Many regular readers will know that I catch the train to work on an almost daily basis and I was thinking the other day about what kinds of transport my colleagues use to get to work so I decided to do a little survey. I work in the CBD which obviously has much better PT connections compared to other parts the city but even so the results are interesting. There are 10 people in my immediate team and we get the following breakdown:
| Car | 2 |
| Bus | 2 |
| Train | 2 |
| Ferry | 1 |
| Walk | 3 |
| Cycle | 0 |
That’s quite an even split between transport modes and it is surprising to see walking feature quite highly (and the team’s is one of those that walks to work). Also both of those that do drive live out west near SH16 and both would happily use buses if there was a Busway built alongside it, they also either start early or start late to avoid the worst of the traffic. It is obviously only a small sample size so I decided to cast the net a bit wider and think people in my wider department which gives these results
| Car | 5 | 15% |
| Bus | 11 | 32% |
| Train | 6 | 18% |
| Ferry | 2 | 6% |
| Walk | 8 | 24% |
| Cycle | 2 | 6% |
Again far more people are using PT to get to work than those who drive and in this case the General Manager of the department is one of those PT users which helps to reinforce that PT isn’t just for poor people.
Transport seems to be a pretty common ‘water cooler’ topic at most work places so my question to readers is, how do you and your colleagues get to work?
It’s strange how transport is not seen as an ‘election issue’ but it is always a hot discussion topic and it is a significant part of the national economy.
My workplace is an office backing onto the top of Myers park… not very accessible to trains as each Grafton, Mt Eden and Britomart are 15 minutes walk away. Our breakdown is:
Car. 4
Bus. 6
Train. 0
Ferry. 0
Walk 2
Cycle. 0
Im also a uni student- of my closer friends the breakdown is
Car. 0
Bus. 6
Train.2
Ferry. 0
Walk. 0
Cycle. 0
Back in 2009 I think the stats were that 59% of CBD workers used public transport to get to work- that figure would have increased quite a bit now. I think it has finally gotten to the point that bussing is definitely seen as the ‘normal’ way of getting to the office. That perception definitely helps encourage those who do still drive.
For comparison: our office in Kathmandu (similar size to Auckland, but most people live inside a ring road that has a 5 km radius!)
Car. 0
Bus. 1
Walk. 3
Cycle. 4
Motorcycle 2
Motorcycle pillion 2
I would guess the average commute time is less than 10 mins.
One day in the new Auckland we’ll have office with the same mix
From the Shore to Penrose I motorcycle. I have done bus/train in the past, which reasonably pleasant, but motorcycling takes about 1/3 to 1/2 the time. Most people at the office drive, although maybe 15% (estimate) arrive by train.
From my office in Amsterdam:
Car 0
Motorcycle 2
Cycle 25
Walk 5
Bus 1
Tram 3
Train 9
Currently I bus into the CBD from Kingsland. Soon I will have to drive though as I am transferring to Albany and a commute on the bus will take nearly an hour and a half one way. I’m not looking forward to it.
From my “office” (had to limit it down unless you wanted 400 odd answers)
Friday
6 car
8 train
3 bus
All the rest 0
Although those numbers changed on a daily basis
I forgot to mention that my co-workers in “the office” including me all start at different times of the day (all hail shift work)so get to experience both peak and off peak mass transit.
Greg I saw your comment below [To be honest, as this example shows, its not just the peak to/from work trips on PT that need to be encouraged, its the during work hours trips that will really help make the difference and make the entire system work. The more people use the system during business hours/off-peak the more money can be justified for being spent on it in total, and the better all round it gets.]
Yep understand that fully – although I can say I cam put my hand up for those “during” work hour trips” using PT when I need to be or have been sent out to a remote site.
Our Auckland office, which is at the southern end of Newmarket has 20 employees is probably a typical Auckland “hard nut” example:
On Friday (being not much different than most other days, except some of those folks were out of town or sick that day) the percentage who used cars were: 100%, number of people that carpooled: 1
The reason for such high numbers: we all usually have to go out of the office at various times during each week to see people (customers usually) in other parts of Auckland. We know PT won’t cut the mustard for that, its too unreliable, too infrequent and even from Newmarket PT doesn’t have the links and go to many of the places you need to go for use in a business. In most cases, we can drive to a customer in 10-15 minutes, using PT would take 4 times that in some cases. So its not really a practical option to use PT (yet).
