In the 2009/2010 financial year (recent data is probably available but this is easy to find), we spent around $69 million on operating the rail network, and got in around $20 million in fares – meaning a subsidy of just under $50 million was required: I’m not going to do the normal thing of dividing this amount by the number of trips to work out a “per trip” subsidy cost and then go and compare it to buses, because that’s silly as your average rail trip is much longer than your average bus trip – therefore generating much greater congestion relief benefits and also meaning that trains need to be operated much longer distances, adding to the cost.

However, overall I think it’s pretty clear that in the longer term we want the rail system to fund itself to a greater degree than the current 29% farebox recovery level the table above suggests.Fortunately, much of the recent capital expenditure, including ongoing projects like electrification and integrated ticketing, is aimed at improving the efficiency of the network. Integrated ticketing should do away with the need for so many on-board staff (as an aside, there were two people selling tickets on the platform at Henderson station around lunch-time earlier this week when I was catching a train, meaning that on-board staff were able to sit around not having to do much) while electrification should help save significantly on the $10 million a year currently spent on diesel, and the $15 million or so a year spent on maintenance.

In short, it seems logical to me that as these two projects in particular start to roll out, we should be able to run a much leaner rail system, reducing the cost of many aspects of providing rail service. Yes, we will have longer trains once electrification is completed, but we won’t have more peak time trains (thanks to the Britomart bottleneck) so it should be possible to significantly reduce the rail network’s operating cost. In fact, I’m pretty sure that the business cases for both integrated ticketing and electrification relied upon such savings.

I do wonder though whether this will happen. There doesn’t seem to be much competitive tension in getting a good contract price out of Veolia providing rail service, and we have learned from analysing PTOM that the bus market is pretty uncompetitive when it comes to tender prices. I think it’s essential that, over the next few years, Auckland Transport works really hard to show how investments in the rail network are helping it become much more efficient so we can get that farebox recovery rate up and start proving to a sceptical government that rail investment is good value for money.

The second interesting matter to note is that there’s no set ‘completion date’ noted in the business report, just that the core system rollout will be from mid-2012. That word ‘from’ is quite concerning, as I was under the impression that by the middle of next year we would have a smartcard able to be used on all buses, trains and ferries in Auckland, even if more complexity fare issues (like whether we have fare-capping, whether we shift to zone based ticketing and so forth) will occur at a later stage. Hopefully Auckland Transport provide some clarification on these dates in the relatively near future.

On the subject of the A-Pass, which seems to have been put in place largely for political reasons (the embarrassment of not having an integrated ticket during the World Cup), the Business Report has a bit more information on the popularity of this ticket:

At the time of writing 1228 special A-Passes had been sold to RWC visitors. Over half of those (57%) were purchased through the ticket office at Britomart. Initial expectations were that the pass would be utilised for ferry travel in particular. However, use has been highest on bus (70%), followed by ferry (23%) and rail (7%), indicating that visitors have been travelling outside of the inner CBD during their time in Auckland.

A-Pass sales are highest on match days, suggesting that people are sightseeing as part of the overall match-day experience. Other significant sales periods are one day either side of matches. 

A graph showing the sales volumes is also provided: I do hope the A-Pass was useful in helping test the systems for integrated ticketing, as opposed to just delaying the rollout of the HOP card onto trains, ferries and other bus companies.

I noted in my blog post on the study at the time a few key observations:

• Despite an improvement to Auckland’s PT system over the past decade, we’re still doing very poorly compared to comparative cities in Australia, Canada and the USA. Furthermore, most of those cities have been increasing their patronage at even faster rates to Auckland.
• Compared to other cities, Auckland’s PT service quality is considered to be extremely low, while quantity of service provided is also fairly low (although somewhat understandably given our low use). Improving service quality (better reliability, faster speeds, value for money etc.) is likely to be the most effective way of increasing use.
• Compared to the other cities, Auckland’s fares are incredibly high – particularly as we don’t have integrated ticketing. Making fares for unlimited daily, weekly or monthly travel quite a bit cheaper is likely to be quite effective at boosting patronage and making PT seen as better value for money. Peak/off-peak pricing splits are also likely to be a good idea.
• Compared to Wellington in particular, we are paying too much for the provision of services on a per kilometre basis. Compared to all cities we’re paying too much on a per passenger basis. This suggests that we’re running too many empty/underloaded buses or trains around, particularly during peak times when it’s most expensive to get a vehicle on the road. I also wonder whether this makes a good case for a publicly owned bus company to do what Kiwibank has done to the banking industry and keep prices a bit sharper.
• Our farebox recovery levels are actually quite high compared to many overseas cities, suggesting that efforts to improve cost-effectiveness should come from boosting patronage through service quality improvements, rather than by hiking fares. 

