What’s a good PT fare system? And what does that mean for smartcards?

Sun 14 February, 2010

[This post has been fully revised in December 2011, including removal of Brisbane periodical paper tickets, the introduction of smartcard ticketing to Canberra, and the addition of Newcastle, Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch]

With smartcard public transport ticketing coming to more cities, and the recent adoption of the MyZone fare system in Sydney, I thought it might be worthwhile to compare the current fare systems, assess them against “desirable” design criteria, and then look at the complexity of implementing each fare system in a smartcard ticketing solution.

The analysis offers some potential explanations as to why some cities are probably doing better than others with smartcards, and I’ve made some suggestions how fare systems might be tweaked in some cities.

This post has come out longer than I intended, so get yourself a cuppa and get comfortable.

Fare products in Australasian Cities

Firstly, what types of fare products are available in each city? This table is a rough summary of the main ticket types available, depending on the ticketing systems in each major city:

City System single return all day 10 trip week month/
28 day		 quarter year
Melbourne Metcard Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Myki Yes Yes** Yes Yes Yes
Sydney MyTrain Yes Yes* (Yes) Yes (Yes) Yes Yes
MyBus Yes Yes
MyFerry Yes Yes
MyMulti (Yes) Yes Yes Yes
Perth Paper Yes Yes*
SmartRider Yes
Adelaide paper Yes Yes Yes
Brisbane paper Yes
go card Yes
Canberra cash Yes Yes
MyWay Yes Yes** Yes**
Hobart Paper Yes Yes*
Greencard Yes Yes**
Newcastle Bus Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Auckland Bus – paper Yes Yes# Yes# Yes# Yes# Yes#
Bus – HOP Yes
Train Yes Yes* Yes
Wellington Bus – paper Yes Yes#* Yes#
Bus – Snapper Yes Yes
Train Yes Yes* Yes Yes
Train+bus Yes#* Yes#
Ferry Yes Yes# Yes# Yes#
Christchurch paper Yes
metrocard Yes Yes** Yes**

Yes* = the product is not useable in peak periods and is only of value for certain numbers of trips/zones.
Yes** = a cap applies
(Yes) = available but no discount ahead of smaller tickets for peak travel.
Yes# = only available for some operators/services

A few things to note:

  • All cities have bulk ticket products and/or smart card systems that in effect provide for bulk purchase discounts.
  • At the time of writing Melbourne was in transition from metcard to myki, with both metcard and myki fare systems active.
  • I’ve only really looked at products available to regular full fare passengers in the above (eg it does not include things like all day Seniors tickets).
  • Translink in Brisbane has removed most paper ticket options other than single fares.
  • I’ve not included Auckland ferries as different operators have different tickets, although most have 10-trip and monthly tickets (some have week and 40 trip tickets)

For the following analysis I have used fares current as at November 2011 for each system, and compared the costs of full fare travel of about 9-10 km. There may be some variations for different distances, so this analysis isn’t going to be perfect.

Why bulk purchase discounts?

Encouraging bulk purchasing has a couple of major benefits for transport authorities:

  • Fewer ticketing machines and staffed ticketing windows are needed as fewer tickets are purchased for the same amount of travel.
  • In the case of disposable paper tickets, fewer physical tickets are required.
  • On buses, minimising ticket purchases from drivers can reduce a sometimes significant cause of delays, particularly as patronage increases.

Financial incentives for bulk purchase are often provided, but there is always a convenience incentive to buy fewer tickets (up to the limits of people’s available cash flow).

Bulk purchase discounts for the weekday peak commuter

I have taken the case of a straight forward weekday commuter, who makes a trip in the morning and afternoon peaks on weekdays only. Thus they don’t qualify for any off-peak discounts. Not all cities allow for free transfers on single and return tickets (see table further below), and I’ve assumed a transfer-less journey for the purposes of this analysis.

This first charts show the maximum discount possible given the purchasing frequency for people with this travel pattern. Because Sydney is so complicated I’ve put it on a separate chart.

