Auckland bus services under strain

By WARREN GAMBLE

It's a "wonderful problem" for Auckland bus operators: their business is growing by at least 7 per cent a year, among the highest growth in the Western world, although from an admittedly low base.

And passenger volumes are on another spurt that could take growth into double figures this year. On some main routes patronage is up by more than 20 per cent.

The surge has put a strain on services, particularly in congested rush-hour routes, but operators insist they are increasing capacity as fast as they can. For some passengers that is not fast enough.

A letter to the New Zealand Herald from Ponsonby woman Pauline McCann about problems getting on the Link inner-city service struck a chord with many. Others complain of being left behind as crowded buses go past, being crammed in the aisles, stuck in traffic on the way in and out of the city and waiting 40 minutes to an hour to catch the Link.

For an industry that has only in recent years moved out of a passenger decline stretching back to World War II, it is a bad look.

The private operators, and the councils that form the other part of the public transport picture in Auckland, admit they are struggling to catch up with passenger demand.

The largest Auckland operator, British-owned transport giant Stagecoach, says passenger numbers are running at 10 per cent more in Auckland so far this year compared with the same period last year. Birkenhead Transport says the increase is more than 15 per cent this year, following a 27 per cent rise the year before.

Since Stagecoach bought the former Yellow Bus Company in 1998 its Auckland patronage has increased 36 per cent, making it the envy of international operators, says Stagecoach Asia Pacific executive chairman Ross Martin. Hong Kong, for example, is suffering a bus passenger decline, Britain's growth is about 1 per cent a year, and Wellington is around 4 per cent.

Stagecoach now carries 40 million bus passengers a year in Auckland, but there is still room for development. Wellington still has twice as many bus users, per head of population.

"We are suffering growing pains [in Auckland]," says Martin, the upbeat Stagecoach boss and author of the "wonderful problem" assessment. "And we are subject to the same congestion as the rest of the population, except where we have got busways."

Martin and other operators say it was difficult to predict the extent of the most recent surge. All the main bus operators have expanded their fleets and timetables in response to clear signals of city growth, such as the migration-fuelled housing boom and the rapid expansion of inner-city foreign language schools whose students are bus users.

Anecdotal evidence points to migrants, particularly students, as a major factor in bus passenger growth, although operators say they are also luring more Aucklanders out of their cars. It is another reason, they say, to ensure trip times are fast and reliable.

Operators say past experience has also shown the return to work, school and university in March creates a passenger spike that levels off for the rest of the year - although some say that more in hope than conviction. One bus company head admitted privately that his firm was struggling to cope, and was hoping for numbers to plateau so it could catch up.

The union representing drivers, who bear the brunt of public complaints about delayed and crowded buses, is preparing a card for passengers with the numbers of Stagecoach, the Rideline service, and the Auckland Regional Council.

"Passengers take their frustration out on the drivers and really the driver has no control over the timetable or the congestion that they run into," says the president of the Auckland Tramways Union, Gary Froggatt.

"We think it would be better for the passenger to contact those organisations that are providing the infrastructure for public transport."

Bus operators walk a fine line between praising bus priority initiatives from local councils and saying there are not enough of them.

West Auckland-based operator Ritchies Coachlines says the lack of bus lanes in main routes from Henderson, and along the Northwestern Motorway, means the company struggles to keep to timetables.

In peak time, for example, it can take 20 minutes to cover an 800m stretch of Lincoln Rd. Stagecoach's Martin says it is pointless investing in new buses - which cost around $250,000 each - unless priority lanes are extended.

For their part, city and regional councils acknowledge they are also trying to catch up with the bus passenger surge, but say many bus priority projects are under way.

Some, such as the $187 million North Shore busway project, which will take buses on a congestion-free run from Constellation Drive to the city, will not be ready until 2006. Other local projects will be ready in the next few months.

Regional council chief executive Jo Brosnahan says the growth has been "too fast for us". Its latest bus passenger survey indicated a 25 per cent increase on citybound routes over last year.

"We are not going to keep up all the time," she says. "It's happening as fast as we can do it and the fact that it is happening at all I think is fantastic."

The regional council allocates money from national transport funder Transfund to subsidise bus services that are not registered by commercial operators, such as off-peak, weekend and less travelled routes.

Under a patronage-linked funding formula, Transfund's contributions have nearly doubled in the past five years, although the Government last week announced a review of that system.

Bus operators generally applaud the Auckland City Council, but it has also come under fire from drivers and the public for underestimating the growth and not pushing its priority measures quickly enough.

Bus driver Richard Alpe says the council could do many small things to improve the flow, including lengthening and standardising its vehicle clearways. These should operate from at least 3pm to 6pm, he says, instead of the current 4pm or 4.30pm on some main routes because parked cars cause chokepoints which put buses behind in rush hour.

The council admits it is also in catch-up mode, but transport committee chairman Greg McKeown ticks off a list of bus priority measures it has approved and which are at various stages of planning, design or construction.

They range from a review of the clearway system to new bus lanes for Fanshawe St, Quay St, Sandringham Rd and Mt Eden Rd.

In February the committee approved the central transit corridor that will give buses a priority route from the new downtown Britomart transport centre along Anzac and Symonds Sts through Grafton to Newmarket, cutting minutes off the 20-minute journey. Across Grafton Gully the options are to close Grafton Bridge to cars or build another bridge.

The corridor will be completed in stages over the next two years.

But opponents on the council say it should stick to its original light rail network, which would have a greater capacity and longer life. That highlights a central question about expanding bus services - unless there is a citywide network of priority lanes, sooner or later their capacity is limited by being on the same increasingly congested roads as cars.

"We think that [busway] is suitable for Auckland today," McKeown says. "But it doesn't mean in a decade's time we are not looking at other options, including light rail and an underground [heavy rail] tunnel," he says.

The $400 million tunnel, still being investigated, would run from Britomart under Queen St to Mt Eden.

Regional council chief executive Brosnahan says the city needs both bus and rail to keep moving. As a university student she worked on former Auckland mayor Sir Dove Myer-Robinson's defeated rapid transit scheme in the 1970s, and says the city is paying the price for under-investing in transport infrastructure.

"I think the important thing for us all is to protect the [public transport] corridors," she says. "Any development will be evolutionary because we can't afford to do the big bang."

But she says Auckland has to "bite the bullet" on staged development of quality public transport if it wants to be a First World city.

Public transport lobby group Campaign for Better Transport says buses cannot be the sole answer. At current rates Auckland traffic volumes would double in 20 years, meaning unless entire routes were made priority lanes buses would get bogged down again.

The group says there needs to be a more co-ordinated local body approach to public transport. For example, it says the North Shore busway project ran into problems this year because of Auckland's decision to have its central transit corridor through Quay, Anzac and Symonds Sts, instead of the North Shore's preferred option of Queen St.

The city's transport committee head McKeown says the city has to balance all uses, from pedestrians and carparking to routes for trucks, buses and trains. It made better sense for buses to circulate around the city using the Symonds St and Albert St ridges with cross-city connections on Victoria and Wellesley Sts.

McKeown says while priority bus measures will continue, operators could help improve trip times by looking at pre-ticketing systems. Council modelling has shown if passengers board with pre-purchased tickets, the time savings could be similar to bus priority measures. The Tramways Union suggests a return to conductors issuing and checking tickets on board.

Stagecoach is looking at priority ticketing systems, but cost is a major factor.

Technology will also play its part. More bus priority traffic lights are likely and the council's $7 million global positioning satellite system should be running soon, after technical problems delayed its February introduction to the Link route. The system allows operators to pre-empt traffic lights, better space or replace delayed buses, and flashes real-time information to bus stops.

McKeown says the council is unfairly labelled as a pro-roads council, despite the roading projects championed by mayor John Banks.

And he believes Auckland's passenger transport target of 55 million annual trips (for bus, train and ferry) by 2011 is too low, and the region should aim for 100 million, more than twice the current 42 million.

One hundred million trips would match the 1955 total, when the city had a population of 350,000 and moved around in buses and trams. McKeown sees rail playing an increasing role in the next decade, with buses increasingly linking to a central rail station spine.

All bus operators agree that passenger growth will continue, with the proviso that there are more priority measures.

However, North Shore councillor and busway project chairman Joel Cayford also warns operators that they have to play their part in providing a quality service. He says councils that devote precious road space to bus lanes should have a greater say on the quality, frequency and reliability of services.

Current legislation prevents the regional council imposing detailed conditions, but Cayford says if operators do not lift their game there could be regional support for a law change allowing greater regulation.

"At the end of the day people will only get out of their cars and into buses if it's a good-quality and reliable service."