NZ In Tranzit

NZ in Tranzit in South Australia Protests have been held in Adelaide by owners and drivers of rural bus companies operating country school bus contracts across the state, as large out of state companies winning more than half the tenders Bus and Coach Association SA president Roger Quinsey  told Adelaide Now those contracts were being lost to a business that appeared to be a Queensland-based company. "Some of our members have operated their services for 55 years, some 37 years and many others in between," he said. "They have not missed a day of their service ...yet when they've gone to tender they have found they have not been awarded their tender. It appears to be price-based. "We have great concern that a lot of goodwill will be lost and a lot of good service will be lost." Opposition leader Isobel Redmond said the decision was a devastating blow to regional communities. The process echoes that which occurred in New Zealand in 2008 when over ...

NZ in Tranzit in USA "We've transformed our economy from the world's most prosperous manufacturing economy -- with reasonable national savings and trade surpluses -- to the world's most indebted service economy, with negative national savings, chronic trade deficits and Total Credit Market Debt Owed of $52 Trillion."   So comments one of the readers of the US publication, The Fiscal Times , in response to an article reporting the growing shortfall in government spending on America's deteriorating highways, bridges and transit (public transport) systems.    The American Society of Civil Engineers identified added costs arising from more obvious deficiencies in the country's surface land transportation systems as draining households and businesses of nearly $97 billion in increased costs to maintain and repair vehicles and $32 billion of increased travel time because of congestion and delay. The engineers say costs of the sort, coupled with lower investm...

NZ in Tranzit - campaigning against obscenities! The Government has announced an added nationwide fuel tax to build its extravagant programme of motorways and - unbelievably - another $140 million  to "fix up some anomalies" in commuter rail systems in Auckland and Wellington. This is the same Government responsible for cutting about $5 million funding to a (pathetically modest) programme of bus lanes, cycleways and road safety programmes in Christchurch in 2009. Despite Stephen Joyce's naive fantasy that the rest of New Zealand, the smaller cities, the rural hinterland wants to be milked to feed that bloated spoilt brat,  the the so called supercity, most kiwis have some natural sense of fairness and justice!! If roughly similar amounts of GDP are generated in other parts of NZ, then they should get their share of the cake - not be asked to subsidise Auckland. Most of New Zealand's wealth is generated in dairy products , forestry, coal, tourism etc -  very...

Tranzwatching - Green Party media release (reprinted in full) The Government's short-sighted plans for transport funding will lock New Zealand's economic fortunes into dependency on the price of oil and further Government debt, the Green Party said today. The 2012 Government Policy Statement (GPS) on Land Transport Funding was released today detailing how the Government plans to spend, on average, $26.6 billion on roads over the next ten years and only $5.8 billion on more sustainable alternatives like train and bus services, walking, and cycling. "The National Government has prioritised spending on new motorways above more sustainable alternatives, effectively locking our economy in to the price of oil for at least another ten years," said Green Party Transport spokesperson Gareth Hughes. "We need to move quickly to decouple our economy from the high price of oil. "Research has shown that for every US$1 increase in the international price of oil...

Tranzwatching in Dunedin, Te Wai Pounamu, New Zealand It was the coldest snap of weather in 16 years says the weather office of the snow storms that blanketed much of the south and many parts of the northern island. In Dunedin buses were flat out or out flat, only able to drive on some of the flatter route sections of this attractive but in many parts steep city. Passenger Transport Dunedin which recently became the major player in service contractors by buying out the previously council owned Citbus offered passengers free rides "just to get people out of the cold"  manager owner Kane Baas told the Otago Daily Times . 