However, all is not lost with PT in our place – we do have a customer down on Quay street which I now (and have as a result of showing it works, encouraged others in our offices as well, to) use the train to go an see them. Experience has shown its usually cheaper and easier to do that than drive. $3.40 there and back plus a small walk at each end is better than using the car and paying a hefty parking fee for the privilege of doing so. Pity none of our other customers are near a train station.
To be honest, as this example shows, its not just the peak to/from work trips on PT that need to be encouraged, its the during work hours trips that will really help make the difference and make the entire system work. The more people use the system during business hours/off-peak the more money can be justified for being spent on it in total, and the better all round it gets. This is in part as the PT planners (and their funders) can see that there is a increased baseline demand that has to be catered for with proper trains buses and infrastructure, not as in the recent past, a problem that is “easily solved” by putting some old PT clunkers on at peak to cater for the peak demand while leaving the rest of the system to rot.
Could your work provide pool cars. Our office has a number of cars which can be booked for going to visit clients etc. Therefore, it that is the only reason why you have to drive to work, it eliminates that reason.
At my previous job (CBD) we just used taxis if we didn’t drive to work (we recharged to the client). We did investigate cityhop.co.nz but given it didn’t ‘cost’ our company anything, it was deemed to complicated.
In my pod of 5 at my current job (Newmarket) it is:
3 Car
1 Bus
1 Walk
When I get allocated a carpark, the Bus will probably change to a car to change my 1 our journey from the shore to a 30 minute (depending on the time I leave)
Harvey,
I have suggested that more than once, but the MD doesn’t want the hassle of having the business own/operate (or even lease) its own cars for use as pool cars by employees, in part due to the problems that causes (Tax complications, especially if employees take the cars home at night for any reasons, no covered garaging available, costs of leasing/operating compared to paying employees mileage rates etc) and the usual issue of pool cars becoming the
company hacksleast looked after cars – as they’re not owned by the folks who drive them.Still the company pays for 20 open air car parks which are not free (they cost about $2000 each a year each from memory), so the car park rental fees are not tiny (but they’re in the office lease so we’re locked into having them I think, although we could sublease some of them if we needed to).
Currently due to work related travel requirements all the employees prefer to use their own cars over PT, and in our place, as in real life, 50% of the employees are women, and they all say they would not feel safe walking to/from PT in Newmarket – especially in winter evenings. Even though most of them can use PT to get to/from work as they’ve all done it at least once (usually in summer when the evenings are longer) for various reasons.
A lot of the folks will go to a customer directly from home (or from a customer to their own home) if its closer than driving to work first, which they could not do if we had pool cars (FBT and all that would actively discourage them doing). And some folks drop their kids off at school in the mornings or pick them up at the end of the day so they prefer to drive for that reason.
But even if we had a fleet of 4 or 5 pool cars, that wouldn’t cover half the peak demand (we have more customers in Auckland than employees) and on average it seems each employee will go to see a different customer for at least part of a day on most days, so the scheduling of who had what pool car and when to return it would be a nightmare to schedule (we have that problem now with the 4 or 5 “vodems” we share now for connecting back to the office when on the road) to show that pooling cars is not much of a starter.
Better to have better PT that is fast, frequent, reliable and goes where most businesses are and let us use that instead.
What may change things though is that when our lease comes up for renewal in a year or so as we may lose some of these car parks as the landlord may require them for other tenants, if that happens then we will have to start using PT more as a company as there is little available alternative parking (or parking places that employees could pay for either). And if so then the parking situation might have to change. By then we’ll have rejigged bus services and EMUs so the attitude to PT may change. And of course, if petrol gets much higher in price then the economics changes.
I should add that one of the employees, who lives on the Shore would drive even if petrol was $10 a litre and PT was free.