The Transport Committee was obviously rather concerned by these results, particularly given the significant increase in funding provided to public transport over the past decade. The Committee made a number of resolutions, and following up those resolutions we see in the agenda to next week’s Committee meeting a letter written by Mike Lee to Auckland Transport Chair Mark Ford, which also usefully includes the entire benchmarking study, whereas previously only a portion of it was included. The study (and the letter preceding it) are spread across three documents (one, two and three).

The report is lengthy, and complex, and makes a large number of recommendations for Auckland to pick up on so we can ‘lift our game’ in comparison to these other cities.The recommendations and current constraints in relation to PT service provision are outlined below: There’s really nothing I can argue about what’s outlined above, and it’s certainly good that Auckland Transport are well aware of all these issues. There are some really useful proposals here:

• Focus on higher frequencies and fewer routes
• Bus services to be designed around corridors rather than historic operators’ “patches”
• A big focus on improving speed, particularly through better bus priority measures (as the RTN will always be spatially limited)
• Enhanced monitoring of reliability – hopefully a shift away from the “99.9 % self reported” bollocks that we see in each monthly patronage report
• Making it easier (physically and through ticketing) to transfer between services
• Being careful about fare increases, but exploring potential splits between peak and off-peak pricing
• Focus on branding “superior” routes, particularly those of the RTN and QTN

As these are generally the same issues I’ve been banging on about over the past couple of years on this blog, it’s good that either the message is finally getting through, or I’ve been thinking along similar lines to Auckland Transport and their consultants the whole time. With integrated ticketing and the new PTOM contracting model rolling out over the next couple of years (which will enable and by necessity require a fundamental relook at the city’s bus routes). As always the key will be the issue of whether these good ideas actually happen. We’ve had a lot of good plans for improving the management of Auckland’s PT system for a long time, the issue has been with implementation.

Usefully, the recommendations don’t just stop with the narrow issue of PT service provision, but also go on to discuss broader transport policy decisions and how they may impact upon our public transport results. Perhaps the most obvious point is that if we continue to build masses of new motorways (particularly along corridors that compete with public transport) we’re probably not going to achieve much of a modeshift (leading to the good old Downs-Thomson paradox): I like the proposal under 2.2 to conduct an integrated pricing study to look at all the costs and benefits of public transport in Auckland. My recent calculations suggested a pretty massive amount of congestion relief benefits coming from Auckland’s public transport system – but it would be good to see some more detailed numbers about this, and also in relation to what the “benefit maximising” fare level might be – potentially a fair bit lower than what we currently have I tend to think. Further analysis of parking policies and priority measures are also obviously things that I’ve been pushing for over quite a sustained period of time.

Another critical matter is land-use integration. While I think the transport-density debate is much more complex than the simple “Auckland’s density is too low for public transport” myth which has infected our transport thinking for decades, there clearly are strong connections between land-use decisions we make and our transport outcomes. But perhaps even more importantly, I think there are very strong links between the transport decisions we make and the land-use outcomes we get, a relationship that is either not well understood or is generally just wilfully ignored. Some useful ideas are outlined in the report in relation to this matter as well: In terms of overall density, I would be interested in seeing a comparison of Auckland to the other 13 comparator cities (maybe such a figure is hidden away somewhere in the report) as I suspect we’d actually have one of the higher overall densities. But as I explained in this previous post, the bigger problem with Auckland is the “flatness” of our density and the fact that many of our newer high density environments are just as auto-dependent and single-use as your typical low density sprawl. It’s also good to see recommendations about “integrating land use and transport planning better”, although I’ve been seeing similar things for years now and I’m yet to really see it mean much more in practice than “build heaps of roads before people start building houses”.

The fourth area of analysis is how to improve the cost-efficiency of the system. Once again this is something that I’ve talked about many times before, with key things being removing duplicative services, running fewer long-haul bus services and  Auckland Transport taking more power back from the operators to reduce the “cherry picking” of commercial services, allowing some level of cross-subsidy from better performing to not-so-busy routes. These issues aren’t picked up on specifically, although we still see some useful recommendations here: Given that ratepayers and taxpayers (through petrol taxes) subsidise PT to the tune of around $150 million a year, one would hope that the results of the further research and analysis recommended above will be undertaken and made public, so we can be reassured we’re getting the best bang for our buck – something I’m not convinced about at the moment.