NZ in Tranzit goes dancing with the wolves While Christchurch's once highly admired bus system slips ever further into the mire, human disasters compounding geological disaster, the United Kingdom city Wolverhampton (about 260,000 metropop) has just opened its new 19 loading-bay bus station.  Costing pounds sterling 22.5 million ( $NZ42.6 million at current exchange rates ) the bus station includes three enclosed glass concourses feeding onto a system of saw tooth bus docks. In this system, now being widely adopted in many places, arriving buses nose into each small dock, then veer or reverse out once loaded. More effective than it sounds,  I believe saw tooth docks were also planned for the new $119 million underground bus exchange in Christchurch). In the Wolverhampton model the doors of the concourse appropriate to each loading platform only open when the buses arrive. An artists view of the design is here ; more info about the bus station for the wulfrun...

On patronage per capita Ottawa- Gatineau (1.4 million metropop)  is the most successful public transport system in any city under 2 million metropop in North America or Australasia. This is achieved almost entirely using buses and segregated busways;  a downside of  the success -  too many buses in central city streets, here on Slater Street NZ in Tranzit - advocating good planning in Christchurch From my reading one of the big problems for all public transport systems is the tendency to end up with too many vehicles - buses, trams, light rail vehicles - crowding in the centre of cities, particularly at peak hours, in effect creating almost walls of vehicles which pedestrians then have walk around or risk negotiating a passage between them. Another problem is that there is little point designing flash segregated busways that dramatically cut travelling time from the outer suburbs but then come off a segregated busway straight into several bl...

Christchurch rarely gets more than a smattering of snow a couple of times a year, all melted again usually within 24 hours if not much sooner. Today it looks like it is a once in every 5? 10? year type snowfall and buses and many other city facilities have closed for the day. We have no equipment or experience to deal with 10 or 15cm of snow, though these might be quite normal - minor! - in some colder countries.  This photo is taken out of the back door of the place I am staying, at this moment                                                                    Click on photos to enlarge Even knowing it will probably add to city and business costs, after ...

NZ in Tranzit - playing traffic engineer to foster bus support Auckland Transport is hoping the New Zealand Transport Agency will include Bus lanes in its Road Code.  In Auckland as elsewhere, particularly before the last round of amalgamation, bus lanes have been developed in an ad hoc way, with different signage and standards, such as placement of signs. Currently they are reviewing the whole system. Now that Auckland is tidying up its act does indeed seem a  a good time for New Zealand as a whole to create a codified set of design standards, usage criteria, expectations and may be even a systematic scale of fines for entering Bus lanes in inappropriate ways. To the motorists of course - who can't bear to see an adjacent lane empty even for 30 seconds - it all seems very petty but any technology that can bring buses as close as possible to running on time is a primary technology of public transport ....once buses can consistently and reliably maintain sc...

Tranzwatching in Auckland, Te Ika a Maui, New Zealand As part of the so-called "supercity" created by the Amalgamation of the four former cities of Auckland (and a couple of county areas) all transport was brought under the one umbrella, Auckland Transport . The first eight months of operation for Auckland Transport have ended on a strong note with a number of significant projects delivered to a high standard, Chief Executive, Dr David Warburton according to a media release this week. In the year to June 2011, commuter rail patronage has risen 24% and Northern Busway usage has risen 14.5%.  Note; while not knocking a significant achievement it is always worth remembering these are largely new systems in which high percentile growth is to be expected. Another success, a transit smartcard "Hop" cards has finally been introduced. Also in this eight month period  probably the most expensive bit of road ever built in New Zealand [another huge subsidy to A...

NZ in Tranzit  - opinion Anyone who follows the news regularly knows that bad news is rarely broken abruptly - that large companies and big public authorities tend to sow elements of doubt or uncertainty in the public mind first, step by step introducing the real blow. "Let them down (to earth) slowly" might be the marketing strategy for a planned or expected down grade or reduction in service levels, or closure or abandonment of a project. I suspect I am not the only one reading this morning's news " Fate of Bus Exchange Unclear" as a very strong indicator that the glamorous $119 million underground bus exchange originally planned for the Lichfield Street "Katmandu" (etc) site site is now unlikely to ever go ahead. Instead a "temporary" (cynics please read 10-15 years?) exchange on this site is planned. Compared to the $119 million planned, the "temporary" bus exchange is expected to cost hundreds of thousands.  Accordin...

