A Citibus drives through the Octagon. Photo from ODT files.
Bus fares have risen by 56% in the past 12 months and
new routes have been introduced.
But has there been any strategic long-term planning behind
the moves? Phillip Cole has his doubts.
Lost in all the recent news about ever-increasing stadium
costs and the latest expensive location for the glass box
addition to the Town Hall was the sound of the death knell
for the Dunedin public transport system.
The fare increases on July 1 represent a staggering 56%
cumulative increase over the past 12 months in bus-fare
prices in Dunedin.
With the effects of the recession being felt across the city,
this must be right up there in the not-so-bright ideas
department - and that is being polite.
This, however, is just one of several reasons that add up to
the terminal decline of the public transport system - let's
just call it buses, as there are certainly no other services
being run - in Dunedin.
The recent introduction of the new central parking fees
(oddly enough at the same time as the bus-fare increases) may
have been sold as a way of encouraging people to use the
buses to travel into town but obviously someone forgot to
tell the two bus companies, especially Citibus which runs
most of the bus routes and is part of Dunedin City Holdings
Limited (council-owned).
The more cynical among us would, of course, see this as the
perfect revenue-raising exercise.
The two bus companies have stated that fares needed to rise
to provide improvements to the fleet, among other reasons.
While there is no dispute that the diesel-belching,
inefficient monstrosities need replacing, no thought has been
given to replacing them with anything other than same-size
buses.
They are also saying that when fares increase, patronage
increases - and here, perhaps, lies the root to the problem
of why Dunedin has such a poor-quality bus service.
With business acumen like this, the bus service is heading
down a one-way street to oblivion.
The fundamental problem with the Dunedin bus service is that
the whole network needs to be reviewed and a new strategy
determined.
The lack of foresight in planning for a revamped bus service
is no better illustrated than by the non-provision of smaller
20-seater type buses for non-peak travel.
How often do we see almost-empty 50-plus-seat buses plying
the routes between 9.30am and 4pm every weekday?This is both
unsustainable and uneconomical.
The size of buses alone, however, will not solve the gross
under-usage of the bus system.
The bus timetables themselves need to be ripped up and new
ones produced offering three basic requirements.
•
No person living more than 400m from a bus stop.
•
Buses running at a maximum of 15 minutes apart during
off-peak times and 10 minutes apart during peak hours.
•
Buses that run later at night and earlier in the morning for
the shift workers and staff at the hospitals and other core
institutions.
These basic requirements, together with a mixed fleet of 50-
and 20-seater buses offering comfortable travel, will be a
welcome start to trying to attract people into using public
transport once more.
But this alone will not be enough.
People will not use public transport if it is not cheaper,
and more convenient, than using their own vehicle.
Even with the new parking fees, people still bring their cars
into town and spend time driving around looking for a parking
spot rather than risk catching a bus that does not keep to a
timetable and is poorly timed for the user's convenience.
They just park further away, outside the charge zone.
The bus companies need to invite the public to use their
service and not look on their passengers as cash-fodder.
If no-one at council level can grasp the fact that a
well-used public transport system can be a catalyst for a
regeneration of Dunedin, then they should look elsewhere to
people who can see and realise the potential of what an
integrated and user-friendly public transport service can
bring to Dunedin.
Or, at the very least, consult the people who actually use
the bus service.
Near to where I live, a new service has been introduced to
replace an existing one that ran nearby.
However, the new route now goes past a kindergarten which is
busy during morning, lunchtime and early evening with
children crossing the road.
No signs or markings have been installed to indicate the bus
drivers need to slow down, and no kerb protrusions
constructed to make crossing the road easier.
Perhaps the extensive surveys the bus company carried out
before the route was commissioned showed that the route would
not be well patronised and would be withdrawn at a later
date, therefore negating the need for signs and markings - or
perhaps no survey was carried out and no thought went into it
at all.
A fraction of the amount being spent on the stadium would
provide a first-class public transport service for Dunedin -
perhaps the money put aside by the ORC for the glass roof
could be used for public transport?
In a short time, the rate of return would be infinitely more
than the stadium will produce.
For all those nay-sayers out there who doubt public transport
can ever run at a profit, look no further than Curitiba in
Brazil, supposedly a third-world country but with a
first-world public transport system.
As in Dunedin, the infrastructure is publicly owned (by
council) and the buses are run by private companies, but the
system returns a profit every year which is reinvested in
public transport.
This is done not on the number of passengers they carry but
on the kilometres of route they cover.
It doesn't have to be about "bums on seats": it is about
providing a public transport service that the customer will
return to and use repeatedly.
If you give the public a service or product that they can see
is reliable, value-for-money and an asset, they will support
it in their droves.
But treat them like imbeciles and the bus companies will get
what they deserve.
- Phillip Cole is co-chairman of Sustainable Dunedin City and
is a transportation engineer and ex-bus user of the Dunedin
public transport system who walks to and from work.
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