Transport and Infrastructure Select Committee 6 December 2018 - PDF document

Transport and Infrastructure Select Committee 6 December 2018 Briefing on Wellington Buses by Greater Wellington Regional Council

Contents 1. Summary ............................................................................................................................... 1 2. Responses to questions ......................................................................................................... 5 a. Questions for 6 December 2018 ....................................................................................... 5 b. Questions from 27 September 2018 ............................................................................... 10 c. Subsequent issues raised by bus operators .................................................................... 14 3. What’s happened since 27 October .................................................................................... 15 a. Network performance ..................................................................................................... 15 b. Network, timetable and service changes ........................................................................ 21 c. Industrial relations .......................................................................................................... 24 d. Real Time Information System ........................................................................................ 25 e. Online reporting .............................................................................................................. 26 f. Bus hubs .......................................................................................................................... 26 g. Independent review ........................................................................................................ 28 h. Reference group .............................................................................................................. 28 i. Bus priority measures...................................................................................................... 29 j. Fleet ................................................................................................................................. 29 4. Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 31

1. Summary At the conclusion of our briefing to the Select Committee on Wellington buses on 27 September 2018, Greater Wellington Regional Council’s Chief Executive undertook:  To take responsibility to work with operators to resolve operational issues  To work through all the customer feedback in detail, to assess where design improvements can be made and  To work to a goal to achieve agreed punctuality KPIs and correct bus size matching, providing the right capacity for each trip. Simply put, the bus arrives when expected and there is space to take passengers on board. Overall network performance has improved in response to committed performance management with our operators and a range of specific interventions. Key to this were wide ranging adjustments to timetables and schedules. One of the two major Wellington City operators implemented changes in November 2018 and the other will do so in February 2019. The changes implemented have lifted that operator’s performance, particularly in terms of punctuality right through to the final destination. The network has stabilised. However, to fully meet KPI goals the second phase of schedule changes are needed. Greater Wellington Regional Council would like to publicly acknowledge the work that all operators have committed to lifting the performance of the Wellington bus network. Focus has been on:  Minimising cancelled trips  Delivering bus capacity where needed  On-time departure  Improving the accuracy of real time information for passengers  Priority routes for urgent action. On cancellations, our target in Wellington City is to achieve 99.5% of services run and we are now averaging 98.7%, with a range from 98.4% to 100% since September. We have achieved periods of above target performance, above 99.5%, but more recently bus driver shortages caused principally by driver absence due to illness, have frustrated this. Overall capacity exceeds demand by 4.3%. More important to customer experience is the right bus capacity available on each route. This correct bus allocation has lifted to 89.8%. Three of the four operators are meeting targets. During this initial period we targeted 85% and with planned fleet improvements, would like to see this above 95% for all operators 1

We are formally targeting on-time departure of 90% with a higher aspiration of achieving 95%. For the period 19-25 November, 92.8% of trips across the network were on-time at the first stop. As mentioned, the first major reschedule was implemented on 11 November on Tranzurban routes as planned and has delivered improvements to the network performance. For example, since implementation, Tranzurban routes have lifted to a range of 90.2% to 97.6% on-time performance. A reschedule of NZ Bus Wellington City routes will follow in February 2019. The ability to achieve further performance gains of significance are constrained by this and the ongoing systemic shortage of drivers. The shortage is affecting both primary Wellington City providers. Operators have sufficient drivers to run scheduled services but when there is extra demand or drivers become unavailable due to, for example, illness, the network can run short. This can lead to operators having to cancel services, which we do our utmost to avoid. Driver shortages are a local, national and international issue. It is not unique to public transport. Greater Wellington Regional Council will work with operators on active strategies to address this challenge and attract new people to the industry. It is an issue we ask this Committee to consider for further work. There have been significant improvements to the Real Time Information System with tracking levels trending towards 98%. We deployed an international expert for several weeks to diagnose ongoing reliability issues. This resulted in a work programme encompassing both software fixes and practical improvements, such as operator processes and training. We continue to work with the system provider to further improve and adjust the system. Work to better understand customers’ experience of the new bus network in Wellington City - and what still needs to be done to improve this - continues with an expanded Customer Experience team of six Customer Journey Leads focused on priority bus routes. This team, resourced internally within the Council, have gained an in-depth understanding of bus customer experiences in Wellington City by observing and speaking to customers, drivers, community groups and reviewing complaint and performance data. This has enabled GWRC to gain an objective measure of customer sentiment, identify and resolve or prioritise customer pain-points and opportunities. The objective is simply to develop customer-centred solutions for improving the network design. As a result of this work we have focused on some key network issues for urgent resolution. A new service on Route 18e in Miramar has been implemented. We are working with representatives of the local community to reintroduce some peak services to Vogeltown. We are working with the Zoo to improve access to the destination and are also working on further improving access from the Miramar peninsula. 2