Time to level the playing field for inter regional public transport in Aotearoa

Inter-regional public transport in Aotearoa is a funding and legislative dog's breakfast. The Sustainable Public Transport Framework does nothing to address this.

Buckle up folks, this is going to be a dry run through arcane but important intricacies of Aotearoa’s transport planning legislation. Brace for impact!

For heritage listed older adults such as myself, we have painful memories of the local government reforms of 1989, which set the stage for the subsequent and disastrous deregulation of public transport in Aotearoa in 1991.

Water flow as a determinant of public transport access

One of the lesser remembered elements of the reform was the way regional boundaries were often drawn following the boundaries of former catchment districts. While this may be a fun fact, the fact that which way the water flows can determine your access (or more often lack of access) to public transport is not fun. And especially not fun when growth jumps an artificial boundary. For example, the boundary between Auckland and the Waikato follows the Bombay Hills because water to the north of the Bombays flows into the Manukau Harbour, while water to the south of the Bombay Hills flows into the Waikato River. Being on the wrong side of the water flow should not be a determinant of access to public transport.

A border runs through it. Auckland/ Waikato regional boundary. © Google Maps

A case in point is Pōkeno, nestled at the southern base of the Bombay Hills. Tāmaki Makaurau/ Auckland’s world-class housing unaffordablility has pushed growth past the Bombay Hills into Pōkeno which has experienced huge growth.

In 2005, just 500 people called Pōkeno home, with that number rising to 2,132 in 2016, and 5,545 in 2021. Growth is projected to reach 11,954 by 2045. As of the 2018 Census, 65% of workers needed to leave Pōkeno every day for work. But for those 65% of workers, the vast majority of whom work in Auckland, there is no transport choice apart from joining the epic congestion on the Southern Motorway, twice a day for the entirety of their working lives. While the Waikato region runs some bus service to Pukekohe in Auckland, the first bus leaving at 6:10am would get you to Auckland’s Britomart Station at 8:46am, with no time integration with Auckland public transport services from Pukekohe. As well as requiring both a Bee Card and an AT Hop card until the national public transport ticketing solution is fully rolled out in a few years’ time.

Moving between colours on this map shouldn’t determine access to transport. Image source: Korakys on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0

“Moving between the colours on the map above
shouldn’t determine access, or lack of access, to public transport”

Transport needs don’t end at a regional boundary

There are numerous other cases in point across Aotearoa where transport need jumps a regional boundary.

• Waihi in the Waikato to Tauranga in the Bay of Plenty as Tauranga is the nearest major city and base hospital

• Taumarunui in the Horizons region to Hamilton in the Waikato as Hamilton is the nearest major city and base hospital

• Taupō in the Waikato to Rotorua in the Bay of Plenty as Rotorua is the nearest base hospital.

• Richmond to Nelson. Even though it’s within the same urban area, Richmond is part of Tasman District and Nelson is a city and both are unitary authorities with the powers of a region.

• Kingston Flyer – Kingston to Fairlight (18km). While the Kingston Flyer is a heritage tourist train, it crosses a regional boundary and needed to be consented under two regional policy statements (Otago and Southland regional councils) and two district plans (Queenstown Lakes and Southland districts).

• Ōpotiki in Bay of Plenty to Potaka in Te Tairāwhiti/ Gisborne as apparently the bus can’t turn around within Bay of Plenty so needs to cross into Te Tairāwhiti/ Gisborne.

And sometimes it’s the luck of the draw…

There are also numerous other examples where through quirk of fate, history or geography, trips are intra-regional. A few examples follow:

• Wairarapa to Wellington, which helps explain why the Wairarapa has Aotearoa’s only seven-day-a-week regional rail service as it doesn’t have to cross a regional boundary. While by any accepted standard, the Wairarapa is a region in its own right, a quirk of local government reform in 1989 put it in the Greater Wellington region. This vastly simplifies its regional rail connection to Wellington.

• Invercargill to Piopiotahi/ Milford Sound a distance of 271 kilometres entirely within the Southland region.

• Karamea to Haast which is 510 kilometres, entirely within Te Tai Poutini/ West Coast. Which, by the way, is the only region in Aotearoa without any publicly funded scheduled bus services.

On the other hand, a nine kilometre trip from Tūākau to Pukekohe, location of the nearest full service supermarket and major retail opportunities crosses a regional boundary. As does a 7 kilometre trip from Richmond to Nelson City Centre.

PTOM Discussion Document, Te Manatū Waka/ Ministry of Transport CC 4.0 (BY)

Public Transport Operating Model review

The Public Transport Operating Model (PTOM) review considered the issue of inter regional public transport, including the global exemption for services crossing a regional boundary. This means that any public transport service that crosses a regional boundary is, by that very fact, an exempt service that is not required to pay heed to the objectives and policies of a regional public transport plan.

Land Transport Management Act 2013, section 130 (2) (a)

Three options were considered by the PTOM review:

1. Status Quo. All inter-regional services are exempt under PTOM. Commercial interregional services must be registered with regional councils with the disadvantage listed as being “Ad hoc arrangements for establishing contracted interregional services could result in higher transaction costs.”

2. Classify as an excluded service. All inter-regional services would be established outside the PTOM framework. Operators would not need to register commercial interregional services with regional councils. This is even worse than the status quo as regional councils would not have the opportunity to decline a exempt service if it would be detrimental to the region’s public transport network.

3. Require interregional public transport services to be contracted (unless exempt/commercially operated). Put simply, this would treat inter-regional public transport services the same as intra-regional public transport services. That is, a level playing field between intra- and inter-regional public transport.

The obvious answer was the third option but the issue did not get resolved by the Sustainable Public Transport Framework, the government’s response to the PTOM review. The issue was effectively kicked to touch, leaving the highly unsatisfactory status quo in place.

There is no sound public policy rationale for treating inter-regional public transport services differently than intra-regional services with the proposed section 114A (1) (a) of the Land Transport Management (Regulation of Public Transport) Amendment Bill leaving the global exemption of inter-regional public transport intact.

Note: The Transport and Infrastructure Select Committee is still considering submissions on the bill so it is possible that this situation could change.

Proposed retention of global exemption for inter-regional public transport

The elephant in the room…

• Inter regional public transport still sits outside of the Sustainable Public Transport Framework

• While it is able to get funding through the National Land Transport Programme on an ad hoc basis, it requires two (or more) regions to co-ordinate their activities.

• Regional Councils are often focused on their major urban areas, not boundaries where the cross-regional issues occur. They are also challenged with budgets, staff resources and numerous competing priorities for their time, which means that regional boundary and cross-boundary issues are often neglected or put on the back burner.

• Requires alignment of two (or more) regional public transport plans, often on different timescales and with different drivers and priorities.

• Public transport services are only eligible for public funding if they are included in a regional public transport plan for the regions in which they operate.

• Leads to ad hoc, bespoke, inconsistent and inequitable arrangements

• For example, there are very different procurement, operation and funding arrangements for Te Huia and Capital Connection trains

• Presents unnecessary barriers and costs, including transaction costs, to inter-regional public transport services

Final thoughts

• Which way the water flows shouldn’t determine transport access

• Access needs don’t magically end at regional boundaries

• There are enormous inequities in access, especially for access to healthcare

• There is no sound public policy rationale for treating inter-regional public transport differently to intra-regional public transport

• We design state highways as a nationally integrated network. There is no reason we should treat the national public transport network any differently.

It’s time to level the playing field for inter regional public transport in Aotearoa!