NZ in Tranzit - "Quoted fare" "We realized early in this discussion that a well-performing basic bus system is the essential backbone of any successful transit system around the country or around the world," he said. "To focus on the higher-capacity, more exciting things, like rail, without paying attention to a bus system, we'd be doomed for failure." - Mike McAnelly, Jacobs Engineering - planning new regional public transport system for Tulsa   Note; I like the thinking! But they have a long way to go!     Tulsa Transit, serving a city the size of Christchurch (with metropop area twice the population again),  only carries 2.5 million passengers per year - not untypical of the USA for smaller cities, especially those in South eastern states. Ironically the actual farebox recovery in the USA is very small, with taxes typically paying around 80% of the cost of each passenger boarding compared to between 40-70% in Canada, Australia or NZ (CANZ)...

Tranzwatching new electric bus tech in Seoul The city of Seoul claims to be operating the first city bus service operating purely electric buses (as shown in this You Tube)   - look ma, no wires - and plans to have its bus fleet 50% electric buses by 2020.

  All that glitters is not gold - a Jerusalem city planner identifies how much distortion of local bus system and roading patterns is needed, and how little this expensive glamour rail project will serve the needs of most Jerusalem residents. Photo Wikimedia Commons Tranzwatching an exposure of light rail spin in Jerusalem, Israel Gerard Heumann,  an architect and town planner in Jerusalem, examines that city's new 14km long light rail system (corridor) that took ten years to build,  cost (in Euros) 72 million per kilometre and is due to open August 19th 2011. He describes the various ways it fails to benefit most Jerusalem residents and runs contrary to good planning. Most of Heumann's specific observations could be equally applied to many other light rail systems elsewhere in the world, or to indeed to building such a white elephant in Christchurch. Some of the many complications that beset this billion dollar Euro project are covered in this news item from l...

Tranzwatching transit strategy in Auckland,  Te Ika a Maui, New Zealand Policing of bus lanes in Auckland in the 12 months to May this year generated 14, 253 infringement of bus lane notices. With fines at $150 per offense this has reaped $2.1 million for city coffers but "fury" and resentment from motorists.  A number of  measures are being introduced to make bus lane policing a little less heavy handed. According to a report in the NZ Herald "A bus-lane review discussed by the transport board yesterday said that because Auckland's population was forecast to reach two million by 2035 and road-widening opportunities were largely limited, bus lanes were beneficial and necessary." C omment While there seems some case for a more measured strategy, the real-politik of it all is that most motorists can't bear to see the bus lane sitting empty - as it should be - 95% of the time. In that other 5% of time or less this allows buses the unhindered potential...

Tranzwatching transit tech in Melton, Victoria, Australia A suburban area in outer Melbourne, Melton Shire, Victoria, has upgraded all its 400 bus stop signage to include an individual code number and the MetLink call centre number for information about the city's trams, trains and buses, including of course, info about the next services from that particular stop.  An unusual feature - the chest level signage has raised numerals and is also in braille to assist sight impaired people.

Tranzwatching -  proposed bus service cuts in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada University students, shift workers and night owls joined a growing chorus of transit riders in Saskatoon rallying against the proposed cuts to late-night bus service being considered by city hall . Proposal is to terminate all bus services at 10pm except on Thursday and Friday night Comment This report includes some interesting stats about off peak patronage as a percentage of total bus use in this Canadian city of 265,000 metropop. However most adults do not want a curfew of 10pm - which if transfers are needed can mean having to leave a location or event at 8.30pm - ridiculous if attending concerts or movies or public meetings starting at 7.30pm or 8pm.  Unpleasant even if visiting friends, where good sharing and craic often takes time to get up a bit of energy.  For some people this finish time would be mpossible if working or studying late. And those who work weekends often socialise...

