Traffic jumps in first week of alert level 3

The number of cars on the road immediately doubled the day Covid-19 restrictions were eased to level 3, transport data shows.

The New Zealand Transport Agency has been releasing weekly monitoring data for Christchurch, Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington and Dunedin since the beginning of level 4 restrictions.

• This story was first published by RNZ

Over that time, light vehicle traffic had dropped by up to 90 per cent across New Zealand compared to regular volumes.

However, the latest set of data - which includes the first four days of level 3 - showed people were already heading back to the roads en masse.

In each of the cities, traffic more than doubled between April 27 - the last day of lockdown - and April 28, when level 3 took effect.

Although April 27 was a public holiday, the number of cars on the road was still at least double what it had been each day the previous week.

Despite the jump since level 4, car traffic was still well down on regular volumes.

Averaged across the weekdays, it was down  74 per cent in Christchurch, 55 per cent in Auckland, 61 per cent in Wellington, 38 per cent in Hamilton and 51 per cent in Dunedin.

Weekly public transport use across buses, trains and ferries was down 86 per cent on normal volumes in Christchurch, 91 per cent in Auckland and 90 per cent in Wellington.

Heavy traffic in all five centres also jumped after the move to level 3, particularly in Hamilton and Dunedin where the number of trucks and other freight vehicles was at near-normal volumes.

Level 3 restrictions allow people to use public transport to get to work, school or exercise but that did not seem to affect passenger numbers, which stayed low throughout last week.