|
|
By Guest Post, on December 6th, 2011 This is a Guest Post by reader and commenter Louis Mayo:
I think most readers of this blog will agree that Auckland’s public transport fare structure needs a complete overhaul and you will probably be aware of Auckland Transport’s plan to roll out integrated ticketing over the next year or so. This is an idea I have been thinking about recently, it maybe too late given that Auckland Transport have possibly already decided how integrated ticketing will work in Auckland, but here it is anyway.
All fare revenue will be collected by Auckland Transport who will then pay the subsidies out based on the length and frequency of the route, regardless of the patronage on board. This will be the only way this system would work because as you do not have to pay each time you transfer, it would be unfair if the operator who you first travelled with pocketed the whole fare even if you only used that operator for half of your trip.
Under my scheme all of the Auckland council area would be divided into three zones. The zones would be circular zones radiating from the CBD. I have chosen to have only three zones, which is less than many cities in the world. This system is a similar system to what is used in Melbourne. I think regular contributor Nick R may have suggested something similar previously.
The zones would be A, B & C or Blue, Red & Green as I have coloured them in the map.
- Zone A covers all of the Auckland Isthmus area, basically over the old Auckland City Council area, as well as stretching to the lower North Shore. The boundaries would be at Sunnynook bus station, New Lynn train station, Onehunga trains station, Westfield station and covering all of the Eastern line stops and all bus routes that operate within that area. Also covers ferries to Devonport, Bayswater, Birkenhead & Northcote point.
- Zone B covers most of the rest of metropolitan Auckland. It would cover most of the areas covered by the former Manukau and Waitakere City council’s. Bounded by Papakura train station, Redvale and Waitakere. Also covers the West Harbour, Rangitoto & Half Moon Bay ferry services.
- Zone C covers the outskirts of the city. I have stretched the zone to include Warkworth and Tuakau as hopefully these towns will be served by public transport in the future. Also covers Waiheke Island, and the other Gulf islands.
Here is a map of the zones. There would be two types of fares offered: Smart card (HOP) and cash fares, cash would be the best option for casual users and smart card would be the best option for regular users. I will focus on the cash fares for this post.
There are two lengths of fare, 2 hour and Daily. Both of these tickets would offer unlimited transfers within the chosen period of time across the selected zone/s. Day passes would only be available after 9am to encourage off peak travel to help ease the load off services during the AM peak hours.
There are just two levels of fares offered ‘Concession’ and ‘Adult’.
People that would be eligible to pay concession fares are:
- Children under 19 years of age (under 5 free at all times).
- Tertiary students.
- Senior citizens (who would also travel free off peak).
- Additionally I propose that all disabled passengers and passengers on benefits or have an annual income lower than a decided threshold would also pay concession fares. This would make transport far more affordable for these people, as these people have been stung the hardest by high petrol prices.
Obviously all passengers travelling on concession fare may be asked to present photo ID, to prevent people from ripping off the system. Family tickets would also be offered. When adults travel with children after 9am, first child pays and then second and subsequent children are free. This should hopefully make travelling in groups better value for money. Another important aspect of the system is that fares are all rounded to 50 cent multiple, just like what Wellington does.
Here is a table that shows the proposed prices:  That’s a grand total of just eighteen different tickets, much simpler than the millions of different tickets that Auckland currently has!
This scheme would have some great advantages, such as:
- It should be relatively easy to understand, it will mean that most passengers should know how many zones they are going.
- Compared to a flat fare system, there is still an element of fairness because your fare will increase as you travel further.
- 50 cent rounding system means that it should be easier to get out the correct change and should reduce delays.
- Gross contracting would allow well performing routes such as Dominion Rd to help pay for the less used local routes i.e feeder buses.
- Some people will pay lower fares, particularly passengers on Waiheke island ferries. However the fares are not unrealistically low in my opinion and any loss in revenue for AT would probably be offset by the gains in patronage that would hopefully occur after this new fare structure is implemented.
