Auckland Transport

[ozbob]

https://twitter.com/DarrenDavis10/status/888514070017482752

[ozbob]

IRJ --> Auckland mulls battery-electric train order

AUCKLAND Council is expected to decide next week whether to proceed with an order for 17 battery-electric multiple units, which would replace DMUs on services on suburban services to Pukekohe.

The trains would operate under electric power between Britomart and Papakura, where they would switch to battery mode for the remainder of the journey to Pukekohe. At present passengers have to change from electric to connecting diesel services at Papakura

The $NZ 207m fleet would be supplied by CAF, which built the city's fleet of 57 AM class suburban EMUs. However, Auckland Council is also considering a $NZ 174m proposal for trains from Hyundai Rotem.

The Pukekohe line is due to be electrified by 2025, which would enable redeployment of the battery trains on extended Western Line services to Huapai and Kumeu.

[ozbob]

https://twitter.com/railjournal/status/891022197015420930

[ozbob]

https://twitter.com/GreaterAKL/status/898258292002127872

[ozbob]

https://twitter.com/DarrenDavis10/status/903065536451321856

[OzGamer]

At this rate it will exceed SEQ in not too many years.

[ozbob]

https://twitter.com/AklTransport/status/902989357652553732

[ozbob]

https://twitter.com/DarrenDavis10/status/903307883713937408

[ozbob]

https://twitter.com/BikeAKL/status/903382767831990272

[ozbob]

https://twitter.com/DarrenDavis10/status/914593995417899010

[ozbob]

https://twitter.com/DarrenDavis10/status/920118611485761536

[ozbob]

https://twitter.com/RailExpressNews/status/920498264331259904

[verbatim9]

They are copying the marketing from the Go card a bit. Very clever and effective what they have done here.

I still think High Frequency services state wide in Queensland should be rebranded as a one. Eliminating the Buz brand and rebranding all State TransLink High Frequency services to "Go Rapid"

[ozbob]

https://twitter.com/DarrenDavis10/status/1042183950859268096

[ozbob]

https://twitter.com/Robert_Dow/status/1042187015884746752

https://twitter.com/Schrinner/status/1042209912330215424

[ozbob]

News Hub --> 37 buses removed after gridlock at stations on Auckland's North Shore

Auckland Transport (AT) will rework its scheduling between the city and the North Shore after a swathe of buses arrived all at once at Constellation Station on Monday afternoon, causing major delays.

The organisation admits there were "teething issues" on the first day of the new bus network overhaul, and was taking steps to improve the commute on Tuesday.

Some commuters were stuck on buses at Constellation Station for more than 15 minutes on Monday.

"So the new North Shore bus system has been implemented and... we were stuck at Constellation for 15 minutes [thank you] Auckland Transport," one person wrote.

"Absolute chaos at Constellation station with the changes to north shore bus routes as buses have to take a full turn before they can drop off. Wow 20 minutes in constellation and we're not even moving," another said.

AT's Group Manager Metro Service Delivery, Stacey Van Der Putten, says AT is addressing the problem by removing 37 Northern Express 1 services during peak times in the afternoon.

The organisation's media advisor James Ireland said that commuters should not expect significant delays to the popular route beginning near Britomart, and buses should show up as normal.

"It will probably mean a NX1 every four to five minutes, rather than every two minutes,"  he said.

Ms Van Der Putten added that AT will also provide temporary traffic management at Constellation Station to help direct bus drivers.

One Twitter user pointed out too many buses was a nice problem to have in the circumstances.

"First Monday of new North Shore Auckland bus network and a bit of bus congestion at Albany. But too many buses is a nice problem to have after living in a bus desert for so long," the user said.

Elsewhere on Twitter, commuters report facing other inconveniences.

One reported waiting 30 minutes for a bus to Hillcrest/Northcote from Fanshawe St during peak times, while another now has to take three buses into the city rather than one.

"Now 30 minutes waiting to get to Northcote/Hillcrest from Fanshawe Street during peak time and the only bus that goes past is full. Seen 5 half empty 82s now!" one person said.

"Not liking the new north shore bus routes now I have to take 3 buses to the city even tho I only live 15 mins away," another said.