Tranzwatching bus tech in China An electric bus using an ultra-capacitor system to store energy has caught fire in Shanghai. This Green Car Report includes photo and commentary with photos examines some of the dynamics involved in comparable electric systems

The road to hell (and low patronage)  is paved with good intentions! If buses and trams are  to offer really competitive transport, planning of routes and corridors and purchase of appropriate properties needs to be running years in advance ....not the sort of obsolete thinking and ad hoc strategies implied in this 2010 bus queue! Tranzwatching (with comment)  in Christchurch, Te Wai Pounamu, New Zealand  Environment Canterbury (ECan)  commenced preparation of a Regional Public Transport Plan in 2010, with a view to completing a Draft in mid-2011 and finalising the Plan in late 2011 following public consultation. Legislation requires all regional councils file such plans at regular intervals, the next January 1 2012,  but Environment Canterbury is now requesting to push this date back much later for the province, in light of the damage and disruption (to all processes) caused by the sequence of major earthquakes The damage created by ...

Tranzwatching transit tech in Geelong, Victoria, Australia Geelong, Victoria's second city, metropop 160,000, opened up a new central city bus interchange late last year . It has spaces for six buses to dock and load simultaneously. Waiting areas appear to be open and by March were attracting unwanted elements, mostly groups of teenagers, using the interchange as a place to hang about, with local shops and passengers complaining of swearing, abusive behaviours and fighting . Although "supervisors" in high viz vests are employed, like most security guards not having full police powers there is often a limit to what they can do, especially in public spaces, except call the police in worst case scenarios. Now they will have minature cameras,that will only be activated as needed,  attached above there ears so at least clear facial recognition and close up recording of incidents is possible. This will not only add protection for supervisors but according to local Cit...

Tranzwatching in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada Apparently having used up most of a $3million research grant from the Ontario Provincial Government specifically pegged to investigating light rail , the city manager of Hamilton, Ontario (c700,000 metropop) has halted all activity associated with developing light rail other than that specifically required by the the Province itself. Mayor Bob Bratina says all-day GO transit commuter rail connection to down town Toronto is a greater priority.

NZ in Tranzit - news/opinion It is widely expected that heavily insured (including Earthquake Commission) Christchurch will be able to get back on its feet after an exceptionally violent (at times)  and prolonged sequence of  (to date) 7,500 earthquakes.  So too will some countries recover quicker than most in the face of the expected oil shocks ahead.  Those countries who are prepared or who can access transit resources more easily [when the whole world cries out for them] will prosper where others lose ground. and see their living standards fall. Clearly smaller low density countries with minimal existing alternative transport structure could suffer most. In a queue of thousands of public transport systems crying out for skilled planners, operators and engineers and specialised rail, light rail and bus vehicles and equipment these small countries with their relatively tiny shopping lists and lower transit expert salaries t...

Tranzwatching in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada New light rail projects traditionally start at about $30 million a kilometre but can go much higher. Inevitably they engender a great deal of opposition. As  rail of any sort is confined to narrow corridors many local taxpayers baulk at the idea of funding a system that they will rarely use, particular if the line goes nowhere near the normal path of their commuting journey.  On the other hand proponents claim light rail can generate much new development in cities where built. Based on a 7% increase needed in local property taxes (in NZ jargon "rates") to help fund the single light rail line, the Waterloo Municipal Region Council in Canada recently voted to go ahead with a light rail  proposal.  An elongated area of three contingent cities Waterloo-Kitchener-Cambridge, with a rapidly growing urban area population of about 450,000, this is the smallest urban area anywhere in North American to build light rail. The 19....

Tranzwatching in Waikato region, Te Ika a Maui, New Zealand Ten days ago the Government was shaking hands with Wellington Regional Council after pumping a further $88.4 million into Wellington's commuter rail system ; this week proposed cuts in New Zealand Transport Agency funding support of almost a $1 million are causing concern for the Waikato Regional Council, Environment Waikato. According to a Voxy report these cuts and reductions include a $400,000 funding reduction for road safety programmes, a cut of between $100-200,000 in transport studies and strategy development [ presumably good planning saves millions!! - NZ in Tranzit ], cuts in funding local public transport infrastructure (such as bus shelters) and the removal of  $500,000 grant for regional transport planning that ensures an integrated transport network is provided for the region.

