Auckland's public transport faces a privately financed future (2024)

Minister of Transport Simeon Brown has revealed his transport plans for the country in a draft government policy statement that includes spending of a reduced, $2 billion into public transport this term.

It’s work Auckland looks set to benefit disproportionately from, with projects like the City Rail Link and the Eastern Busway high on the list.

Once those projects are completed, Brown has pledged to build a Northwest Rapid Transit corridor and a busway connecting Botany and the airport.

But deep among the promises are suggested new expectations of local government – perhaps beginning at the ability of a bus service to recoup its losses.

Brown said over the past five years there had been a 71 percent increase in public transport funding while patronage had dropped by nearly a quarter, partly due to the pandemic.

“The private share of funding for public transport over the same period has also fallen from approximately 32 percent to 11 percent which is putting significant funding pressure on local councils and the National Land Transport Fund,” he said.

In the effort to find ways to fund big projects, National campaigned on prioritising mechanisms like public-private partnerships and toll gates – but it appears Brown would also like to recoup more from the coffers of Auckland’s transport providers.

“I expect the NZ Transport Agency to consider different ways of funding and delivering major transport projects. This includes ‘Build, Own, Operate, Transfer’ equity finance schemes, and value capture,” he said. “Ensuring local government pays their fair share, funding should also be supplemented by increased public transport fare-box recovery and third-party revenue.”

Increasing fares or increasing users

This comes as Auckland Transport chief executive Dean Kimpton is set to this week deliver an update on the agency’s performance.

It’s not all rosy. Despite an increase of $23 million on the operating result expected for second half of last year, the agency’s latest report warns of an “extremely challenging operating environment” to come over the next few years.

It’s come from an unlucky confluence of events: the pandemic cutting public transport off at its knees via remote work and driver shortages; inflation exerting cost pressures on capital projects; and wild weather hastening already-crippling depreciation of assets.

It’s been a tough few years for Auckland’s transport system.

The policy statement suggests big projects will be paid in part by increased fare-box recovery – either by increased patronage, or increased fares.

The former has been the difficult-to-achieve goal Auckland Transport has been striving for for years now, while the latter may be a difficult sell amid ongoing cost-of-living challenges.

The agency’s report said Covid lockdowns and the shift to working from home, along with staff shortages partly caused by border closures, all played a role in the deep dip in patronage over the past few years.

Peak patronage was the year to September 2019, when passengerboardings reached almost 100 million. But in March 2020, a patronage of six million rides a month was slashed to just six percent of that.

It then took around two years before numbers began to recover. Kimpton has previously forecast patronage of buses in Auckland could be back to pre-pandemic levels around the beginning of 2024.

But that goal appears to have been thwarted in part by problems with the rail network, which saw train services suspended for days on end earlier this year due to hot temperatures on the tracks.

“Patronage is now recovering but we still face significant challenges as we recover service levels and work to minimise disruptions through the KiwiRail Rail Network Rebuild through to 2025,” the AT report reads.

It’s been a steady climb back up since September of 2021, when transport use across the city plummeted to just 633,000 thanks to lockdown restrictions.

But average monthly patronage in 2019 was 8.6 million – nearly 2 million more than the average monthly patronage of 6.6 million last year.

Auckland monthly public transport patronage

Harbour crossing

When it comes to a new route across the Waitematā Harbour, it appears the Government is waiting to cross that bridge when it comes to it.

The policy statement commits the Government to delivering some kind of crossing, likely in the form of a road connection, but doesn’t give any indication of when Aucklanders can expect this.

What they can expect is the transport agency to explore options for private funding through equity financing and value capture mechanisms.

What else?

Other projects earmarked for completion in and around Auckland include upgrades to Mill Road, the highway between Warkworth and Wellsford, and State Highway One between Papakura and Drury.