"Maybe 926 should run in reverse seeing that so many buses went thru Onewa Rd and 0 goes past Akoranga drive anymore?"

But Mr Ireland maintains the changeover went smoothly.

"There's going to be a few teething issues because these are the first few days of the bus network running in the real world. There were a few late buses yesterday.

"But overall, the transition has been positive," he said.

AT's advice to commuters is to plan your journey and leave more time than usual for your trip this week.

"We appreciate your patience and understanding as the roll out of North New Network continues this week," the organisation said on Twitter.

[ozbob]

https://twitter.com/DarrenDavis10/status/1063963075986878464

[ozbob]

Fast Company --> Auckland, New Zealand, has figured out how to get more people to use transit

Cities across the world are struggling to tempt people out of their cars and onto transit. Auckland reversed the trend by creating a really, really good bus network for very little money.

In 2012, the then mayor of Auckland, New Zealand, put a challenge to the city's transportation department that seemed nothing short of impossible: He wanted to see annual transit ridership, which was then hovering at around 60 million rides, double in the next decade. No city had ever accomplished a transit ridership lift of this magnitude before. But while Auckland's population was growing steadily–around 2% per year since 2000–transit ridership numbers were stagnating. The local government decided to attempt the impossible and change that.

According to the latest numbers, they're succeeding. With three years and eight months left to hit their target of 120 million annual rides, the city is set to clock in at 100 million trips by the middle of this year. If trends hold, ridership will exceed the benchmark in 2022.



To achieve this ridership lift, Auckland entirely overhauled its bus network. Working with Jarrett Walker, the transportation planning consultant behind Human Transit, the city took a look at its service in 2012 and decided that while it succeeded in transporting people from some of the furthest reaches of the city into the core, it did not offer nearly enough diversity in routes outside the city center. On his blog, Walker displays the two networks: the status quo in 2012, and the updates version he helped propose in 2016. It's not hard to see how much more coverage the latter version offers.
The trick, Walker explains on the blog, is that with a more extensive bus network, people will have to transfer more. And in Auckland, they certainly did: According to Stuff, the number of trips requiring a transfer doubled to one in six, but even as the changes rolled out, ridership continued to increase. However, Walker points out that the need to transfer will not deter riders if it won't cost them more to do so, and if transferring ultimately gets them to their destination faster than they would have arrived before. In Auckland, both of these things turned out to be true. He also emphasizes that operating a more extensive bus network, route-wise, didn't cost more to run than the type of service Auckland previously offered, which contained fewer routes and more buses along each one.

The success of Auckland's strategy to boost transit ridership numbers by improving its bus service should serve as an important reminder to cities that the oft-maligned bus is one of the cheapest and most nimble tools within their reach to radically reduce car dependency. We've seen similar successes in Seattle, which decided in 2014 to double down on its bus network to get people out of their cars. Through a voter-approved raise on both the sales tax and a car licensing fee, the city secured funding to purchase more buses, pay more drivers to run more trips in expanded hours, and added additional lines to cover more of the city. They also expanded bus priority service by designating certain heavily trafficked lanes downtown as bus-only. Since the changes rolled out, Seattle has been one of the only cities in the U.S. to actually see transit ridership numbers grow, as most cities' systems are struggling to retain riders.

Especially as cities like New York, Portland, Minneapolis, Washington, D.C., and Seattle itself look to flashier options like new subways, light rails, and streetcars to draw more transit riders, it's essential that a good bus network be part–if not all–of the equation. It's inexpensive, flexible, and does not require infrastructure buildout, save for a splash of paint to indicate a bus-only lane. And when it works, as it has in Auckland, it really works.

[ozbob]

https://twitter.com/DarbyatCouncil/status/1131010065022894080

[ozbob]

Quiet Revolution

>> https://www.greaterauckland.org.nz/2019/05/30/quiet-revolution/

[ozbob]

https://twitter.com/AklTransport/status/1140001216182837251

[ozbob]

https://twitter.com/DarrenDavis10/status/1142164152078594048

[#Metro]

^ Have to be careful how 'Brisbane' is defined. Generally, I think of Brisbane as the BCC area only plus any bits that BCC buses run in (e.g. around Arana Hills).

Sometimes these data is categorised as greater Brisbane instead, which would include parts of Logan, Pine Rivers, Redcliffe, North Lakes etc...

