KEY POINTS:
It's 8.25am on a rainy day at Baldwin Ave station in Auckland's Mt Albert. The platform tannoy barks into life, announcing that the service to Britomart is running seven minutes late, only just leaving Avondale.
By the time it arrives, the train is packed. There are no seats available and the aisles are full of passengers standing, making it difficult for the ticket collector to thread her way through the carriages. One man sits on the floor, looking unhappy.
This is the reality of peak-time commuting in the wake of what Auckland Regional Council chairman Mike Lee describes as an "enormous increase" in passenger numbers.
After three years using the trains, Mt Albert commuter Steve Lawrence is used to it. He remembers the bad old days when there was one train an hour - sometimes running 40 minutes late.
"Now they have a new timetable, but they haven't been able to meet it," he says.
"Generally it's good, but they have no contingency - if something goes wrong they are screwed. They sometimes put a two-unit train on through here and it gets packed."
The train service could be regarded as a victim of its own success.
Passenger numbers have shot up 18.5 per cent in the past year and as the petrol price crisis hit home in June and July, passenger figures rocketed 30 per cent more than during the same period last year.
More than seven million passengers are now carried on Auckland's trains every year. The transport system is not yet buckling under the weight of its passengers - there is little overcrowding on off-peak services - but even transport authorities admit the system is under strain.
Lee says it is simply "not acceptable" for passengers to have to stand.
"The real concern I have is that there are problems with capacity, that it's standing room only, although it is more acceptable to have people standing than to have no service at all.
"There has been an enormous increase year on year and we are still having teething problems. People said Aucklanders would never get out of their cars. But if you provide an attractive and convenient service, people will use it."
On top of that, overcrowding made it difficult for train conductors to collect fares, Lee says
"I am absolutely certain we are undercounting [passenger numbers]. It could be a couple of million under. That is lost revenue."
The total amount of missing money is impossible to calculate at present but the Auckland Regional Transport Authority is looking at installing ticket gate technology in a few years' time.
ARTA chief executive Fergus Gammie describes passenger numbers as "excellent", although he also admits the surge in growth can be a problem.
"It means Aucklanders are having to cope with the types of crowding on trains that are customary on peak services overseas," says Gammie.
"New Zealanders like their personal space when travelling on public transport, but it comes at a cost. The reality of peak time train travel as experienced in Sydney and Melbourne is that standing is commonplace."
Public transport doesn't come cheap. Total public funding for Auckland's bus, train and ferry services is more than $146 million, half of which is paid by ratepayers and half by taxpayers. Half of the average regional council rates bill goes to funding public transport.
Gammie says two new trains are due to be delivered in the next couple of months, with another six on order for next year. Long term, the development of the network includes electrification of the lines.
Bus services, while not experiencing the huge increase in patronage of rail, are also stretched in places. Park-and-ride facilities on the North Shore are full each morning, with reports motorists have found it impossible to find parking space and have resorted to leaving cars on side roads.
"That's absolutely right," says Lee. "It's a problem. We need to build more park and rides. For God's sake, we have to provide a public service."
Lambert denies ARTA has been taken by surprise with the popularity of park and ride. He says it is talking with North Shore City Council about short-term expansion of car parks, but the ultimate goal is to get people on to public transport nearer their homes. "The answer is not to keep building huge carparks."
Cameron Pitches, lobbyist for the Campaign for Better Transport, says commuters are "frustrated" over the park-and-ride problems and the obvious lack of cohesion between bus and train services.
"They need to look at how buses and trains integrate. There are too many bus operators taking circuitous routes around train stations and not being there at the right times."
Pitches says the biggest frustration for commuters is the unreliability of bus services.
But it's not all bad news. Pitches says the Northern Busway, which opened in February, is largely responsible for reducing traffic on the Auckland Harbour Bridge by 6 per cent.
Lee claims a bigger problem for the city is empty buses on many routes. Bus companies will receive $93 million of public money this financial year, double the amount of five years ago, yet patronage has improved little in that time.
Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin transport authorities have all raised fares in the past two months, and Auckland will do the same sometime in the New Year.
Lee admits there is a lot of work to do to bring Auckland's public transport up to speed.
One of the key projects to achieve this is the proposed underground rail loop connecting Britomart to Wellesley St, K Rd and Mt Eden.
"When we get an underground you can say Auckland is a world-class city," says Lee. "Until that happens, we are not."