A note on Sydney’s MyMulti: There is no “single” MyMulti ticket in Sydney. As a substitute I’ve used a 5km train trip ($3.20) followed by a 5 section bus trip ($3.30) = $6.50, which is relatively expensive compared to single mode 10km journeys. This is in line with the 10km base I am using as bus sections in Sydney seem to be roughly 1km apart, but you’ll see the implied bulk discounts are very high.  Also, I have used MyMulti1 fares where they are better value for bus and ferry users.

The lines show whether more discounts are available when purchasing less frequently. The last point where the line increments is the maximum purchasing frequency that gives you the most discount.

Observations:

  • Most smartcard systems have a discount price for single trips, but most don’t appear on the chart above because the price of a single trips is less than the minimum top-up amount of $5 or $10. Melbourne is the exception where the minimum top up amount is $1 – less than the price of almost any fare.
  • Discounts kick in at the daily level for Adelaide and Canberra mostly because they have a daily or return ticket that is less than the price of two singles.
  • Melbourne, Sydney and Newcastle are the only cities where discounts continue until a yearly purchasing frequency.
  • Most cities have a 20-35% discount at a weekly purchasing interval. They outliers are:
    • Canberra which has a very strong incentive for Smartcard based travel over cash fares
    • Wellington trains that have a high value monthly ticket
    • Most Auckland buses have a monthly ticket, however the zones available vary between operators. In the above chart, the “all zones” monthly pass for NZ Bus operators was used – $200, which is not better value for simple weekday commuters travelling 3 stages. Other operators have monthly tickets priced as low as $97. The complexity of the ticket offerings makes it difficult to accurate represent  available discounts to Auckland bus travellers.

Oddities (skip these if you don’t care about the detail)

  • Canberra :
    • There is a higher discount for weekly travel because the additional 5% discount for auto-load means the price of two trips (on one day) is less than the minimum top up ($5).
    • There is a monthly discount because travel is free after 36 trips.
    • I’m not sure whether the $5 minimum top-up applies if topping up with BPay.
  • Sydney:
    • For 6+ section bus travel, a quarterly MyMulti1 is cheaper than using MyBus TravelTen tickets
    • For <9km ferry travel, a weekly or longer MyMulti1 is cheaper than using MyFerry TravelTen tickets.
    • Yearly train tickets offer no discount over quarterly train tickets
  • Newcastle:
    • The quarterly ticket (Orange TravelPass) is more expensive than travelling with weekly tickets if you are just making two trips per weekday.
  • Wellington bus
    • Wellington does have three monthly bus passes, with cheaper passes limited to fewer operators. Only the Go Wellington 30 day pass is of value to 5 day a week commuters, and this ticket is limited to one operator (GO Wellington, with a 36% saving over single cash fares). For the charts, the all-operator Platinum Pass ($210) has been used.

I’ll look at the discounts for lower purchase frequencies later in this post.

Bulk purchase discounts for the everyday traveller

Many systems have weekly or monthly caps, or offer discounts after a certain number of trips in a week or month. This provides an incentive for a regular weekday travellers to also travel on weekends. The discounts over single tickets can be quite high!

As you might expect, the discounts are greatest for those cities with periodical tickets. Those systems without periodical tickets (Perth, Hobart, Wellington bus, Adelaide and Brisbane) have the least discount for everyday travellers.

Bulk purchase incentives for the irregular traveller

All cities (except Sydney trains and multi-modal) have either a 10 trip ticket, or discounts over cash prices when using stored value on a smartcard:

Canberra and Brisbane offer strong incentives for people to use smartcards, while Adelaide provides a high discount for ten-trip travel (but has no higher value tickets such as periodicals). Bulk purchase discounts for irregular travel are lowest in Auckland (around 10%).

Why is Hobart Greencard and Melbourne myki money showing a 0% discount? For myki the minimum top up is $1, it is possible to pay for a single trip and get the same 21% discount over a metcard 2-hour (single) ticket that you get when you load value for 10 trips worth. There is no financial incentive for irregular travellers to top up less often than every trip. In Hobart, smartcard fares are the same as cash fares, but there is a 25% bonus value when topping up an amount of $20 or more (which equates to a 20% discount).