- And perhaps the biggest advantage, there is no financial penalty for transferring between different routes and modes of public transport. This should mean that developing a better public transport system that encourage people to transfer between services should be much easier.
However I would admit that there some possible disadvantages of this scheme, such as:
- Not as simple as a flat fare system as there are still different levels of fares.
- Would disadvantage people making shorter trips as they would have to pay higher fares. Could be described as “unfair” by some.
- Less of an incentive for operators to fill the vehicles up with passengers, as they will be paid the same subsidy anyway, but it seems that Maxx is already responsible for marketing public transport anyway.
- 50 cent rounding means that when a fare increase is needed, fares must increase by a minimum of 50 cents, which is quite a high amount.
This is merely an idea and I would welcome your feedback.
By admin, on November 9th, 2011 Auckland Transport announced this afternoon that we’re another step towards implementing a proper integrated ticketing system:
Auckland Transport has awarded the tender to supply smartcards for the full stage roll out of Auckland’s HOP integrated smartcard to a joint consortium comprising Placard and NZ Post. The full stage roll-out of HOP will add trains, ferries and all bus operators to the mix.
Auckland Integrated Fares System Programme Director, Greg Ellis, says: “Placard is a leading smartcard manufacturer and provider of card management solutions in our region. Placard’s partnering with NZ Post adds specific local know-how which will underpin the distribution of the manufactured cards.
“The cards will be distributed to both point-of-sale as well as direct to customers who purchase them online.”
Mr Ellis says, “The first phase of HOP was rolled out very successfully in May this year onto NZ Bus services.
“The final phase of HOP will begin mid next year and be completed by the end of 2012, with the introduction of trains and ferries initially, followed by all bus operators. Prior to that Auckland Transport will be undertaking an extended field trial of the system utilising selected users. This type of closed pilot follows international best practice for the introduction of a new public transport ticketing system. ”
Ganesh Ganeshalingam, Placard’s Managing Director, says: “We are proud to have been selected by Auckland Transport to manufacture and personalise cards for the HOP integrated smartcard working closely with NZ Post for distribution of cards to the market. We are delighted to be part of the full stage roll out and look forward to working with Auckland Transport on this exciting project.”
It’s good to know that something is happening on this project, as things have been pretty quiet in recent times (aside from the A-Card rollout during the World Cup). However, it also potentially generates more questions than it answers – as we still don’t know the following:
- What does the ‘extended field trial’ entail? I had heard that regular HOP cards would be able to be used on the rail network by February (although there has been an obvious lack of faregate construction at Britomart and Newmarket) but I’m not so sure now. This project does seem to be plagued by endless delays.
- Will existing HOP card users need to swap their current cards for these new “Placard” ones?
- If a changeover is necessary, will the current HOP cards continue to be accepted on NZ Bus services, but not on trains, ferries and other bus services (totally undermining integrated ticketing)?
- If a changeover is necessary, will we keep our existing HOP cards (for retail purchases) and get new ones? How will we be able to easily tell the difference (aside from the lack of a Snapper logo on the new card)?
It’s not solely related to the rollout of the HOP card, but I’m also curious about what Auckland Transport’s plan is for actually modernising the system’s fare structure. The comparator city study recently undertaken highlighted a lack of free transfers as a key barrier to improving Auckland’s public transport system, so it would be nice to know how that issue is going to be resolved.
All this hassle really does make one wonder whether it would have been cheaper, faster and easier to simply roll out the Northern Pass across the rest of Auckland.
By admin, on October 26th, 2011 Further detail on the painfully slow implementation of integrated ticketing in Auckland was outlined in the October business report to the board of Auckland Transport. With the project being somewhat distracted by the silly A-Pass over the past few months, hopefully with the World Cup out of the way we might start seeing some real progress in the next few months: There are two interesting things to note in the paragraph above, first is that in February next year we will start to see something of a further rollout – with what’s called the “Limited Functionality Pilot”. From what I know (mainly from information provided by Thales at a couple of Campaign for Better Transport meetings over the past year) this is likely to involve a pretty basic system across NZ Bus services and trains, allowing stored value use on both the bus and train. Effectively what we have now on the HOP card will be able to be used on the trains (though still no confirmation from Auckland Transport over whether we’ll need to swap our current HOP card for a new one).
