RWC Boosts PT Patronage

in Auckland Bus Featured RWC 2011 Trains by Jon C — October 22, 2011 at 9:39 pm | 0 comments

As expected, the RWC has distorted patronage numbers of those using Auckland’s trains and buses.

Last month, Auckland Transport recorded 6.63 million public transport passengers in September, an increase of 18.7% over the previous year –but this includes RWC patrons.

Rail patronage for the month of September achieved 1,178,586, a new monthly record and an increase of +32.0% on September 2010.

We saw this starting to come through in August’s figures which was for a pre-RWC period but includes the Bledisloe Cup (a total of 20,000 rail journeys for it) and several pre-RWC Eden Park games.

August’s Auckland rail patronage was 22.7% higher than 12 months ago – Northern Express up 14.3%.

In the 2 months to August 31, other bus patronage in the 2 months is up 5.9% and ferry patronage rose 12%. Overall Auckland public transport patronage totalled 66,632,872 passengers for the 12-months to Aug 2011 an increase of 5,401,196 boardings or +8.8% on 12 months previously.

September’s patronage was 6,634,342 passenger trips across public transport, an increase of  +18.7% compared to September 2010.

For the 12-months to September,  patronage was 67,682,156 passenger trips, an increase of +9.8% compared to the 12-months to September 2010.

Auckland Transport says this large increase in patronage in September is partly a result of Rugby World Cup matches held in Auckland.  Special event PT services were provided for RWC2011 and fan zones on 9, 10, 11, 16, 17, 18, 22, 24, 25 and 30 September 2011 with integrated match and public transport ticketing across rail and bus special event services.

Also of interest is that thanks to the RWC, trains were more on time than usual.

In fact, train delay minutes due to network faults in September fell to the lowest level in five years, due primarily to a freeze on major infrastructure upgrade works during RWC2011.

During the month 98.0% of trains arrived at their final destination and 83.3% arrived on time. But Veolia says the increased passenger loadings as a result of RWC events across the region also had an impact on performance during the month.

Auckland Transport says that since the Opening Night problems, where there have been operational issues, it considers that contingency measures in place have adequately dealt with the situation.

There were three infrastructure equipment issues which affected the network in September.

The first issue was at Otahuhu on 20th, a second occurrence in the Britomart tunnel on the 27th and the last at Morningside on the 28th.

Combined, these issues delayed 79 services and led to eight services being cancelled.
Three mechanical issues caused trains to fail in September.

On September 2 between Britomart and Newmarket the train experienced a power failure and again and at Middlemore and Newmarket on the 6th. A total of 93 services were affected, of which 10 were cancelled services.

A fatality on the Western Line near Mt Albert Station on 8 September resulted in 61 services being delayed and 17 cancellations.

 

Tags: patronage Rugby World Cup