Sydney’s MyTrain and MyMulti do not offer 10 trip tickets. It would seem there might be much advantage in introducing these products (or a stored value smartcard equivalent) for irregular travellers to be rewarded and reduce congestion at ticket machines and windows.

Incentives for off-peak travel

From a policy perspective, there are benefits in getting peak period PT commuters to also use PT in off-peak periods (such as reducing emissions and off-peak traffic congestion). Usually there is ample spare capacity in off-peak times, so the costs of carrying extra people at these times are minimal and the resulting benefit/cost ratio is very high.

That said, Melbourne has to provide extra lunchtime peak trams in the CBD to meet demand, but arguably this adds to the liveability and productivity of the Melbourne CBD so is worthwhile anyway.

In cities with daily tickets, daily/weekly/monthly caps or weekly, monthly, quarterly and/or yearly periodicals, additional off-peak trips are have a zero marginal cost. That’s a 100% discount!

In cities with weekly tickets (and Brisbane through the frequent user scheme), regular weekday commuters often pay a lot less – or nothing at all – to also travel on weekends.

The table further below will show these discounts.

So what might an ideal fare system look like?

The following list builds on the above, and adds a few other criteria I think are worthwhile for a PT fare system:

  1. There are several points where the bulk purchase discount increases. Ideally a system would at least have discounts applying at the weekly and monthly purchasing frequencies. I’d argue the monthly discount is particularly important as it reduces the number of purchase transactions by a factor of 4 compared to weekly tickets (from 52 to 12 per year). Quarterly and yearly tickets are probably still worthwhile, but only for people with enough cash flow available to make a larger up-front purchase.
  2. For Smartcard systems, the minimum top-up amount is at least $10 (usually covering three trips), to reduce transaction costs.
  3. For Smartcard systems, there is an incentive to make larger top-ups, to reduce the number top-up transactions (and associated overhead costs).
  4. There is an incentive for people to set up automatic top-up of smartcards (via a linked bank account). This avoids any physical interaction with the ticketing system, reducing congestion, staffing and maintenance costs at ticket machines and windows. It also reduces the risk of inadvertent fare evasion when a customer forgets to top-up. Ad hoc online top ups also reduce load on ticketing machines and windows, but can require complex distribution of the top up transaction to every device on the network (such that the smartcard will be topped up when it next touches any piece of ticketing equipment). This can be problematic and delays in top-ups coming through are not unknown. The Hopper card in Auckland and Wellington only allows top ups online if the user has a device that can interact with the smartcard, or if the user has a smartcard that has a USB attachment built-in.
  5. There are strong incentives for regular weekday commuters to also use PT in off-peak periods/weekends. Ideally no marginal cost of additional off-peak trips.
  6. Passengers who have to transfer between services do not have to pay more to travel the same distance just because there is no single service connecting their origin and destination. Already, the need to transfer introduces inconvenience, usually a travel time penalty, a wait time penalty and missed connection risk into the journey, so why add a cost penalty on top? A desire for passengers to avoid transfers can put pressure on bus networks to connect many origins and destinations directly, at lower average frequencies. Also, incentives for train users to get to the station by bus – at no extra cost to the train fare – reduces the pressure on station car parks. Many train stations are in “activity centres” – where inactive land uses such as all day commuter parking are not desirable. Sydney, Auckland, Hobart and Wellington currently have financial penalties for most transfers (unless using periodicals).
  7. Fares are simple to understand in terms of which ticket type is best value depending on your purchasing frequency. A customer should not have to do complex calculations to determine the best fare product (a problem when offering both multi-modal and mode-specific fare options).
  8. Reduce production of physical materials to cut environmental impacts through waste and litter. Long life smartcards are obviously one solution to this issue, but so are periodical paper tickets.

Note: I’m not going to enter the debate about zonal v distance based fares in this post.

How do Australasian cities’ fare systems measure up?

The following table summarises how Australasian cities’ fare systems measure up to the above criteria, with colour coding giving a rough compliance rating (you will probably need to click on this and then zoom in to read it – sorry about that – nice formatted tables are difficult with wordpress).

