While I am on my Winter Holiday

 

Why does the “good stuff” that will kick off a fierce debate occur when I am away on leave or holiday. In March I happened to be in Sydney on holiday while the Unitary Plan was formally launched. Now while I will be away in the Bay of Plenty on a week’s leave next week the Auckland Council Transport Committee goes and decides to have a debate on our rail patronage situation.

We all know from watching commentary here at Talking Auckland that the issue around rail especially patronage is a vexed one most days. While some enquiries to Auckland Transport have shed some light on what is going on with our rail system, it seems Council are now going to have a nosey at the situation.

 

While I note and acknowledge that Transport Blog (ATB) are due to give a presentation on their Congestion Free Network to the Transport Committee next Tuesday, it was something else in the agenda that caught my attention on from page 17.

It seems the Transport Committee is going to be discussing one rather large elephant in the room – rail patronage.

Here is the agenda for Tuesday’s meeting (starts on page 17)

What the Transport Committee will be looking at (and I’ll be watching from the live All About Auckland video feed while in Tauranga) is the following:

1. There are some discrepancies between the rail patronage targets in the Auckland Transport Statement of Intent (SOI) and the Council’s Long Term Plan (LTP) and Annual Plan 2013-2014 which are being considered by the Council Controlled Organisation (CCO) Strategy Review Subcommittee at its meeting on the afternoon of 7 August 2013. This report and the views of the committee will be inputs into the deliberations of the CCO Strategy Review Committee on this issue.

2. This report provides commentary on recent and planned near future developments on the Auckland rail network, the likely impacts of these developments on rail patronage and suggests a range of measures that could be undertaken by Auckland Transport to accelerate rail patronage growth towards the targets in the Council’s LTP.

 

In short? Auckland Transport in regards to rail patronage missed their previous Statement of Intent mark by around 1.4 million rail passenger trips. As a result the now current Statement of Intent for rail patronage was scaled down and while rail patronage is going back up after a long decline, there is a risk that the SOI target could be missed again.

You can see this on page 4 of these series of charts

And yes to be fair three of the four indicators are green with only one being red.

 

So in light of the Auckland Transport Statement of Intent situation and rail being a vexed issue that gets pretty much everyone worked up, the Transport Committee is effectively going to have a pow-wow on both the situation and what can be done about it.

That pow-wow in looking at accelerating rail patronage growth can be seen from the agenda that I have pasted below here for your ease of viewing:

• The roll-out of electric trains from April 2014 will provide increased capacity and more frequent train services, initially slowly but accelerating as the roll-out approaches completion in late 2015.

• The electric train roll-out, a key element of the broader Auckland Transport public transport transformation programme – including the new bus network, integrated ticketing and fares, and much improved bus-rail interchanges – will be a key platform for sustained future rail patronage growth. 

•  Over the next three years there may be some measures that could assist in driving increased rail patronage towards the targets in the LTP (see table below) in addition to the wide range of measures already being implemented. However, many of these measures may only be able to deliver increased patronage towards the end of this period, once electrification is operational. Auckland Transport may wish to consider the implementation issues and financial implications of these measures in discussions between the Mayor and the Auckland Transport board.

 

At a hazard of a guess I would be safe to say that a lot is riding on the new EMU’s getting the patronage up quickly before the City Rail Link becomes operational (between 2022-2025 currently). To bring the CRL forward rail patronage needs to grow at about 8% year of year starting from July 1 this year (when the Council year started (it operates on a July 1 – June 30 cycle). If the 8% is missed one year it has to be made up somewhere else down the line. E.g if rail patronage hits 5% growth as mentioned in the SOI this year, then a 13% leap will be needed next year to keep the 8% on track.

But, while there is a lot pinned to the EMU’s giving patronage a big kicker; the bit I placed in bold above needs to be considered carefully.

If I read the point correctly two things are going to happen:

1. The AT Board is going to end up in the Mayor’s Office for a please explain
2. What other small things can be done to get rail patronage up – this being implied around infrastructure (as mentioned in the second bullet point above).

 

This second above point had me going through the agenda paper to see what might be on the plans or in the pipeline. This is what I found (also in the agenda):

Initiatives to further improve rail patronage

41. A range of initiatives are possible to help deliver rail patronage increases, as outlined below. However, most of these will only help deliver significant additional patronage towards the end of the 3-year SOI planning period in 2015/2016 and in particular, options for growth in the 2013/14 year are limited. Even those initiatives that may be possible in the short term (e.g. weekend service extensions) will, as noted, be constrained by network closures.

42. Improved interpeak and weekend rail services. As noted above, until electric trains start entering service from April 2014, there will be no increase in peak train capacity. International research shows that the improvement of non-peak train services can lead to stronger increases in patronage than peak capacity improvements. Substantial improvements to non-peak service levels form part of the roll out of electric trains. There may be opportunities to advance non-peak service improvements in advance of electrification such as extending Sunday train services west of Henderson (which currently has no Sunday train service) and improving weekend frequencies to half-hourly. Auckland Transport is planning to improve western line weekend services to match the rest of the network in advance  f the electric train rollout and these changes have already been included in Auckland Transport’s revised SOI patronage numbers. However, other improvements would need to be balanced against the frequent disruption to weekend train services caused by electrification works which will continue for the next nine months at least.