The reason – he’s a smoker and smokes while driving and likes to listen to “his radio station” in the car so he is happy to spend an hour each way in his car as he can roll down the window and smoke another pack while he waits in traffic listening to the traffic reports on the radio.
Sorry for a long comment, but I think it’s worth illustrating the complexity of use patterns.
I’m not working at the moment (back from Australia and in Auckland seeing family), so my sample is my immediate family in Mangere. We’re about 30 minutes walk from the Otahuhu train station, and about 15 minutes walk from bus routes. Family members are heading to Mangere, Otara, Epsom, Hillsborough, Grafton and Newmarket.
5.0 car
0.5 cycle
0.5 bus
0.2 train
(those figures don’t add to 5, obviously, there’s a rounding error there). The person heading to Otara and Grafton is a Gen Y without a license and is usually a passenger, a frequent bus user, and occasional train user. The person heading to Newmarket cycles about half the time, and uses a car the remainder. This journey basically replicates the Southern line. The others are all almost exclusively car users, because the time differential on a short trip (Mangere), or a cross country trip far which involves interchanging buses or trains (Epsom and Hillsborough) is substantial. The person in Mangere also makes frequent business related journeys to Manukau by car, for the same reason as Greg above. But she also drives from Mangere to Mt Eden, then parks and catches a b-Line bus for the remainder of the journey – the optimal mix of time, convenience, and cost.
Most of these travel patterns are stubborn; the cost (in time, convenience, or money) of switching to public transport is substantial, and would have to be reduced substantially to make it worthwhile. The lack of amenity near train stations is also a factor – if you want to pick up milk or onions on the way home (or a week’s groceries), it makes sense to use a car. Having small relatively efficient vehicles further tips the balance.
And me? In the last month I’ve used the train to get to Britomart, but avoided public transport otherwise. I simply can’t justify it rationally – the 304/5 is irregular, doesn’t connect well with anything else, winds monstrously around Mangere, and takes an hour just to get to Khyber Pass Rd. Cycling doesn’t feel at all safe among the increasing numbers of fast drivers and heavy trucks.
I have been motorcycling to work for years (decades). I always take 20 minutes to get home (I work near the airport), and I am seldom significantly affected by traffic or even the rain.
I continue to be surprised how few motorcycles are on the road.
I would happily commute by PT if it took no more than 50% of the time on the motorbike.
I find motorcycling to be almost a forgotten mode. For example it never gets included in those “mode races” that the media does from time to time. Also local and central government tend to have plans and positions for almost every mode except motorcycling. And yet, for 90% of commutes it is probably the fastest option available.
I’ve been riding a motorcycle to work for four years now (40+ Kms per day) and it takes half the time car or bus would take and costs far less plus parking in the CBD is free. My commute is usually about half an hour from the eastern suburbs right into the city regardless of traffic. Taking all these into account, I can’t think of why there aren’t more bikers especially when I cruise past all the single occupant cars on Tamaki Drive every day. There are a fair few scooter riders but they are untrained and terrifying much off the time. Get a license and get a proper bike.
Another lengthy comment, I’m afraid.
I live in Warkworth and work in retail in Albany. I would love to be able to travel to work by PT, but there is none, so car is my only option. My wife works in the city occasionally and travels also by car to the Albany Park and Ride, then by bus, which she finds very convenient and economical, but she has to be at Albany by 7.30am or no parks. As she doesn’t generally start work until 9.00 or 9.30, this means hanging around for an hour or so before starting. I would like to have used the Silverdale Park and Ride, but it looks like that will be shelved for the time being, we are told by the local paper that funds for this have been diverted to pay for “investgation work into the City Rail Loop (sic.)
As for feeder buses – again there are none. In my workplace there are 6 staff. 2 travel by bus and 4 by car. 1 of the guys travels from St. Lukes to Albany and is frequently late because of the unreliability of the bus – not sure which route, but apparently they often fail to arrive.