Note: I have used the best value fare for each purchasing frequency for a roughly 10km trip to the CBD (for Sydney buses and ferries, a MyMulti ticket is sometimes better value than a single mode ticket). That took a lot of deduction which I haven’t documented here.

How do the fare systems compare?

Compared to the above criteria:

  • No fare system is perfect.
  • Melbourne (myki and Metcard) meets most criteria, except for financial incentives for automatic top-up, and higher minimum top-up amount.
  • Sydney buses and ferries and Wellington buses meet the fewest criteria.
  • Sydney MyMulti meets most criteria, but lacks a strong incentive to use a daily MyMulti ticket, and has the overlaying complexity where customers need to do complex calculations to establish whether or not MyMulti is good value.
  • Brisbane go card does not provide significant bulk purchase discount incentives, and additional off peak trips are not free (although they are around half price or less).
  • Adelaide lacks any periodical tickets, and hence any weekend travel incentives (indeed discounts applicable to inter-peak weekday travel do not apply on weekends!). This probably reflects the older ticketing technology in that city.
  • Perth fails to provide off-peak travel incentives for regular commuters. But it is the only city with an automatic top-up discount, which offsets the impact of the smaller bulk purchase incentive.

Reducing ticket waste

Since the first edition of this post, more cities now have either a SmartCard ticketing system, or have strong discounts for quarterly or yearly tickets.

This means to get the best discount, you’ll only buy one physical ticket (or less) per year. The notable exceptions are:

  • Adelaide – you need to buy a ticket every 10 trips (until their smartcard system comes online)
  • Auckland and Wellington trains – the best value option may be to buy monthly tickets.
  • Auckland buses – depending on your travel patterns and operator, you might be best off buying monthly paper tickets.

Is a good fare system easy to implement with smartcards?

There is obviously a link between the complexity of the fare system and the cost of a smartcard ticketing system. The Sydney T-Card project was abandoned (many blamed the complexity of the fare system), and Victoria’s myki system is costing considerably more than other cities (I have tried to get comparable system cost data but this isn’t easy).

The following table attempts to compare the network and fare complexity between cities (or states for systems that extend beyond the main metro area). Green denotes simple, and red denotes complex.

Note that many of the positive attributes of fare systems introduce complexity into smartcard systems. There’s clearly a trade-off involved!

Observations:

  • Victoria’s myki system has the most complexity on all but two dimensions in the table. Perhaps this partly explains the implementation issues?
  • Perth, Hobart, Brisbane and Christchurch smartcard systems have much less complexity, but meet fewer of the desirable fare system features above (particularly discounts for purchasing less frequently than weekly).
  • Adelaide looks set to follow these cities with a simple stored value smartcard system.
  • Canberra has a relatively simple system, although daily and monthly caps, and large top-up incentives have been implemented. The monthly cap is a simple maximum paid trips per calendar month, which probably simplifies implementation.
  • Auckland and Wellington have very similar systems, but neither has been fully extended onto rail which involves monthly tickets. Wellington has implemented monthly bus passes on Snapper, but none of these are zone-based. Auckland’s HOP system uses the same technology and Wellington’s Snapper.
  • Sydney has the periodical challenge made more complex by having both zonal mode-specific and multi-modal tickets.
  • Adelaide probably has the easiest fare system to translate onto smartcards.

So there seems to be a clear choice in smartcard ticketing:

  • Include the complexity of zonal periodical fare products to create incentives for larger bulk purchasing and off-peak PT use,
    OR
  • Have a simpler trip-based system without periodicals, but maybe daily/weekly/monthly caps and/or incentives for larger top ups.

Victoria and Sydney have adopted the first option, whilst most other cities have gone the second option (Wellington trains may prove an issue when people use Snapper and over-run their monthly zones).

The use of daily, weekly or monthly caps combined with incentives for larger top-ups, can offset the downside of the second approach. Ideally this would involve caps that reward people for making more than two trips in a day, and more than 10 trips in a week. Canberra’s MyWay has managed to introduce relatively simple caps (although this is assisted by having only one fare zone).

