Memo
To:
Peter Paton
Date:
4 August 2016
SUBJECT:
Simpler Fares Public Consultation
Background
The public consultation for “Simplified Zone Fares” (now called “Simpler Fares”) was
undertaken from 11 May 2015 to 5 June 2015. The purpose of this consultation was to:
Inform people of the changes
Consult to fine tune zone boundaries and fare products
To encourage participation in the consultation
The key aspects included in this consultation were:
The new zonal map
The journey concept (3 trips within 2 hours)
Proposed zonal fares (a range of fares)
Proposed zonal products
Responses and key themes
1,563 responses were received during the consultation period. The key themes in the
responses were as follows:
Aspect
Themes
Proposed zones (map)
General consensus for the proposed zones
Good to have flexibility between bus and train
Zones are geographically logical
Concerns with travelling between 2 zones when only a
short distance is travelled
Proposed products
Easier to anticipate costs
Support for the family offering
Concerns over removal of single zone monthly passes
Concerns over increasing fares
Concerns of customers who travel more than 2 hours
or more than 3 trips as part of their journey
Analysis completed
After the consultation a substantial amount of analysis was completed of a range of options to
mitigate concerns raised by customers during the consultation. This included:
Identification of options to address each concern
Review of the technical capability of AT’s systems to handle proposed changes
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Memo
Modelling fare revenue and patronage impacts of potential changes
Changes made as a result of the consultation
AT has made a number of key changes to the Simpler Fares solution as a result of the public
consultation as follows:
Zone overlaps have been increased to minimise the number of customers that will
have a fare increase from their current fare. Overlaps were increased for the following
boundaries:
o Upper / Lower North Shore
o Waitakere / Huapai
o Isthmus / Manukau North at Otahuhu
o Manukau North / Manukau South
Journey time increased from 2 hours to 4 hours to ensure customers who travel longer
journeys are not penalised
Number of trips within a journey increased from 3 to 5 to ensure customers who take
multiple services as part of their journey are not penalised
Fares chosen near the bottom of the consulted range to ensure the majority of AT HOP
customers will have either the same or cheaper fare under Simpler Fares
Items not changed as a result of public consultation
Based on analysis of options, a number of concerns raised by customers were not addressed
as follows:
Concern
Reason no change made
Removal
of
single zone Under the new zonal fares most passengers
monthly pass
purchasing a single zone pass will pay a 2-zone fare
($3.10) and would have to do more than 45 journeys a
month to spend $140
Recommendation for most passengers – use AT HOP
money instead of having to buy a monthly pass. Benefit
from auto top-up without ever having to buy a pass.
Not enough time between Based on our analysis, 30 mins should be adequate for
each trip in your journey (30
majority of passengers to benefit from the journey fare
mins)
After launching Simpler Fares, Auckland Transport will
monitor this
Short
trips
across
zone Main focus is simplicity. Would be complex to combine
boundaries
short trip and zonal fares.
Zone boundaries mainly aligned to stage boundaries,
so existing passengers will pay the same fare (2 stage
the same as 2 zone fare). Existing passengers are not
penalised by the zone boundary.
Why not use distance-based Distance based fares does not work well for cash fares.
fares
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Memo
Passengers won’t be able to work out fares in advance
– a barrier to new passengers coming to public
transport
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