I work in the CBD. We have an unusually high number of cyclists, even in winter. We are a long way from Britomart & I can’t think of anyone who regularly takes the train. Rough breakdown would be:
car 33%
cycle 18%
bus 13%
ferry 13%
motorbike/scooter 10%
walk 10%
carpool 3%
I work for a fairly large corporate in the Wynyard Quarter area. Quite a lot of people take buses or a mix of bus to Britomart and then train but still a lot of people drive, particularly in my team so the big talking point re transport around our water cooler is the declining number and then increasing expense of parking as our company only made a limited number of basement parking for customers and the top execs. My teammates know I’m very pro-PT so they don’t get any shoulder to cry on when they’re complaining about the parking! The ones that drive also sounded off about what a big waste of time to the tram was so I had to put them right that it was only the first stage and that in ten years when it’s going through to Quay St (and who knows Mission Bay) and the Quarter is fully redeveloped with more business and residents as planned it will be a different story. BTW, I and at least one other staff live close to work so we walk. It’s interesting that the posts on this thread have shown many people live a long way from their work eg Kingsland to Albany! Personally, I would move closer to my work if that was the case but I guess everyone’s circumstances are different.
My office is in Grey Lynn. We have 7 staff.
Car: 5
Bus + Waiheke Ferry + Waiheke Bus: 1
Walk: 1
i live in cbd and work in cbd. i walk, cycle or motorbike depending on the mood.
out of 20is
h people 3 more motorbike and the rest almost exclusively drive even if they live in ponsonby. do you know why? free parking
I run a small 2-man company that does IT for schools. I’m subject to the odd callout but can generally plan whole days at one school. I also have a few other clients plus am looking to expand the number of big clients I service.
Both schools are on bus routes – one in Northcote is on Onewa Rd with buses passing it at worst every 20 minutes during weekdays but is far worse evenings and weekends.
The other school is also on the Shore, and has nearby buses hourly interspersed with half-hourly buses 15 minutes walk away.
I travel from Mt Albert.
Normal day-to-day work is doable by PT, but it falls apart when doing after-hours onsite maintenance (like I’m doing today, although I took my bike on the ferry today).
As a result, I use PT 50% of the time at the moment, and if something unusual happens I can fall back to a Cityhop car or taxis. My other worker drives.
Wish I had data I could give you on work colleague’s transport but I’m a school teacher and most of my many colleagues travel by car to work. There are 2-3 who walk. I live in One Tree Hill and catch the train to Avondale twice a week. It takes about an hour. I change at Newmarket. I do wish it was possible to alter the schedule. Just as I arrive at Newmarket the western line train is pulling out and I wait another 15 minutes for the next one. I catch a bus a third day which takes 20 mins and use the car the remaining two. I also take the train in to britomart on Saturday mornings for shopping, catching at the ellerslie station. The train is not an easy option but I will catch it as often as possible.
I was going to work in the car from Rural West Auckland, but have found the parking in CBD to be too expensive.
So will be catching the train from next month. Be great if all the trains had wi-fi, so I could catch up on email etc.
See ya…Gary
Gary, you know it!: http://transportblog.co.nz/2011/04/21/guest-post-quick-cheap-and-cool/
Also good example of how parking is key to the whole city really. Reduce it, price it.
To wit, heard on RNZ this morning that the IRD are planing to asses provision of parking spaces for fringe benefit tax, yay. The figure of 5K was used as a value of a city park, don’t know if that is official, and Wellington or Auckland or what.
5K? Market price is about 50K in the Auckland CBD, but admittedly much lower in other parts.
$50k to buy but only $3k+ to rent per year which is what they would base it on – the annual rental.
The issue with carpark is that ones that are licensed are subject to FBT but those that are leased are not subject to FBT (I think it is that way around).
The distinction makes absolutely no sense so it is no surprise that IRD wants to get rid of it.
The problem is if your building comes with (say) 10 carparks, how do you value them. If they are used for customers (not staff) then they shouldn’t be subject to FBT (I could see that being abused – “off course all our carparks are only used for customers”). What if we are talking an industrial property in Penrose, that just has a huge contrete pad, what are the carparks? Should it only be CBD? Should that be expanded to ponsonby/parnell?
Tricky issue and I dont expect any changes in the short term. Having said that, there is a Budget coming up so they might slip it in then.
I drive vans to work both in wellington and australia.