In those areas, the population has been increasing and PT isn't good. Which would explain the per capita drop.

That said, the issues with the QR trains could not have helped either.

The authorities (BCC and TMR) really need to fix the bus network, full bus route reform. Just like Auckland. It is the elephant in the room.

[SurfRail]

The most accurate definition of "Brisbane" is the Brisbane GCCSA as defined by the ABS.  The BCC boundary is irrelevant, what is material is whether a particular area is economically tied to Brisbane to the point of dependence.  Moreton Bay is, Logan is etc - they all have huge numbers of people leaving their LGA boundaries each day to work elsewhere because they are largely dormitories with local services.  The Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast aren't included because they are economically distinct.

No matter what parts you include or ignore, it's a massive failure.

[ozbob]

... No matter what parts you include or ignore, it's a massive failure. ...

Roger that!   

Rooted out!



Flat line. Population increase over this period was ~ 16%.  So when you adjust for 'trips per capita' the slope is negative.  As Greater Auckland found essentially.

[#Metro]

Would make sense though, if growth occurred in places like North Lakes, Logan, Springfield and Yarrabilba.

Plus who can forget Cedar Woods, where the developer had a condition put on them to only build low density, plus BCC who want to ban any dwelling not s single family home in a suburban area.

[ozbob]

For interest.  I calculated Trips/Capita for SEQ

2010  was 59.26

2018  was 52.45

A fall of 11.5%

I think one of the factors is that much of the population growth in SEQ is in public transport poor or even absent areas.

Still interesting, confirms what we all know.  The bus network is years behind in proper reform, and rail is a gross under-performer.

It is FUKING disaster ...  RPL, NGRs, DDA fail, CRR fail, rail fail, fare fail etc.  The only thing that has gone reasonably well is the GC Light Rail, mainly because TMR does not have a great deal of influence on that.  They are clearly going to stick with the organisational structure that has delivered the failure.  GOOD LUCK QUEENSLAND !!   

[ozbob]

Hi Darren. I calculated trips/capita for SEQ (as opposed to Brisbane). Much the same:

2010 was 59.26

2018 was 52.45

A fall of 11.5%#qldpol@MarkBaileyMP @SteveMinnikinMP

Unadjusted patronage attached. Population growth for SEQ was around 15.5% over the period. pic.twitter.com/69CMUlBLJV

— ozbob13 (@ozbob13) June 22, 2019

[ozbob]

June was another great month for public transport in #Auckland with +10.4% growth compared to June 2018, or on a 12-monthly basis a still impressive +9.1% growth. Analysis by @GreaterAKL https://t.co/3X8nSs817a pic.twitter.com/cMgVbvHLme

— Darren Davis (@DarrenDavis10) July 19, 2019

[ozbob]

ridership in Auckland continues to surge in the wake of implementing a frequent, connective transit network: Numbers up ~9% on same month last year, led by buses. Details here, including info on upcoming improvements (e.g. children ride free with HOP on weekends). @humantransit https://t.co/uSbq8FkqgK

— Stu Donovan (@StuartBDonovan) September 1, 2019

[ozbob]

https://twitter.com/StuartBDonovan/status/1171508158121922562

[ozbob]

[ozbob]

https://twitter.com/StuartBDonovan/status/1231901686878199808

[verbatim9]

Greater Auckland---> Light rail and light metro, why not both?

Last week the new government was officially sworn in and among other things, it means we have a new transport minister, Michael Wood. One of the biggest challenges he'll face is making some progress on Light Rail. As I covered last week, the good news is he has previously shown himself to have a good understanding of transport issues and the light rail project. He also responded to the Herald's Simon Wilson that he's committed to the project.

There is certainly plenty of detail to work through and soon that will include the Ministry's advice on the 'public sector delivery model', essentially their recommendation on how to proceed with the project following cabinet ending the silly Superfund / Waka Kotahi NZTA horse race in June.

