KEY POINTS:
Isn't the public transport authority being a little mono-cultural with its plans for free cookies on the bus to work?
What about noodles and kebabs to ensure everyone feels at home, to say nothing of muesli bars for the health-conscious. And let's not forget the trolly dollies with hot towels to ensure nobody wipes their sticky fingers on the embroidered silk upholstery.
Of course if they really wanted to get fancy, how about concierges, a la Air New Zealand, to advise on which stop to get out at and lead group singing when the traffic snarls up.
It's not just the inner person the regional transport authority plans to target in its push to attract more passengers. Contract private bus operators Ritchies and NZ Bus are already running charm classes for bus drivers, training them on good grooming and how to welcome passengers with a smile.
It's all part of Auckland Regional Transport Authority's "Bus Service patronage programme of action". And with bus patronage overall down 2.3 per cent in the three months to September 30, compared with the same period last year, one can appreciate Arta's concerns.
But before the car-aholics crow "we told you so", the news on the public transport front is by no means all bad. Research shows that where fast, effective service is being provided, the travelling public has been fast to embrace it. Patronage on the Northern Express bus service has steadily grown since it began in November 2005.
In the September 2007 quarter it carried 247,079 passengers, a 16 per cent increase on the previous year. Despite all the signalling meltdowns experienced by the Auckland rail services, patronage on the southern line is tracking towards 14 per cent growth. On the western line, passenger growth is up 8 per cent, despite the disruptions earlier in the year because of double-tracking.
The free cookies proposal is part of the customer service improvement section of the action plan. It's the part where expensive marketing gurus who've not been inside a bus in years sit around a table nursing chardonnays and come up with silly ideas. Like mood music, and complimentary tickets for poor service, and the like. After questioning real live passengers, they've also come up with some sensible suggestions.
Like cleaning bus interiors regularly, and airing them so they don't stink of dampness and mould. They've also picked up on a preference to speak to a human to get timetable information and, more importantly, to register a complaint.
But these niceties are but the icing on the cookie. The action plan fantasises that "a personalised marketing campaign that enhances the passenger transport image and sells personal benefits" will increase patronage between 5 per cent and 10 per cent. Rubbish.
Most Aucklanders aren't going to buy until you have a product worth selling. Instead of wasting money on come-on cookies, how about concentrating on the basics. Like service reliability. The plan, after all, acknowledges that a one-minute increase in average lateness of service reduces patronage by between 2 per cent and 5 per cent.
On the same subject, the plan enthuses about rolling out electronic real-time indicator boards across the isthmus. At the risk of repeating myself, Arta should either spend the cookie money on fixing that system, or scrapping it. If late buses are a turn-off, then electronic timetables that seem to predict bus arrivals on the basis of a coin toss are even more infuriating.
The patronage figures on rail and the North Shore service show Arta is on the right track. By creating simple routes and providing a fast and frequent service, people will use them. As for driver charm school, courtesy is a two-way process. Perhaps if some of those who complain about driver surliness unplugged their music players from their ears, or stopped talking on their cellphones long enough to say please and thank you as they stepped on board, then their low-paid chauffeur might reciprocate in kind.
Many keep smiling anyway. Like the one yesterday who came tripping down the aisle after a passenger who'd unwittingly overpaid. "I know it's Christmas," she laughed, "but $1 is too big a tip."