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.
By admin, on October 2nd, 2011 At last month’s meeting of the Auckland Council Transport Committee there was a very interesting “benchmark study” that compared a wide variety of measures of public transport in Auckland with a number of cities around the world. Inevitably, Auckland performed worst in most of the measures – even when compared against other cities like Perth, Brisbane and Calgary that have much lower population densities, traditionally seen as a fundamental reason for Auckland’s poor performance. In terms of per capita usage, we are right at the bottom:
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.
By admin, on September 28th, 2011 NZTA continue to refuse to publish their board papers online (even though they spend around $3 billion of taxpayers’ money a year), so in the cause of increased transparency I have been doing Official Information Act requests for their board papers for a while now. Here are the papers from the latest meeting, with a short comment where I think they contain something interesting. A list of the documents is included below: Attachment 1 – Chief Executive’s Report. Quite a lot of the “progress on RoNS” information has been withheld, which is quite disappointing. Aside from that, there’s an interesting snippet about NZTA’s concerns over the Rugby World Cup opening night. More detail is provided in attachment 11 on this matter.
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.
By admin, on August 15th, 2011 The NZ Herald reports on the launch of a special public transport ticket for use during the Rugby World Cup, to be known as the “A-Pass”:
The A-Pass has been rushed into production to provide overseas visitors with the type of electronic transport ticket many will be used to in their home cities.
But it will be available for anyone to buy and use between September 1 and October 24 for $15 a day, and will serve as a combined visual and electronic ticket based on the Hop card, which has operated since May on Auckland’s largest bus fleet.
Although it will cost the same as the existing visual Discovery pass, and will entitle holders to the same unlimited travel for a day at a time on trains, buses and inner-harbour ferries, it will also include discount offers to city attractions such as the zoo and several museums.
While there’s nothing particularly special in what the pass offers – what’s far more exciting is that it will test the Thales integrated ticketing system before a wider rollout later this year and early next year.
Public transport to and from Rugby World Cup games will be free to match ticketholders, but those who want to see the sights between times will be able to load up to six days of travel entitlements on to each pass.
Its importance to the roll-out of the region’s $98 million integrated public transport ticket scheme is that it will be used to tag on electronically to trains and ferries for the first time, and not just on buses operated by subsidiary companies of NZ Bus.
I remain somewhat sceptical at the huge amount of cash spent on transport projects in the name of the Rugby World Cup (especially motorway projects, does the government think all these visitors will bring their cars on the plane or something?) However, for relevant projects like upgrading the signalling on the rail network and hurrying along integrated ticketing a bit, it seems the World Cup has been useful. Let’s hope everything works OK.
By admin, on July 29th, 2011 In the early days of this blog I generally got about as many visitors in a month as I now do in a day. But there were some interesting posts written, many of which are still as relevant now as they were then. This one is from November 2008, about how we might structure our ticketing/fare system once integrated ticketing has been fully implemented.
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:
- 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.
- 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).
- 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.
- 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:
By Guest Post, on June 22nd, 2011 This is a Guest Post by regular commenter Stuart Donovan, who has spent much of the last year living in Amsterdam.
Frankly my dears I’d have to give A’dam the full “douze points.” Living in Amsterdam is like wandering around in the middle of a fairytale – you half expect Shrek and donkey to wander by at any moment. The central canal district has been received UNESCO world heritage status and rightly so; it is astoundingly beautiful especially when cycling through on a sunny day.