Finally, some general points are made about the planning and regulatory environment. Much of this seems likely to be resolved through the implementation of the PTOM system – although that still seems to be a messy compromise. Often I do wonder how much simpler life would be if we ran our PT system in the way that most North American systems are operated, with the local government owning and operating the vast majority of all services. Not that a privatised system can’t work – London’s bus system is operated by private companies – but all route planning really does need to be centralised to create a proper PT system. I’m not quite sure how that ‘balance of power’ has been resolved in the rollout of PTOM, we’ll probably just have to wait and see.

The recommendations are pretty comprehensive and align very strongly with the points I have made over and over again during the past couple of years. Most of them won’t really require much extra money, and in fact could save a lot of money in the longer run if implemented well. But in the end it will come down to implementation and whether Auckland Transport most particularly are up to the task.

Attachment 2 – NLTF cashflow and programme management. This document is really interesting, as it details some of the significant cashflow problems NZTA is facing at the moment, which has led to a complete moratorium (and potentially even further measures) on new state highway projects for quite some time. This is summarised below: While some of the extra expenditure has obviously been unavoidable, it is somewhat concerning to heard about the discrepancies due to MoT not recording expenditure (further investigation showed that this was around $180 million, not a small amount!)

Attachment 3 – Quarterly Report on Borrowing. This seems a fairly standard and repeating report showing NZTA’s cashflow position. As per the previous paper, it’s clear that NZTA is really pushing their debt limits at the moment.

Attachment 4 – Refreshing the Investment and Revenue Strategy. This document outlined some possible changes that NZTA will be making to the way they prioritise transport projects, as a result of changes to the Government Policy Statement. The proposals are quite worrying, particularly in terms of focusing more emphasis on ‘strategic fit’ (which means little more than what is the Minister’s pet project).

Attachment 5 – NLTP activity funding class allocations. This gives us some hints about the level of funding NZTA is going to give to various types of transport over the next few years – it largely reflects the roads-obsessed Government Policy Statement, so is fairly depressing.

Attachment 6 – Proposed changes to funding assistance rates. This outlines some changes to the level which NZTA helps subsidise the different councils around the country in undertaking their work. It’s worth noting that Auckland gets a relatively low level of subsidy compared to most of the rest of the country.

Attachment 7 – Draft State Highway Asset Management Plan. I just glanced over this largely – it’s interesting to note how much property NZTA owns but isn’t currently used for state highways.

Attachment 8 – Pricing and Operation Principles for National Integrated Ticketing. A very interesting paper that confirms NZTA will take over the running of all public transport ticketing systems in New Zealand in the future, to enable interoperability. Snapper made quite a detailed submission raising concerns about the proposal but (thankfully) these have been dismissed by NZTA who note the importance of having independence the processing system from any bus operator. This is summarised below: 

Attachment 9 – Establishment of NZ Transport Ticketing Ltd. This seems to be the necessary legal requirements to establish the entity that will look after the integrated ticketing system referred to above.

Attachment 10 – Western Ring Route, pre-award review. This paper relates to the process NZTA have undertaken (or were about to undertake when the paper was written) to decide who would win the contract for constructing the Waterview Connection process. It’s an interesting insight into how these decisions are made.

Attachment 11 – General Business. This has a wide variety of information, although as noted under attachment one, it’s particularly interesting to see what was said about the concerns NZTA had about the Rugby World Cup opening night: Overall there’s a bit more interesting stuff than you normally get from an NZTA board meeting. Particularly in relation to integrated ticketing and the financial issues NZTA is currently facing.

Auckland’s public transport ticketing system probably annoys me more than most other things in life. In fact, there’s little good to be said about it at all. Let’s run through the problems:

• It’s slow. A lot of interaction with the bus driver or train clippie is necessary. This doesn’t hold up the operation of the train as much as it does for a bus, but can make it difficult for the clippies to collect each and every ticket on a busy train ride.
• It’s confusing. For example, a trip from the CBD to Glen Innes is 2 stages on the train, 3 stages on some bus routes and 4 stages on other bus routes. This is crazy. There are also just too many ticket-types: cash, multi-journey, stored value, monthly pass etc.
• It’s outdated. On the train the main ticketing system still involves someone wandering around the train clipping tickets, it still involves little paper tickets that a guy has to take off his collection, clip with his clipper and then hand to you – oh and that’s in addition to having to stash away the money you give him and also for him to give you change. Same for Birkenhead Transport, who still clip your 10-ride cardboard tickets.
• It’s incompatible. This is my big annoyance, and I will write more on it below.

