Auckland Council (and Transport) now want to expand the infamous shuttles

Yesterday in my Not a Good Day for Auckland Transport [UPDATED x3] post the final line after a disaster of a day for Auckland Transport was: “Lets hope tomorrow is a bit better 🙂 – Seriously!” Well fast forward to today and it seems things just got a whole lot worse for both Council and Auckland Transport with those private shuttles. Today I see (and after getting pinged in Twitter a few times) the New Zealand Herald and Radio NZ are back at it with follow ups to the private shuttle story yesterday.

Lets start with the Herald first before coming to the Radio NZ piece which even mentioned Council wanting to expand the shuttle service.

From the NZ Herald

Auckland Council staff get special shuttles

….

Source: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11281008

Well that poll snapshot taken at 10:15am and already not looking good.

As it was noted on Twitter:

And with the remarks coming from both Auckland Transport (particular two executive managers) and the Mayor’s Office (listen to the Radio NZ piece (towards the end)) you can see why this story both blew up and the poll not reflecting well.

Continuing on with the Herald article:

In Takapuna, the Auckland Council shuttle runs from the civic centre to its offices next to Aotea Square in the city. The council confirmed another shuttle, to Manukau, was under consideration.

Councillor Chris Darby said he had used the Takapuna service and found it well patronised by staff, who relied less on pool cars. Although he used it, he said he would “tend to use the more frequent public service” leaving nearby.

The trip to the city by bus took about 15 minutes. With such a good public service, he said the need for the shuttle was “a good question”.

“I can vouch for the very good public service out of Takapuna.”

Mr Darby said Auckland Council had yet to develop a workplace transport plan, which it urged other businesses to do.

There was a “need for Auckland Council to do what it says others should do” by developing a plan which understood staff needs and found ways to meet those.

Former Waitakere City councillor Ewen Gilmour had advice for staff: “Use the trains – they’re right there. It seems a bit rich they are the transport agency and they don’t use their own transport because of inefficiency.”

Green Party transport spokeswoman Julie Anne Genter said Auckland Transport should lead by example and use public transport.

.—–

Not a particularly good look Councillor Darby with those buses nearby. I think your counterpart Councillor George Wood might have one upped you there as I know he is a very frequent user of public buses on the North Shore and the trains when heading south on his regular visits. For the rest of it we are seeing the mantra of “Do as I say Not as I do” arising from this mess. Something I mentioned yesterday and something Todd Niall in his Radio NZ piece also said as well.

The Radio New Zealand Piece

Have a listen to this as it had a few bits in there which even caught me by surprise:

The main points from the Radio NZ piece:

• Expanding the shuttle service between the City Centre offices and the Manukau Civic Building.
  • Takes 40 minutes by train (plus a two-minute walk across a car park at the Manukau end) compared to longer times by shuttle when the motorway packs up (which it usually does on the week days)
  • Frequencies however, in the off-peak are hourly until the new timetable comes out in October. At the same time in October the Manukau Line gets the new EMU’s and better frequencies which should shorten both the wait for a train and the trip (trip reduced to around 33 minutes)
• Council and AT are saying the shuttle leads to a reduction of the use of the fleet cars. As Todd Niall says that is beside the point
• Council and AT want to invest heavily in public transport (the City Rail Link being the leading example at a couple of billion dollars for the full package) but yet they run this shuttle service which gives the perception of: “Do as I say and not as I do” mantra from our civic institutions.
• Public Transport advocates stating if public transport is that slow then AT and Council should be improving the system. AT’s response is that it takes time with the Western Line used as an example. My response to that is that new timetable is out later this year which should be boosting frequencies. If you want to help the rail system more than stop delaying the EMU roll out as I know both the Southern and Western Lines have been pushed back up to six months originally from their original dates. Also where are the bus lanes and signal priorities? Could we get some quick wins in like Fanshawe Street and get a bus lane put in on a heavily used existing route?
• Todd Niall then states AT not familiar with customer experience of those (like me) who use public transport
  • Todd used the normal buses from the City to Henderson yesterday to report on the AT Board meeting. Todd claims that the trip took around 35 minutes (with potential of tightening that up with some quick win fixes) compared to the shuttle taking upwards of 10 minutes longer
• AT has a customer focus general manager to deliver ways of a better customer experience for public transport users
• AT spent $300,000 on consultants to find out or rather “walk in the shoes” of citizens and why they might or might not use public transport. This is while these shuttles are going and to be soon expanded
• These shuttles are alleged to deter Council and AT’s own staff from using public transport and mingling with the passengers who would use public transport more frequently.
• Auckland Transport and the Mayor’s Office refused to front up in reply to the situation. The Mayor’s Office saying it is an operational issue while Auckland Transport batted it back saying it was for Auckland Council to comment on

So in essence:

• AT has a customer focus general manager to deliver ways of a better customer experience for public transport users
• AT spent $300,000 on consultants to find out or rather “walk in the shoes” of citizens and why they might or might not use public transport. This is while these shuttles are going and to be soon expanded
• These shuttles are alleged to deter Council and AT’s own staff from using public transport and mingling with the passengers who would use public transport more frequently.

While reducing the car-pool fleet is a noble goal of the wider Council the entire Shuttle situation has been nothing short of a total PR disaster. It certainly will not help the Council nor Auckland Transport push for projects if the ratepayers are openly hostile to the shuttle situation.

So should the new slogan for Auckland Transport be: “Do As I Say and Not As I Do?”

Maybe tomorrow might be a better day for Auckland Transport…