Ideas for improving fare systems in each city

How might you try to improve the fare systems for the current smartcard systems to meet the criteria above? I’m not pretending I know how complex or expensive these would be, but here are some ideas:

  • Perth SmartRider
    • introduce a daily cap to encourage off-peak use by peak commuters (probably different for each number of zones).
    • potentially introduce weekend discounts or a weekly cap as a reward for travelling Monday-Friday.
  • Victoria myki
    • increase the minimum top up amount to $5 or $10.
    • Consider introducing an incentive for larger and/or automatic top ups.
  • Tasmania Greencard
    • introduce an incentive for automatic top ups.
  • Brisbane gocard:
    • introduce an incentive for larger and/or automatic top ups.
    • Consider introducing a daily and/or monthly cap.
  • Adelaide:
    • Consider introducing daily, and weekly or monthly caps based on number of trips (similar to Canberra MyWay, given the single fare zone).
    • Include an incentive for larger and/or automatic top ups.
  • Auckland and Sydney:
    • Adopt a fare system that removes financial penalties for passengers who have to transfer (ie time-based rather than single-boarding tickets)
    • Introduce consistent fares and fare bands for all modes and operators
    • Consider introducing daily and weekly or monthly caps (unless periodicals are retained)
    • (note that monthly MyMulti tickets have been introduced since the first edition of this post)
  • Wellington:
    • Adopt a fare system that removes financial penalties for passengers who have to transfer (ie time-based rather than single-boarding tickets)
    • introduce an incentive for larger and/or automatic top ups.
    • Reduce complexity by eliminating special fare products where possible.
    • Consider introducing daily and weekly or monthly caps

I must stress here that suggestions in this blog are my personal ideas only. I’m sure there are good reasons why many of these things haven’t happened. Apart from anything, there would need to be an assessment as to whether the benefits would offset the implementation cost and any loss in fare revenue.

References

Metro Tasmania fares

Translink South East Queensland (inc Brisbane) fares

Transperth fares

Melbourne metcard fares

Melbourne myki money fares

Melbourne myki pass fares

Sydney MyZone fares

Newcastle fares

Adelaide Metro fares

Canberra ACTION fares

Canberra MyWay fares

Auckland MAXX fares

Auckland HOP fares

Wellington Metlink fares

Christchurch fares

2 Comments | Australian Cities, New Zealand cities, Pricing | Permalink
Posted by chrisloader

How complex is Sydney’s new MyZone PT fare system?

Sun 14 February, 2010

Related to another post reviewing fare systems, here is a more detailed look at Sydney’s new MyZone fare system, that starts in April 2010.

If you think Sydney is about to get simple integrated multi-modal fares, read on.

The following charts compare the costs of the different MyZone tickets for different travel distances (note: ferries kick up a fare level after 9km) assuming travel to and from central Sydney (it is yet another ball game if you are not travelling into the city centre).

Starting with single fares…

Ferries are clearly expensive. And there is a curious overlap between buses and trains. If you have a choice, then buses are cheaper for travel under 2kms and over 35kms (but no doubt slower).

Unfortunately MyTrain and MyMulti have weeklies, while buses and ferries have TravelTens. The following chart shows buses and ferries with 10 and 14 trips, compared to MyTrain and MyMulti weeklies.

If you use buses 14 trips a week, then a MyMulti is better value, but only if you are travelling between 5 and 35kms. If you use buses 12 trips a week, then a MyMulti might be good value, but only if you travel 5-10km trips. And if you don’t know whether you will be making 10, 12 or 14 trips, then you have to make a guess and you might rip yourself off, or you might not.

And don’t even think about MyFerry TravelTens if you are using ferries at least 5 days in a row.

What about quarterly?

Trains are now cheaper than buses for everything over 2kms.

So now if you use buses 14 trips a week, a MyMulti is worthwhile if you travel more than 2 kms. But if you travel 12 trips a week, then MyMulti is worthwhile between 5 and 10kms, but probably much the same as a MyMulti between 10 and 35kms.

But if you travel more than 10kms and only use trains in MyMulti Zone 1, then MyMulti is better, even if you make 10 bus trips a week.

Are you following?

Finally, yearly:

It looks like the MyTrain yearly for over 65kms is actually a product no one should buy – you are better off with a MyMulti 3 yearly!