Amsterdam is an economic powerhouse. A quick click through Wikipedia’s hallowed pages reveals it has 1.2 million inhabitants who collectively crank out a large proportion of the Netherlands’ economic output. But Amsterdam is more than a mass of economic activity; it is a city with a funky energy that permeates the whole city, even seemingly utilitarian aspects like transport. So what’s the link between Amsterdam and Auckland’s premiere transport blog? First, Josh and his partner have a new sprog on the family wagon so I figured he could use some guest posts to fill the gaps. Second, Amsterdam’s public transport ticketing system was developed by Thales, which is delivering HOP in Auckland. It’s there that the links between Amsterdam and Auckland end.
Amsterdam’s public transport system is supported by a high-quality heavy rail system that connects it to major destinations all over Western Europe. Most of the network is not technically “high-speed” but trains still get up to 200km/hr and traverse the entire country in under 3 hours, so in comparison to New Zealand standards it’s essentially operating at the speed of light.
At the local level the public transport system integrates three transport modes. A small but decent metro enables fast, long distance travel between the central city and some outlying suburbs. At the local level light rail and buses provide the wider network coverage. Notwithstanding the variety of transport modes, the overall public transport network comes together in a fairly logical fashion, mainly because of the emphasis on structured connections rather than point-to-point services.
This network structure is supported by the ticketing system, which manifests in my wallet in the form of an “OV chipcard.” This card was quickly renamed the “OG she’s hot card” in honour of the high volumes of visually talented people that can be found riding on Amsterdam’s public transport system most of the time. One of these people features rather prominently on the card itself (I’ll let you figure out who’s who). The card is accepted on all public transport modes where users swipe on/off. On the rail and metro system you find gates at the entrance to the platforms, while the trams and buses have onboard sensors. “Swipes” are fast (faster even than Oyster in my experience) and overall boarding speed is greatly increased, especially on the metro where pre-swiping is required.
Topping up your card requires tracking down one of the multi-lingual touch screen machines, which support a range of payment options, including cash/coin and debit/credit. One smart feature is the “balance readers” – shown to the right of the figure above – that allow you to scan the card and quickly check your balance without having to queue for a top-up machine.
Ticketing technology is complemented by a smart fare structure, which sends warm shivers through this transport economist’s cold heart. One-hour cash fares start at €2.60, which is about twice the average cost when using a card, so there is a big incentive for people to get an OG card, even when visiting Amsterdam just for a few days. Cards can be purchased on trams or via the top-up machines. Alternatively, if you register for a personalized OV card then you get access to supplementary benefits, such as a 40% discount on off-peak rail fares.
With a stored-value card you are then subject to Amsterdam simple two-part fare structure. Fares consist of a “base fare” that you pay for every trip (€0.79) plus a “distance-fare” that you pay per kilometer travelled (€0.105 per km). This fare structure has a number of advantages: The base-fare discourages people from using public transport for short trips that should really be completed by walking and/or cycling, while the distance-fare encourages you to travel only as far as you need to. The two-part system removes the need for stages, although a clever “zone-star” system is used to set prices for monthly passes. Because the base fare is waived when you swipe on within 35 minutes of swiping out from another trip leg transfer penalties are greatly reduced.
For me the fare system is probably too simple: The distance-fare is the same across all modes and at all times of the day, which provides no incentive to use cheap modes (ie bus) or to travel at off peak times. But the whole system is superior to most I have experienced, so let’s just put more sophisticated fares in the “room for improvement” box and move on.
Ultimately, my experience with Amsterdam’s ticketing system leaves me optimistic that Auckland’s HOP card is the real deal. Nonetheless, maximizing the value of this technology requires that Auckland Transport use the implementation of HOP as a platform for overhauling the entire fare system. To start they should get rid of fare stages and start providing discounts for off-peak travel.
I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts on the “ideal” fare structure for Auckland …
By admin, on May 20th, 2011 At the moment we’re going through a rather challenging process of changing over from Go Rider cards to HOP cards on all NZ Bus services. North Star buses swapped over a couple of weeks back, Go West and Waka Pacific will change over this coming weekend, while Metrolink and Link Buses will make the swap in a couple of weeks time. With a few exceptions it seems that the transition has been OK so far, although as I blogged about a couple of days back the real challenge may be yet to come – particularly in the next couple of weeks as a huge number of routes will be operated by a mixture of buses: some only accepting HOP cards, some only accepting Go Rider cards.
