Diary of a Wellington commuter
I have become very concerned at the standard of public transport in the Wellington, New Zealand area.
On the fact of it most of the timetables appear to provide a very good service.
Howeve it often completely overlooks the fact that people need to have reasonable connections
from one service to another.
But in fact the service is not what it looks on paper. There are frequent breakdowns,
late or early running services , and it seems there is very little that can be done to get them fixed.
The complaint procedure is set up so that if you complain to the central agency they will blame the transport operator and where possible vice versa.
Most of the bus system is run by one company (split into more than one company to make this less obvious) so there is little competition so they basically are free to do what they like.
One would think that with the services being contacted to a central agency the operators would be accountable to the central agency to provide an acceptable service level and if not it should be retendered to allow another operator to meet the standards. This does not appear to be the case.
I have become so frustrated with the inability of the Wellington commuter to get anything done to either improve the service or change the operator that I have decided the only way is to set up this public site to record my experiences with system in the hope that making public the poor standards might just shame those responsible into doing something.
In order not to be liable for slander or libel I intend to simply record factual experiences of my daily travels on the trains and buses, with any comments related to the facts of the situation.
Let me start with two which occurred just this weekend and spiurred me into getting this into action.
(For any from overseas reading this diary bear in mind that we are some time ahead of the rest of the world for time zones, so do not be puzzled if you see things reported which appear to have happened the day before you read them!)
On Friday 27 October I had a requirement to be in the Upper Cuba Street area by about 6:30 p.m
Until recently this would have been one section costing $1. But now they have increased the fare to $1.50, the city zone ends at Victoria St by the Manners Mall despite the fact that the area up to the bottom of Brooklyn hill is still very much part of the city. Normally rather than pay the extra 50 percent just to go the extra few hundred metres, I get off at the Mall. However time did not allow this this time, so I paid the extra so I could go the extra distance. But then when we arrived at the mall (in a trolleybus) the driver was unable to proceed as a broken down trolleybus was parked in front of us- incidentally the driver of that bus had not even put its hazard lights on. It became obvious that there would be delays by the time the driver sorted this out and picked up the waiting passengers, so I ended up having to disembark there wasting my extra 50 cents and rushing to my destination. I intend to claim back my fare, will be interesting to see what happens. Seems a lot of fuss over 50 cents but a 50 percent increase deserves better, the city zone should cover the city centre!
Today Saturday I tried to catch a Wainuiomata bus due at about two minutes to the hour, to safeguard privacy I will not be more speifiic.
I was there before 5 minutes to the hour.
It became obvious I was not going to catch the bus.
Either it had run already, was late or was not going to arrive at all.
I rang the transport inquiry number and asked them to find out whiich they could not or would not do, so I told them if they wouldn't I wanted to make a complaint. Among the statements made was that the buses often run 10 minutes or so late on a weekend, as if this was acceptable, so I pointed out that it was cause for complaint either way. The bus did not turn up, it was by now pointless for me to pursue my journey as I would probably have missed the purpose of my journey. As I have a monthly pass no financial loss to the company in my case, but it is no wonder this particular service is underutilised compared with other ones. It will be interesting to see what the response if any is to my complaint
Another issue is the optimisitic timetabling of Wainuiomata buses so that commuters have at most 5 minutes to transfer from northbound trains to Wainuiomata buses, and the incredible fact that if the train is late you can say goodbye to your bus for sometimes up to an hour in this age of modern communications. No doubt I will have examples of this happening before long.
On the fact of it most of the timetables appear to provide a very good service.
Howeve it often completely overlooks the fact that people need to have reasonable connections
from one service to another.
But in fact the service is not what it looks on paper. There are frequent breakdowns,
late or early running services , and it seems there is very little that can be done to get them fixed.
The complaint procedure is set up so that if you complain to the central agency they will blame the transport operator and where possible vice versa.
Most of the bus system is run by one company (split into more than one company to make this less obvious) so there is little competition so they basically are free to do what they like.
One would think that with the services being contacted to a central agency the operators would be accountable to the central agency to provide an acceptable service level and if not it should be retendered to allow another operator to meet the standards. This does not appear to be the case.
I have become so frustrated with the inability of the Wellington commuter to get anything done to either improve the service or change the operator that I have decided the only way is to set up this public site to record my experiences with system in the hope that making public the poor standards might just shame those responsible into doing something.
In order not to be liable for slander or libel I intend to simply record factual experiences of my daily travels on the trains and buses, with any comments related to the facts of the situation.
Let me start with two which occurred just this weekend and spiurred me into getting this into action.
(For any from overseas reading this diary bear in mind that we are some time ahead of the rest of the world for time zones, so do not be puzzled if you see things reported which appear to have happened the day before you read them!)
On Friday 27 October I had a requirement to be in the Upper Cuba Street area by about 6:30 p.m
Until recently this would have been one section costing $1. But now they have increased the fare to $1.50, the city zone ends at Victoria St by the Manners Mall despite the fact that the area up to the bottom of Brooklyn hill is still very much part of the city. Normally rather than pay the extra 50 percent just to go the extra few hundred metres, I get off at the Mall. However time did not allow this this time, so I paid the extra so I could go the extra distance. But then when we arrived at the mall (in a trolleybus) the driver was unable to proceed as a broken down trolleybus was parked in front of us- incidentally the driver of that bus had not even put its hazard lights on. It became obvious that there would be delays by the time the driver sorted this out and picked up the waiting passengers, so I ended up having to disembark there wasting my extra 50 cents and rushing to my destination. I intend to claim back my fare, will be interesting to see what happens. Seems a lot of fuss over 50 cents but a 50 percent increase deserves better, the city zone should cover the city centre!
Today Saturday I tried to catch a Wainuiomata bus due at about two minutes to the hour, to safeguard privacy I will not be more speifiic.
I was there before 5 minutes to the hour.
It became obvious I was not going to catch the bus.
Either it had run already, was late or was not going to arrive at all.
I rang the transport inquiry number and asked them to find out whiich they could not or would not do, so I told them if they wouldn't I wanted to make a complaint. Among the statements made was that the buses often run 10 minutes or so late on a weekend, as if this was acceptable, so I pointed out that it was cause for complaint either way. The bus did not turn up, it was by now pointless for me to pursue my journey as I would probably have missed the purpose of my journey. As I have a monthly pass no financial loss to the company in my case, but it is no wonder this particular service is underutilised compared with other ones. It will be interesting to see what the response if any is to my complaint
Another issue is the optimisitic timetabling of Wainuiomata buses so that commuters have at most 5 minutes to transfer from northbound trains to Wainuiomata buses, and the incredible fact that if the train is late you can say goodbye to your bus for sometimes up to an hour in this age of modern communications. No doubt I will have examples of this happening before long.
posted by wncommuter at 3:52 pm
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