neither did it include enough money for planned new rail service improvements or any funding at all to promote alternative transport, including walking and cycling, or for school and workplace travel plans.
The authority also intends curbing its use of consultants and marketing programmes, and cutting three staff from its Maxx call centre.
Mr Lee welcomed the move to reduce professional fees, but was disappointed “people working at the coalface” were to be laid off while the authority was becoming weighed down by “top heavy management.”
He said regional council members and senior managers were trying to lead by example, by doing without pay rises this year, yet there appeared to be an “enormous number” of transport authority staff receiving more than $100,000 a year.
The authority’s annual report lists 35 staff on salaries higher than $100,000 compared with 25 last year, and indicates a 12.5 per cent pay rise for Mr Gammie, to between $350,000 and $360,000.
A Transport Agency spokesman said the organisation was investing $2.8 billion over the next three years – an increase of $613 million – to improve Auckland’s transport systems and to boost its economic growth.
OFF THE RAILS
Proposed Auckland public transport budget moves:
* Limit free public transport for pensioners to off-peak hours.
* Delay timetable improvements on the southern and eastern rail lines.
* Delay opening Onehunga branch line.
* Axe trial Helensville rail services.
* Reduce rail rolling stock spare parts purchases.
* Reduce grants to schools for travel plans.
* Curb consultants’ fees.
* Cut customer services staff by three and defer IT enhancements at Maxx transport call centre.
It appears as though this funding “squeeze” is the outcome of the revised Government Policy Statement, that was released in May, and how that filtered through to the National Land Transport Programme, that was released in August. The GPS shifted a lot of money away from public transport investment, both in services and infrastructure, into construction of roads – most particularly into the construction of state highways (especially the roads of national significance). There was a bit of confusion when the NLTP came out as to what it meant for public transport – although some careful analysis showed that it wasn’t particularly good news for public transport. Overall, it seems like funding for public transport services has effectively been held to its current levels – which ultimately makes it very difficult for ARTA to do “anything new”, at the very same time that we have long-planned upgrades to the rail network such as Newmarket station, New Lynn station, the Onehunga Line and the Manukau Branch Line finally coming to fruition over the next year and a bit. That seems rather odd.
Another thing that has seemingly “come out of the blue” a bit is this whole “Farebox Recovery Policy” from NZTA. The goals of the policy are potentially quite worrying for those of us hoping for improvements to, rather than cuts to, public transport over the next few years:
The Draft Farebox Recovery Policy is designed to address the following:
1) Help improve the effectiveness and efficiency of public transport services
2) Ensure that the costs and benefits of providing public transport services are shared fairly between those who use public transport and those who don’t
3) Improve the transparency and consistency of the approach to farebox recovery implemented by regional councils throughout the country
4) Set out NZTA’s expectations on having a fair distribution of costs for providing public transport services
5) Arrest the decline in users’ contribution to the total cost of providing public transport services. This contribution has been falling for a number of years and is forecasted to continue to decline without intervention
Enable the NZTA to undertake better benchmarking and monitoring of farebox recovery ratios throughout New Zealand.
Basically, it’s a way to make public transport “pay its way” more, which will inevitably result in less money being made available for subsidising services, which will lead to higher fares or service cuts. While I accept that some level of control over farebox recovery ratios is probably a good idea, if we’re going to start worrying about the level of subsidies to public transport services, shouldn’t we be doing something about the massive subsidies enjoyed by road users too?
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