But it is only a couple of weeks, and I’m hopeful things go fairly smoothly. What I’m starting to get more worried about is the fact that it seems we will have to do yet another card changeover later in the year – in around November or December. This is because the HOP cards that have been given out over the past few weeks, and will continue to roll out over the next few weeks, are actually not “proper” HOP cards at all – they are merely rebranded Snapper Cards. This is problematic because Snapper did not win the tender to be the provider of Auckland’s integrated ticketing system – Thales did. And while the Snapper machines (the card readers and the driver’s consoles) being put onto all NZ Bus buses at the moment are able to “hook into” the Thales system, apparently it is not possible for the actual Snapper/HOP cards to hook into that system.
In short, from around November onwards it seems likely that the Snapper/HOP cards been given out over the past month will be useless for catching public transport in Auckland. So we will need to go through the whole card swapover palaver once again in around six months’ time it would seem. A kind of weird outcome from the whole Snapper/Thales contractual debate of a couple of years back.
This creates quite a few questions in my mind:
- How will Auckland Transport get across the message that people need to swap from a HOP card to a HOP card?
- Will the Thales HOP card look distinctly different from the Snapper HOP card? (Aside from simply not having the Snapper logo).
- How will the card swapover work – will we give back the Snapper HOP cards in order to get a real HOP card for free? Or will we be able to keep the Snapper HOP cards so they can be used for purchases?
- Will there be a “big bang” swapover, or will the system be able to accept both types of HOP cards for a while?
- Will all the parts of NZ Bus change at the same time, or will it be ‘drip-fed’ like what’s happening now?
I’ve tried to get some answers to these questions from Auckland Transport but it would seem that they haven’t quite got around to figuring out how they’re going to get themselves out of this mess. So instead of being unhelpful and just moaning what idiots everyone is that we’ve found ourselves in such a bizarre situation, I figure I might try to be helpful and suggest some tactics for getting them out of the mess.
Ultimately, there are probably two basic approaches for how to “sell” the need to change over the HOP cards once again. Broadly, these might be called the “upgrade your HOP” approach and the “Snapper screwed up” approach.
The “Upgrade Your HOP” approach:
The “Upgrade Your HOP” approach seems the most likely one to proceed, and would focus on the current Snapper/HOP card being an interim measure, to simply get the system going and test how it works and doesn’t work. Once the initial rollout of HOP is completed (June 5th) the marketing could emphasise how the implementation of HOP is an iterative process, with this stage of it being focused on getting people used to tagging on and tagging off, getting people used to topping up their cards off the bus, getting people used to how a smart-card works and so forth.
Once November comes, there should be awareness among the general public that to get the best out of the system they will need to “upgrade their card”. That is, to be able to use it on the train or ferry, eventually on other bus companies (hopefully a date for full rollout might be set by that point), so that monthly passes, daily caps, internet top-ups and other features can be used, the current card needs to be swapped over for a more advanced HOP.
This presents a number of practical challenges. The new “real” HOP card will need to look substantially different to the HOP/Snapper card in my opinion – to ensure that it’s simple to tell the difference between the HOP/Snapper one and the new “upgraded” card. There will also need to be a period when either card can be used on NZ Bus services, but a clear “phase-out” period of perhaps three months to make it easy for people to “upgrade their HOP”. This will allow people to run down the balance of their Snapper/HOP cards before “upgrading”.
Looking at the design of the HOP card, I wonder whether the blue side could be changed to either white, or perhaps to a light shade of purple to make it absolutely clear that this is a different card. It might also be worthwhile putting a sticker on the “upgraded cards” highlighting that they are upgraded cards and can be used on trains, ferries and on many of the bus companies (with the rest hopefully not too far away). It will be important ensuring that eventually the HOP/Snapper cards are fully phased out, as it would undermine the integrated ticketing project to have a pile of non-integrated HOP cards forever in use.
