The tale in which Auckland Transport is both raising and lowering public transport fares is not simple. It also still needs a happy ending.
In the latest chapter, Auckland Transport, AT for short, has raised adult cash fares from between 1.9 percent to 17.6 percent, and in one case 50 percent. On the other hand it doubled the discount offered to users of the electronic AT HOP payment card, to 20 percent. Card users end up the same or better off.
AT wants to shift the 40 percent of commuters still paying cash, to join the 60 percent using AT HOP. Cash is even more commonly used in the less affluent South and West.
Photo: RNZ / Todd Niall
It is all in the annual fare review, a contractual obligation which the agency has to the private operators of the region's services, to compensate them for rising costs.
Set this package in the middle of a series of about a dozen other fare, zone and discount changes being rolled out over 18 months or more, it is easy for an public transport user to lose the plot.
In this review, AT is raising fares on average by 1.5 percent, although it doesn't say so in its publicity material. Nor does it explain the big variations in fare rises. Those come as the 1.5 percent endgame is applied to different types of contracts. Add in the rounding of fares to the nearest 50 cents, and it becomes something for mathmeticians.
This carrot-and-stick drive to reduce the number of slow-boarding cash commuters carries a risk. Auckland Transport's modelling for these changes includes allowing for a small proportion of cash payers getting grumpy and giving up on public transport.
That risk may be greater in the less affluent South and West where cash remains king. AT has no research on why that is, but assumes that when money is tight, people are less keen to have cash tied up in yet another plastic card.
It has tried to address that by cutting the cost of buying an ATHOP card from $10 to $5, and reducing the minimum top-up amount similarly.
AT has also waived the 25 cent fee for each manual top-up, following strong "feedback". Those two moves suggest AT has acknowledged the golden rule of business. The Customer is King. Both attracted criticism from day one. That was a year ago.
Still to come later this year is the outcome of work to perhaps reduce fares and boost patronage. Seperately a new zone system will affect the way journeys are priced. For some it may become cheaper. There will be new fares, such as a one-day ticket.
Auckland Transport says the challenge to boost passenger numbers remains alive. Photo: RNZ
Auckland Transport has two big targets. One is mayor Len Brown's goal of doubling annual patronage. The other is the Government's requirement that annual rail patronage has to reach 20 million a year, to trigger an early start to the downtown rail tunnel.
It needs to get a lot of things right. AT has rolled out the electronic AT HOP as the hardware on which to build what it hopes will be a simpler, more flexible and more convenient way of paying for trips. But that is still some way off.
In a gripping work of fiction, readers have the option of flicking to the last page to see how it ends. AT is writing history, there is no fast-forward to see whether it works.
The plot is becoming a bit murky at the moment. The challenge for Auckland Transport is to keep its customers believing in the happy ending. The attractive, affordable, joined-up network.
With future storylines including a possible "exact-fare" policy, or even banning cash, Auckland Transport will need to be sure that it is completely in tune with its readers/riders.
