Fuel price forces more cars off road

Herald File Picture

Motorists are filling up less often and leaving the car at home in the face of soaring petrol prices.

Auckland petrol sales fell by 1.4 per cent in the financial year to June 30 - the first reduction in five years.

Transit NZ has also recorded reductions in traffic on Auckland motorways in each of the four months to July, compared with last year.

The region used 1.063 billion litres of petrol in the latest financial year, compared with 1.079 billion litres in 2004-05, although an 0.26 per cent rise in diesel use kept the overall decline in transport fuel sales to 0.8 per cent.

Although such recent data for the rest of New Zealand was unavailable yesterday, Transit network operations general manager Roly Frost said growth in general traffic appeared have levelled off nationally.

Although petrol is 15c a litre cheaper than it was three weeks ago, when prices stood at a record 176.9c a litre for 91-octane, Automobile Association spokesman Mike Noon is predicting a continuing decline in sales as a trend towards smaller and more fuel-efficient cars continues.

Large-car sales fell from 23.7 per cent of the new market six years ago to just 10.5 per cent in June.

Traffic growth on Transit's state highway network tapered off 0.5 per cent last year - to 19.4 billion vehicle kilometres travelled - after years of increases which averaged more than 3 per cent.

Numbers went into decline last year in Auckland, Wellington and Gisborne, which all had 2.6 per cent less highway traffic than in 2004. But the West Coast and Southland experienced growth of between 4 per cent and almost 6 per cent.

Public transport use in Auckland was 5.2 per cent higher in July than at the same time last year, although the actual patronage figures have yet to be issued.

Although a term break at universities and other tertiary institutions has been behind the noticeable reduction in traffic congestion in the past week, Auckland Regional Council chairman Mike Lee said he believed moves to improve public transport were gaining permanent traction.

That includes the new Northern Express bus service, which the Auckland Regional Transport Authority says has removed 400 cars from the motorway system, even before the opening in early 2008 of a $290 million dedicated busway between Albany and the harbour bridge.

"It's like Team New Zealand - every little thing makes the boat go faster," said Mr Lee.

Results just out from a survey by Transit and territorial local bodies in March has meanwhile found slight improvements in travel times on Auckland motorways and arterial roads compared with a year earlier.

Although Auckland motorists still faced a frustrating average delay of 43.2 seconds for every kilometre travelled in morning peak traffic, that was 3.6s less than the delay in the previous March.

Getting to work or classes - along 248km of surveyed roads, where the speed limits allowed a free-flow speed of 64km/h - meant crawling at an average of 36km/h, but that was 1 km/h faster than last year.

The average speed in the afternoon peak was 39km/h, the same as last year, rising to 57km/h between times, 1km/h faster than the previous year.

However, the unpredictability of travel times remains a major headache for Aucklanders.

Although the variability of time spent stewing in morning traffic declined to 19 per cent compared with 28 per cent the year before, it increased to 35 per cent in the afternoon peak.

That meant homeward trips could take more than one-third longer than expected from one day to the next.