The “Snapper Screwed Up” approach
This approach is less likely, as I think it could also rebound on Auckland Transport as being complicit in the stuff up that has led to the need for another card change. The details of the changeover would probably be similar to what I’ve outlined above, but the reason for it could also include placing the blame on Snapper for having a card that can’t operate on the Thales technology properly.
Ultimately, Snapper’s involvement in this entire process has been largely an annoyance, I think designed to throw a spanner in the works of the integrated ticketing project once they found out they weren’t going to win the contract for Auckland. Auckland Transport’s ability to have stopped all this from happening has probably been relatively limited: with one branch of Infratil owning NZ Bus and another branch of Infratil owning Snapper it would be difficult stopping them from upgrading their ticketing system. This was made even more challenging by the fact that the integrated ticketing budget is relatively low, and relied upon the bus operators themselves updating their ticketing machines – giving Auckland Transport even less opportunity to demand that NZ Bus not use Snapper.
I suppose in the end Auckland Transport have done an OK job ensuring that, while Snapper has effectively “gone ahead” with its rollout in Auckland, that has been with the HOP brand, rather than the Snapper brand: probably making the transition from Snapper HOP to real HOP easier when it does eventually happen later in the year. But it would still be great for them to put the blame on Snapper if the public gets tetchy about this weird second card swapover – as ultimately that is where the fault lies.
I am curious about how Auckland Transport will actually manage the “upgrade” process later this year. Hopefully they take a few of my ideas on board.
By admin, on May 17th, 2011 The first week of the HOP card rollout seems to have passed by without too many horrific stories. On Friday the NZ Herald reported that some people were trying to jump back onto their bus when they remembered they hadn’t tagged off (if you don’t tag off you can be charged the longest fare of that particular bus route). But it seems that Auckland Transport is getting around that issue by allowing people to call up and explain the situation – then they’ll have any penalty fares restored. That’s probably a good idea while the system beds in and people get used to tagging off.
I’ve had a few of my buses being North Star services, which has enabled me to use my HOP card on quite a few occasions now. Typically this is for the 005 bus that leaves Britomart at around 5.05pm. One cool thing about the MyHop website is that I’m now able to track my trips and check up how much money is left on my card:
 It has been interesting to see the chaos that changing some – but not all – of the Herne Bay buses over to HOP has had. I don’t think I’ve ever seen as many arguments between passengers and bus drivers: by late last week all a passenger tended to need to do was show their GO Rider card and the driver waved them on for free. I certainly don’t blame the driver – it’s pretty stupid operating two ticketing systems on the same bus route simultaneously.
And this is where things are going to get interesting next week. Aside from a few services – like some of the 005 services and some of the 015 services – North Star buses are pretty much confined to the North Shore. Chances are that most people either always use North Star buses or they never use them. This is not the case for Go West and Waka Pacific, who will switch over to HOP this coming Sunday. A huge number of streets are served by a mixture of Metrolink (which won’t switch to HOP until June 5th) and either Waka Pacific for southern services, or Metrolink and Go West for western services. If I think of New North Road buses alone, from memory the 210 and 211 services were Metrolink, but often the 212 and 224 services were Go West. There are also probably some exceptions to that rule.
Even on Sandringham Road services, which don’t actually go particularly near west Auckland, in the days when I used to catch the morning 240 bus it was typically operated by Go West: even though every other Sandringham Road bus was always Metrolink (aside from the very occasional North Star bus, believe it or not). It will be a messy couple of weeks, that’s for sure.
Further to that concern, last week I had it confirmed that this is not the only card swap-over we will need to do this year. Because our current HOP cards are basically rebranded Snapper Cards (yes Wellingtonians, your Snapper card will work on Auckland buses) in a few months time we will need to throw away these 17,000 “fake” HOP cards and swap them for real ones that connect to the Thales system.
Madness, I know!
So while Auckland Transport might be crowing about all the HOP cards they’ve distributed, the really big challenges are yet to come.
|
Recent Comments