So yes, there isn’t really much good to say about our ticketing system at all. While the slowness, confusion and outdatedness of the ticketing system are somewhat bearable most of the time, the lack of integration is what totally kills our public transport system. Train tickets aren’t valid on the bus, some bus companies tickets aren’t valid with others, nor with ferry tickets and so on. Some bus companies have unlimited travel tickets, some don’t – it’s enough to make you tear your hair out. For years our public transport agencies have gone on and on about “working towards integrated ticketing”, but apart from a horrifically overpriced Discovery Pass, there’s absolutely nothing to show for this “working towards”.

I propose a solution, which is a whole new ticketing system for the Auckland Region. It is composed of six zones, which I will show the boundaries for on maps of Auckland’s four main areas (North, West, Central and South) in a minute. There is probably a 7th zone for all other areas not covered by the original six zones, but anyway that’s not a major as it would only cover areas such as Pukekohe and Helensville which generally require a special fare in any case for the trains and buses that serve them. The idea behind this new system is that it’s completely based on the simple notion of how many zones will one be travelling in. Although it’s CBD focused, that doesn’t at all mean that zone 1 is the zone around the CBD and central area, and that each zone further out is zone 2, 3, 4 and so on. I envisage the zones as not being hierarchical at all. So, a travellers works our how many zones they want their public transport ticket to take them through, and then they buy the appropriate ticket. Tickets can be for two hours (single-trip with transfers), one day, one week or one month of travel.

By giving people more unlimited travel options with their passes, hopefully a greater proportion of users would choose to buy weekly or monthly passes. I consider this to be an important part of increasing the use of public transport in evenings and at weekends, generally on services that aren’t particularly busy at the moment. The current monthly pass system is only really useful if you travel 3 stages ten times a week, or close to that.

So my new ticketing options would be as follows:

1. 2 hour pass across 1-6 zones. Fare would vary from $1.60 to $7.50, the current prices for a 1 stage ride and a 6 stage ride.
2. Day pass across 1-6 zones. Fare would vary from $5 within just one zone for the day, and maybe $12 for unlimited daily travel anywhere on the network. Importantly, one would be able to buy a day-pass for travel within two or three zones, depending on necessity, allowing better value to be had (as at the moment there are relatively few day-pass options).
3. Weekly pass across 1-6 zones. These give unlimited travel for one week within the specified number of zones. The pricing would probably give a 15% discount on 10 two-hour passes for that number of zones (eg. $14 approx for a 1 zone weekly pass). I would probably cap the cost of a weekly pass at around $40, a quarter the price of the current all zones monthly pass, so that people are no worse off under the proposed system than they are under the existing system.
4. Monthly pass across 1-6 zones. These give unlimited travel for a whole month within the specified number of zones. The price might be a slightly discount on the equivalent number of weekly passes to encourage people to use a monthly pass. Price would be capped at around the current price of an all-zones pass ($160).

I envisage using a smart-card system to allow this ticketing to be introduced. A stored-value pay-as-you-go system would also be included, generally giving 10% off the price of a 2 hour pass for irregular users. Potentially there could also be a similar system to what London’s Oyster Card uses, whereby they get charged at pay-as-you-go rates until they reach the amount of a day-pass, and then each subsequent trip is free. That system ensures that Oyster Card users are always getting the best value, and is a great idea. Cards could also be topped up online, avoiding the horrific queues that many university bus users face, and the annoyance of having to find a ticket agency that many other users face (plus avoid bus drivers having to sell the passes too).

If this all sounds a bit confusing, it starts to make sense once we have a few maps up. Here’s a map of Auckland City, where I would have three zones.

The current Auckland City area is split into three zones, with each of them kind of radiating out from the CBD. As explained earlier, anyone travelling within this area would purchase a 2 hour, day, week or monthly pass relating to the number of zones they want to travel across. In my case, I live within the Green Zone, work in the Blue zone and often travel into the Red Zone. If all my trips originated from home then I’d probably be OK with a two zone pass, as I’d never be catching a trip that took me across three zones. However, as it happens I do often catch buses from work into town, so at times a three zone trip would be necessary. Pay-as-you-go would possibly work best for me as my trips vary in length and are a bit all over the place. It would mean that a trip to Parnell or Ponsonby would be greatly simplified, as the Link bus would become a free-transfer under the “2 hour trip” window. A ticket would be printed off that would show the zone I entered and the number of zones that my pass covers – so either a ticket inspector or a suspicious bus driver could tell if I had over-travelled.

Below are my zone boundaries for North Shore City, Waitakere City and Manukau/Papakura. I imagine that the Whangaparaoa Peninsula would be in Zone 6, like Papakura is.

North Shore City:

Waitakere City:

Manukau/Papakura: