Auckland transport agency to drive single ticket plan

Auckland's new transport agency has lost patience with glacial moves by bus operators towards a seamless passenger ticket and hopes to boost patronage with a scheme of its own.

The Auckland Regional Transport Authority intends stepping in to develop an integrated ticket to allow passengers to hop between almost any form of public transport - whether buses, trains or cross-harbour ferries - using a single electronic smart card.

This signals a rejection of a proposal of a consortium of four bus companies led by Stagecoach, for which the authority would have had to buy ticket-reading machines for an upfront cost of more than $3 million.

But it could take the authority at least the three years the bus operators said they needed to roll out an integrated ticket across the region, fuelling concern among politicians that an easy-flow public transport system allowing faster boarding times remains as elusive as ever.

Auckland Regional Council chairman Mike Lee, whose organisation has ultimate control of the transport authority, said last night that the lack of an affordable integrated ticket was "the single biggest roadblock to growth in public transport."

He blamed this in part for a 5.5 per cent decline in bus use in the year to June, although Stagecoach cites fewer foreign student passengers, industrial action, and competition from rail - which carried 36 per cent more people last month than the previous August.

North Shore Mayor George Wood said he remained highly nervous that the $290 million Northern Busway would open in 2008 without an integrated ticket to attract enough new passengers to justify it.

"Cities overseas are able to implement this sort of thing within three years but we've been talking and talking about it for the last five years and it seems lost in never-never land," he said.

"I'm getting tense about the whole shooting box because until we have an integrated system we will not get people confident about riding on public transport."

But the authority would not be long in wresting control of the exercise, as it had been created for the very purpose of clearing transport obstacles, he said.

Though the authority has yet to formally advise the bus industry of its decision, and ask it to cooperate with the scheme it develops, it disclosed its intent in its latest quarterly report to the regional council.

It was concerned that even after receiving such a large investment of public money for ticketing machines, each bus company would have retained its own fare structure, leaving public transport too costly to tempt enough commuters to leave their cars at home.

Neither was there enough indication of when trains and small ferry operators would be added to the ticket, although the main bus companies and Stagecoach ferry subsidiary Fullers would have progressively come on board between late next year and early 2008.

Stagecoach also raised hackles by being prepared to pay for new machines for its Wellington buses, but wanting the authority to foot the initial bill in Auckland to gain agreement from rival bus operators to accept the same technology and scrap their existing equipment.

Independent consultants Booz Allen Hamilton had reviewed the proposal from the bus consortium, and the "feedback" was that this did not meet its needs, the report said.

Stagecoach was still to sign the deal with European technology supplier ERG, on which the consortium's proposal was based. 

Bus consortium's proposal:

Single electronic ticket usable on all main bus companies, Fullers cross-harbour ferries and eventually Connex trains.

Ticket to be read and debited by machines on entry and possibly exit from vehicles, but according to fare structures of each operator.

Auckland Regional Transport Authority's aim:

Single ticket offering identical fares for distances travelled, regardless of operator or mode of transport.

Possible subsidy to provide fare discounts for holders of integrated ticket.