As readers will know, during that process the project evolved from light rail as was initially proposed to fully grade separated driverless light-metro solution with fewer stops and focused on speed to the airport. Different modes have different benefits, trade-offs and costs and I've talked before about making sensible mode decisions. The biggest difference between the light rail and light-metro is the cost. Looking at some overseas examples, at a very high-level it suggests we might expect light rail to cost about $100 million per km to build while tunneling or elevated light-metro sections might be upwards of $600 million per km – it's no wonder the Super Fund and their Canadian partners are so keen on pushing the light-metro option, they would have been getting a guaranteed percentage return on a larger principal amount.

Perhaps the most compelling argument for the shift to a light-metro option revolves around the long-term capacity of the network as envisioned in ATAP.

The concern is that in the long-term there might not be enough capacity on the network if we just use light rail. Over time our political and technical processes have evolved to take a "do it once" approach which would suggest we go straight to the 100-year solution by building light-metro up-front.

The challenge with that is that going straight to light-metro is much more expensive and therefore harder to justify and takes longer to deliver. It also potentially crowds out funding that could be used to deliver other critical parts of the network, for example, for the price of one light-metro line we could probably get a couple of light rail lines that are nearly as good and a bunch of busways too. All up that second option would give us a much better overall network and deliver greater overall mode shift.

The other issue with the "do it once" approach is it also ignores the ability to stage improvements and for the network to evolve over time. We've even got an extremely relevant example of this in Auckland, the upgrade to the existing rail network.

The biggest project we have on the books right now is the City Rail Link but the first iteration of plans to tunnel through the city centre date back to the early 1920's. Then called the Morningside Deviation, it came about when the city's rail terminal was in the process of being moved away from Britomart to make way for the Chief Post Office. The project had been approved but then a change in government saw the project scrapped. Cost was the main factor for this and nearly half of the cost was because the project would have electrified the network between Papakura and Helensville. Similar attempts with similar results happened in the 40's/50's and in the 60's/70's with Robbies Rail. In all cases the projects were essentially trying to do too much.

Then starting in the late 90's a different approach was taken and in 2003 Britomart opened and returned rail to near the heart of the city. That and the response then provided justification for starting to upgrade the rest of the then rundown network. Stations started to be upgraded, more (diesel) trains bought, the Western line was duplicated, the Onehunga line reopened and the Manukau line built. While this happened, usage continued to grow and that provided the justification to electrify the network. The growth we've then seen from that investment has then highlighted the need for the City Rail Link and there will be more improvements needed in the future too.

So the question is, can we take a similar approach with light rail/metro? Can we deliver something that is affordable and useful now, that builds usage and then improve later on? I think the answer is yes.

If we take the light rail network from ATAP and look at the original light rail plans we can split it out like below. Based on this, of an over 62km network, only about 9.6km, or just over 15%, would be 'on-street' and the rest would be in a dedicated corridor allowing services to run reliably and at high frequency. This would of course be delivered over a period of many years in many stages.

Then at some point in the future, when demand/capacity are clearer and funding options are available we could develop the network further. For example, one option would be to build 'CRL 2' to perhaps link up the North Shore and Northwest lines. This would have the major benefit of creating a fully grade separated line but also free up capacity for more services on City Centre to Mangere line that remains with sections on-street. Note: the exact route would need to be assessed but we see lots of value in one that is able to serve the University, part of Ponsonby Rd and Grey Lynn.

Of course as the map earlier also shows, the section south of Onehunga was already expected to be in a dedicated corridor and so other projects, such as one I suggested here, could enable us to link that up too.

Once routes are fully grade separated then we can also consider converting them to driverless 'metro' style operation. This may also entail enlarging stations but that shouldn't be a major issue if we've allowed for the possibility in advance.

The key point of all this is that networks are changeable. We don't have to build the perfect network upfront. Our existing rail network shows us that the key is to get something in place that we can then expand and improve.

[verbatim9]

Auckland's Quay Street improvements. New Ferry Terminals, Bus Stops and more.

[verbatim9]

^^Pretty impressive together with City Rail Link this city is definitely getting it together in regards to Public Transport, new public realms and retail areas

[verbatim9]

Auckland's new eastern Busway

[verbatim9]

I stuff --> New Yutong electric buses connecting Auckland Airport

[verbatim9]

Auckland Transport has incorporated cycling into their App.

https://youtu.be/zIOsTjvLqJE

[ozbob]

https://twitter.com/AklTransport/status/1396647155855675392