Buried away in the agenda for today’s Transport Committee meeting are a couple of really interesting letters – the first from Mike Lee to Auckland Transport, requesting some further information on Auckland Transport’s plans to reorganise Auckland’s bus routes so they integrate with, rather than compete with, the rail network. The second is the reply from PT Operations Manager Mark Lambert.
Here’s Mike Lee’s letter:
Mike raises a number of really important points here – the fundamental one being that a number of things have held back Auckland’s ability to improve its bus network in the past: a lack of integrated ticketing, a lack of ability to get the bus operators to change their routes because of having to work around commercial routes. But through the introduction of the HOP card, and the PTOM contracting system, things are finally falling into place that will enable the fundamental reworking of the bus network to make it integrate better with trains, to make it work better for crosstown trips. But we need to take advantage of the situation, because the very long terms of the contracts under PTOM mean we really only have one chance to get things right.
Mark Lambert’s reply makes for interesting reading too:
While a lot of the letter is typical bureaucratic fluff, the key interesting point is that Auckland Transport seem to now be establishing a three year programme for the complete review of bus routes, to coincide with the new contracts that will be established under the PTOM system. We also get a few clues that the the first routes up for reworking will be Great North Road, Great South Road and New North Road – which (along with the Mangere routes) is probably what I would choose too.
It’s good to start seeing things pulling together from Auckland Transport into a workable plan to modernise Auckland’s bus services.
When Lee says PTOM locks us into long contracts, what does this mean? Have you heard anything lately? I read the post from February, and it scares me. I don’t want any operator on a ten year contract.
Also, I’m disappointed that Lambert above says that they’d like to review things, but basically don’t have the money. Considering the cost savings possible over a considerable period, it seems short-sighted not to divert some resources that way in the short term.
Promising, but as always, the proof will be in the implementation. If AT wants to get this right, and puts in the effort, they will. Hopefully!
I am not sure about the resourcing issue either, because what Mike Lee is suggesting would surely save money, or at very worst break even. Perhaps what Mark Lambert really means is internal resourcing to boost staff numbers to do all this work, which is probably a fair point.
I heard once that the contracts would be for about 12 years with the intention that they were that long so that an operator could invest in new buses with the assurance that they could get a decent life out of them. They argued that with shorter contracts they wouldn’t buy new buses due to the risk of them losing the contract a few years later from which they would be left with underutilised assets.
We need tight performance related clauses in any contract. We’ll suffer from poor service without such controls.
Can someone answer this: will the new contracting system eventually permit 1-fare or 1-fare+transfer journeys for bus and rail or will passengers continue to have to pay whole, separate fares for each mode on the same journey?