43. Parnell Station. Current planning is that the new Parnell Station will be completed in late 2014 but the station is not suitable for diesel train operation, so will be commissioned in conjunction with the introduction of electric trains to that part of the network in the first half of 2015. In addition to bringing Parnell into the rail network, it will also substantially improve rail access to the Carlaw Park business park and the eastern side of the University of Auckland campus. There is anecdotal evidence of strong developer interest in the station opening as an enabler of development activity on the western side of Parnell Road.

44. Manukau Institute of Technology campus. This campus, immediately above Manukau Station is planned to open for the 2014 academic year and is likely to be a significant generator of patronage for the station. The electric train timetable is planned to provide 10- minute peak and 15-minute all-day service as opposed to the current 20-minute peak and hourly all-day service. This service increase will be delivered at the end of the 2014 academic year based on electric train commissioning.

45. New bus network. The new network provides a high level of bus-rail integration and is being planned in conjunction with major bus-rail interchanges facilitating modal transfer. The New Lynn interchange, opened in September 2010, shows strong evidence of increased rates of bus to rail transfer (26% of rail customers surveyed in New Lynn accessed rail by bus, versus an Auckland average of 7.4%). Much improved bus rail integration took place with the completion of the Papakura Station upgrade earlier this year to be followed by a new bus-rail interchange at Panmure to open by the end of the year. By early 2015, there are planned to be new bus-rail interchanges in Otahuhu and Manukau, in conjunction with the roll-out of the new bus network in the south.
46. Park and Ride. Auckland Transport has recently expanded park and ride provision at Papakura Station and has projects to provide more park and ride spaces at Swanson and Glen Eden stations and has identified a site by Avondale Station that may be suitable for park and ride. In addition, Auckland Transport is considering a number of potential other park and ride sites as part of a broader park and ride strategy.

47. Fare strategy initiatives. Greater Wellington has recently unveiled a new public transport fares strategy (see attachment B) including planned initiatives such as family weekend fares and reduced off-peak fares both of which could drive significant patronage growth at times where spare capacity is available. Similar initiatives, in the context of a broader fares strategy, could have significant benefit in moving cost-sensitive but less time-sensitive customers out of the peak, thereby freeing up further peak capacity for more time-sensitive customers. Family fares also have substantial potential to stimulate patronage particularly at weekends and to overcome the substantial financial barrier to family weekend travel presented by the current fare system. This type of product is extensively used in Australian cities. It should be noted though that the first priority has to be to complete integrated ticketing and fares and this should be considered in the context of a broader fares strategy.

…

 

After reading all that my reaction was: “Who was the noddy from Council (because it certainly does not look like AT’s work looking at the authors) who wrote the “Rail Patronage” starting Page 17?http://www.scribd.com/doc/157392057/Transport-Committee-August-2013#page=17

Shall we take a look again at getting rail patronage up with some other projects as well that would give a significant boost?”

Meaning it was a Council transport planner who wrote all that rather than an AT transport planner. Looking at it upon investigations made especially from my end you would be right in thinking that in regards to Auckland’s Transport that Council talks from one hand and AT from the other and the two don’t meet… In other words silo thinking!

I can think of two projects that would provide a real kicker to rail patronage from 2015 in the south that did not even get mentioned.

Where is the Pukekohe Electrification project as an urgent initiative to assist getting patronage up?

Where is the mention of the Manukau Rail South Link that has a business case study under way and due to be reported back at the end of the year. This especially around the fact that the Manukau MIT campus was mentioned and going to be a magnet for Manukau Station growth. Except someone forgot to tell the noddy of the author of this report that the bulk of MIT’s patronage comes from the south not the north.

While we await the South Link study to be presented with the modelling of numbers that would use it; on a rough guts estimate using 10 minute frequencies (bit of an overkill but will run with it) it is estimated that having trains run from Pukekohe to Manukau via the South Link would carry numbers that would rival the Ellersile Station. This is just on people using South Link services in and out of Manukau, NOT including the existing and operating North Link. I would be safe to assume with around 10,000 students from MIT and AUT in Manukau, coupled with population growth in the south, growth in the Wiri industrial complex, and growth in Manukau owing to it being a (Super) Metropolitan Centre that the South Link numbers would start to rival the Papatoetoe and Manurewa Stations in terms of numbers meaning we are going to have people moving and enjoying that direct link rather than double backing and wasting time using the Puhinui transfer option (the North Link).

In saying all this someone is bound to say that yes you can build the South Link but, there won’t be the rolling stock available. This would be true initially. However, each new EMU frees up an existing DMU which as mentioned will go to the main lines. Once the EMU’s start replacing the SA-Loco sets though then a rejig can be done in getting DMU’s or the SA’s to handle the South Link until all EMU’s were available and operating. I would guess that early 2015 is when diesel rolling stock could be brought over safely to handle the South Link and its passengers until the EMU’s were all here.

 

The point I am raising though in this long post is that Council and AT don’t seem to be talking to each other in trying to get rail patronage up. Those list of initiatives would be an indicator of it! In saying that am I giving a caning to Auckland Transport? No as I an idea what is going on with them after the enquiries made recently. I am more of giving a caning to Council on this one for not getting out of their silos and taking a wider look at things.

So while in Tauranga next week I will be watching the Transport Committee proceedings and seeing where the Councillors go with this Rail Patronage item.

 

Related articles

• The Last Year on Auckland’s Transport (voakl.net)