Tranzwatching in Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia There is a push to introduce Sunday bus service in western areas of Newcastle, following the conjunction of Anzac Day and Easter which left some residents without public transport for as long as five days.  Local Member of Parliament Clayton Barr  commented ""Five days, that's a long time to be without transport." According to this news report from ABC Newcastle he is worried some people are left house-bound because of the patchy bus service. "Mr Barr says many people are often forced to pay hefty cab fares or simply stay at home. "The most important thing that people can do and that we can offer people is the opportunity to get out and mix and mingle within their community". Comment In New Zealand the last census returns showed 8.1% of people do not have access to a car , though this number is typically higher in metropolitan areas, and amongst older persons and those on low incomes. A ...

NZ in Tranzit - Climate change, your move.  Australian Prime Minister Julia Gilliard and her government have received much criticism for the new carbon tax which taxes public transport , seen by most as part of the solution rather than part of the problem. The tax is designed to try to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and help fund alternatives, but like most such efforts is largely a tokenism, with little likelihood of changing habits or arresting global degradation. Note too, the increase to public transport fares is rated to be "up to $150 a year" or less than $3 per week, presumably inner suburbs will pay even less, hardly a massive suffering, given any carbon tax must impact upon normal activity. Many of the predictions made by the International Panel on Climate Control about ten years ago - such as increased forest fires in Russia, increased flooding in Pakistan and Bangladesh and worldwide increase in hurricanes and tornadoes (and their ferocity) are now occurr...

      Five months after a disaster,  a continuing disgrace to Christchurch   - transport authorities unable to rejoin even the most basic dots! NZ in Tranzit - opinion Redbus, (formerly Christchurch Transport Ltd, formerly Christchurch Transport Board) the largest and oldest by historical roots bus company in Christchurch took a huge nose dive in the last round of tenders for route contracts. Although "old news" in Christchurch, t oday's Dominion Post  notes that Redbus is selling 24 late model Designline built MAN buses for use by NZ Bus in Wellington - essentially it seems an exercise in asset stripping to stay viable. In the larger "spiritual sense" this blogster believes this represents yet a further step in the degradation of public transport in Canterbury and the continuation of a long trend of transferring the "transit wealth" northwards to Wellington and Auckland. Transfer of Canterbury "public transport dollar" north...

Tranzwatching bus tech in the USA Compulsory seatbelts in buses; higher standards in minimum requirements for anchoring seats to floor and bodywork of buses; great roof strengthening to act as roll bars; fire extinguishing systems; tyre pressure monitor systems. These are just a few of the safety measures operative in some buses and coaches in the US, but not by all. The US senate is looking at whether to make these safety features mandatory following several fatal bus crashes this year, mainly involving cut price operators riding the rapid growth in city to city regional bus use (in particular amongst the educated young) in the heavily populated North-Eastern corridor between New York, Washington DC, and Boston etc. America's biggest long distance coachline Greyhound says it supports mandatory safety measures. 

Tranzwatching in Marlborough, Te Wai Pounamu, New Zealand A Blenheim bus driver refused to load a group of unruly high school students traveling from Renwick to Marlborough Boys College, after their pushing and jostling almost put a boy under the wheels of the bus. The Principal of the College has backed the driver. Comment. Fair enough - there are times when it is ludicrous to expect a bus driver focusing on the road to be responsible for controlling 20-50 hyped up teenagers! In situations like this an assembly line painted on the footpath well back from the bus stopping area is needed -  it is very freaky when kids (or crowds after big events) push towards a bus before it has stopped moving.

