Public Transport - Service update

Public Transport - Service update

Over the past few weeks, you may have noticed more service cancellations across the Auckland’s public transport network. We wanted to provide a bit more insight in to why this is happening.

Auckland is experiencing a resurgence of COVID cases, which in some parts of Auckland is affecting staffing availability on all our public transport modes. Our operators have reported a surge in COVID absence among frontline workers, and this is hitting groups of workers by depot or shift. This led to an increase in bus cancellations to around 1,400 daily trips cancelled (around 10% of daily services) in recent days.

 Due the rapidly changing situation, we are continuing to proactively cancel trips as far in advance as possible so that customers can see on the AT app how their service is affected. While not an ideal scenario, this does provide a level of certainty for our customers.

We have reminded our operators (especially bus services) of our key principles which is to maintain first and last services where possible, avoid cancelling two or more services in a row, focus on school services and high frequency high patronage routes and services where there is no alternative transport.

 While the key cause for current higher levels of service cancellations is front-line staff absenteeism due to COVID, we have been working with operators on what we can do to attract more staff. Currently there is a global shortage of transit drivers, so Auckland Transport is working with the Council of Trade Unions, operators and Waka Kotahi to make the transit roles more attractive to meet the resource requirements as we look to grow our public transport services to enable modal shift and contribute to reducing emissions from road transport.

Despite these constraints, as patronage continues to trend up, we are very focused on working with our Operators to provide reliable and punctual services with as much capacity as possible. We know that any service cancellation has a negative effect on our customers journey and their plans. We want to assure you that we are working hard to reduce the number of cancellations as fast as possible.

We also want to remind customers that a certain level of respect is always expected when interacting with our staff, whether this be onboard a service, at a station or via the contact centre. Over the past two weeks we have seen an increase of rude and abusive behaviour from members of the public towards our teams trying to assist with queries from the public. We appreciate that cancellations are frustrating for everyone involved, but this level of abuse will not be tolerated.

In the meantime, we recommend those travelling on our services use the Live Departure feature on our AT Mobile app, which will have the most up to date information for your bus stop, station or ferry pier.

We also want to acknowledge customers, for their patience and understanding during these disruptions. If you have any questions, feel free to contact us on social media, or through our contact centre.

Ken W.

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2y

Seamless reliability is imperative to public transport. Covid or no covid, this is one of the reasons why an over-arching driverless PT system is absolutely necessary for providing (sustainable) seamless reliability to end users. The tech is available. Why stay stuck in the 1970's when trying to create a 'world leading' transport infrastructure backbone for the super city????

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