If you can avoid buses, you’ll save money with a MyTrain ticket on most travel distances.

But on the buses, the MyMulti is better value when travelling 11-14 trips per week for more than 2kms. For 5-10kms get yourself a MyMulti if you are travelling 10 times a week. But if you are going to average 11 trips a week, then a MyMulti yearly is borderline with MyBus for 10-35 kms.

But they were all simple comparisons with fixed distances to and from the inner city. While MyMulti and MyFerry tickets are based on distance from the city, MyTrain and MyBus tickets are on distance between stations and stop.

In fact a MyMulti 1 might be worthwhile if you frequently travel in the outer suburbs on buses, even if it is not valid for the trains in those outer suburbs.

And there is plenty more complexity.

What’s the best fare product for you if:

  • you make 10 x 20km trips per week and 4 x 5km trips per week?
  • you occasionally also take the train? in one direction only? for return trips? in the peak? in the off-peak?
  • you use multiple modes but don’t travel into inner Sydney?
  • you usually use the train but sometimes use the bus?
  • only travel occasionally but like to make stopovers on the way?
  • have a choice of two journey paths, one faster involving a transfer, and one slower but without a transfer?

And is there one website where can you find out where sections points are on any bus route in Sydney?

I trust it is not just my head that is spinning trying to think through this.

So unfortunately it is still extremely difficult to work out what is likely to be best value for your travel in Sydney, because different modes have inconsistent fares, inconsistent fare bands, and inconsistent ticket products. And there are sometimes even unintended fare incentives to avoid certain modes or transfers even they mean a faster trip.

The alternative?

I am a fan of consistent multi-modal fares because they avoid most of the complexity found in Sydney. See another post for what might be the best attributes of a fare system.

In any other city in Australia, each of the above charts will have only one line that applies for all modes (and usually regardless of transfers). The only choice you might have to make is whether to go for periodicals (passes) or multi-trip tickets/a stored value smartcard. That choice depends on how many times you travel per week.

In Melbourne, Brisbane and Canberra you need to compare the weekly cost of using multi-trip tickets at the frequency you travel to the cost of a weekly, and work out which is cheaper. Then if they are close, you might want to compare them with monthlies. And it essentially doesn’t matter what mode you use, or how many times you transfer to get from A to B.

In fact here are the comparisons:

  • In Melbourne 10 trips on a 10×2 hour ticket is the same as a weekly, and 37 trips is the same as a monthly (about 8.5 trips per week).
  • In Brisbane 12 trips on a go card is about the same as a weekly, and 47 go card trips cost about the same as a monthly (about 11 per week).
  • In Canberra a weekly is the same as 11 trips using Faresaver 10  tickets, and a monthly is 36 trips (about 8 per week).

In Adelaide a multi-trip ticket is a no-brainer (there is no weekly or monthly).

In Perth and Hobart you are always better off with a smartcard.

But for Sydney you almost need to get a spreadsheet going to suss out the best fare product(s) for a particular trip from A to B.

Or just go with something that works knowing you are probably paying too much.

Or just drive a car.

Other commentary on the new Sydney fares:

Action for Public Transport (NSW)

Western Sydney Public Transport Users

Melbourne on Transit

Daniel Bowen

Life Hacker

1 Comment | Australian Cities, Pricing | Permalink
Posted by chrisloader

Urban density and public transport mode share

Sat 16 January, 2010

Are all the statistics we see about urban density and transport reliable?

In his most recent book Transport for Suburbia (and his paper to ATRF 2009), Paul Mees highlights mis-use of urban densities figures by some researchers – the trouble being inconsistent determination of what exactly is the urban area of a city when you calculate density (= population/area).

To redress the issue of data quality, Paul has used calculations based on the actual urbanised area for Australia, US, Canadian and English cities (looking at entire greater metropolitan areas). He’s used figures based on urbanised areas as opposed to a statistical district, municipal council area, or other arbitrary administrative boundary which could contain large areas of non-urbanised land.