Tranzwatching in Adelaide, South Australia. ADELAIDE bus commuters will have more night and weekend services on major routes following the biggest shake-up of bus services in six years.   Buses are the most popular form of public transport in Adelaide, with 51 million passenger trips a year accounting for 80 per cent of journeys. This briief news item from Adelaide Now also includes a quick video look at one the city's beautiful new buses.

         Guided busway near Over, Combridgeshire  Photo Wikimedia Commons Tranzwatching in Cambridge, United Kingdom Few public transport projects - rail, tram or bus - have had quite such a topsy turvy up and down ride in the making as the saga of the world's longest guided busway built between UK university city Cambridge and surrounding small towns, utilising the corridor of land of a former railway line. Even now legal action between replaced construction firm BAM Nuttall and the Cambridge Council continues. But the busway itself ....due to open for use in about three weeks ...the effect of combining latest buses with a preset concrete guide track .... according to veteran Stagecoach bus driver Mike Capper, “It’s a fantastically smooth ride now compared to when I started driving all those years ago. It’s amazing. The A14 or this? There is no comparison.” A moving track laying machine for guided busway concret...

Tranzwatching in Porirua City, Te Ika a Maui, New Zealand Wellington Regional Council's Metlink is offering residents of Porirua East the chance to ride a trial bus service free in order to attract enough patrons to assure survival of the service. The three trips mid-day service, started in February but will end on August 15th unless patronage increases. The service has a dial up facility allowing passengers to arrange for it to stop adjacent to their homes but this has not appeared to have boosted usage to required benchmarks. Comment - These sorts of  social bus services - "middle of the day access the local shopping centre services" are often called for by resident groups, care giver organisations or local politicians but it is rare to see any of them do well. I remember years ago in Christchurch - when buses just ran as spokes without connecting to common peripheral points or outer shopping complexes - the politicians of the Paparoa County Council (whi...

Tranzwatching in Cowichan Valley, British Columbia, Canada Bus ridership between Duncan and the capital of British Columbia,Victoria (60km apart) has more than doubled on the Cowichan Valley Commuter service since it began nearly three years ago, according to transit officials reported in Victoria's newspaper, The Time-Colonist .   Between October 2008, when the service began, and March 2011, the average number of monthly riders has gone from 2,727 to 5,890, an increase of 116 per cent. The commuter service offers four buses each way from Duncan and two from another area in the region. The Cowichan Valley region is home to over 76,000 people, with Duncan the district centre having a population of around 5000 residents. Victoria is a similar size to Christchurch NZ

Tranzwatching in Los Angeles and Lyon A recent article by US transit writer Yonah Freemark in his highly respected blog "The Transport Politic" reveals both the City of Lyon in France and Los Angeles, USA appear to be moving towards Light Bus Network, the conceptual framework put forward in several recent "NZ in Tranzit" postings. Obviously this is not because they read this obscure bottom-of-the-world publication, or indeed have even heard of this curious new expression "Light Bus Network" (a handy way of packaging and marketing a raft of interacting strategies and technologies and to alert the world to the fact that buses have moved on). Rather the "Light Bus" concept itself brings together and builds upon growing trends in bus service delivery world wide, a  pattern of moving away from the concept of single linear journeys like a tram or train, towards a mosaic pattern where passengers can move faster and in every different direction, ...

..........."By any measure "The Shuttle" appears to be one of the most successful bus systems anywhere in the equivalent world " A scene gone forever?  Inside The Shuttle, northbound, passing The Shuttle, southbound, on Colombo St Faced with extra costs and reduced rates [local property taxes] income as a result of massive earthquake damage the Christchurch City Council appears to have permanently dropped "The Shuttle", an iconic central business district serving free bus service that used distinctive Designline gas-electric hybrid buses. The move, listed in a CCC agenda of 29th and 30th June ,[p14] was unequivocal " Removal of Central City Shuttle . Removal of the Central City Shuttle service is proposed, which would result in savings of $1,050,000." There is nothing in the subsequent minutes to suggest there was any move to stop this, or take the more obvious step of suspending the service or applying a small charge. [ Note added...