The calculations define urbanised areas using the following criteria:

  • US and Canadian cities: minimum 400 per square km,
  • Australian cities: minimum 200 per square km (meaning Australian cities might be slightly understated)
  • English cities: detailed mapping, likely to lead to slighty higher density figures.

So the calculations are not perfectly aligned, but they are more comparable than density calculations that use simple administrative boundaries. And they are also certainly consistent within each country.

He publishes tables of this data, talks about the relationships between them, but for some reason fails to plot the results on a chart. So I’ve decided to chart them (if you are after the data tables consult the ATRF paper above and/or the book).

The table of data is quite interesting in that it debunks some myths about the densities of various cities. Los Angeles is the highest density city in the entire table (the Freakonomics blog has a good series on Los Angeles Transportation: Facts and Fiction that is worth reading).

Firstly, car mode share in journey to work:

Is there a relationship between urban density and car mode share on journey to work? What do correlation coefficients say (closer to 1 and -1 means stronger) – something Mees didn’t calculate:

  • Australia: -0.74
  • Canada: -0.58
  • US: -0.46
  • England: -0.68

That suggests a relationship does exist, but it isn’t particularly strong. In reality, every city has unique characteristics and other attributes will explain the differences (the quality of services and infrastructure of alternative modes would certainly have a lot to do with it).

Looking at some outliers:

  • London has the highest density and lowest car mode share. It compares so favourably to all other English cities in car mode share, despite being only slightly more dense than Brighton/Worthing/Littlehampton (one combined urban area).
  • Canadian cities with the lowest car mode share are Toronto (highest density) and Victoria (second lowest density).

What about public transport mode share for journey to work?

This chart shows relationships stronger in some countries than others. Indeed the correlation coefficients are:

  • Australia: 0.79
  • Canada: 0.87
  • US: 0.42
  • England: 0.58

So much stronger relationships in Canada and Australia. Again there is a lot at work (particularly the quality and quantity of available public transport, which is one of Paul’s points).

In terms of outliers:

  • London is off the chart at 45.9% public transport.
  • Brisbane is perhaps an outlier for Australia – low density but pretty much the same rate of public transport use as Melbourne.
  • Los Angeles – which actually has the highest density of all the US cities but still relatively low public transport use.
  • The city with the highest PT mode share in the US is New York, even though it isn’t the most dense city in the US (there is lots of sprawl outside Manhattan).

The following walking chart might seem to suggest a strong relationship when you look at all cities, but remember that the density measurements aren’t quite the same, so it’s not fully conclusive. However, English cities still tend to have higher densities, particularly as many have green belts to prevent sprawl.

There is actually a negative correlation between density and walking (and cycling) for Australia and Canada. However I wouldn’t read too much into that as the sample size if small and there are lots of unique factors affecting each city.

But if you reckon there should be a positive correlation between walking and density, the outliers are:

  • Victoria (Canada) – low density but high walking mode share.
  • San Francisco and Los Angeles have low walking share.
  • Hobart – highest walking share in Australia, despite low density (and a big river dividing it in two).
  • Toronto – Canada’s most dense walking city, but least walking mode share
  • London – highest density but lowest walking share (9.2%)

Same again for cycling:

It looks like almost no one cycles in the US, despite having more favourable climate than Canada. Again higher cycling rates in the UK.

Cycling outliers:

  • Victoria (Canada) – high walking and cycling mode share
  • Kingston upon Hull (UK) 11% – off the chart’s scale (Mees suggests a large university may be the cause)
  • Canberra – which has a good network of bike paths (but still only 2.5% cycling mode share)
  • Sydney – with just 0.7% cycling – hilly terrain not helping.

What if you add up all the sustainable transport modes (PT, walking and cycling)? In theory, density should help all sustainable transport modes.

The correlations are:

  • Australia: 0.77
  • Canada: 0.62
  • US: 0.44
  • England: 0.70

The English result is actually stronger than PT (0.58), walking (0.32) and cycling (0.02). Do people respond to density using different, but sustainable modes?

Can public transport be effective in low density cities?

Paul’s main argument is that low transport density isn’t a barrier to successful public transport, and that it is easier to change public transport provision in a city, than it is to change urban densities (not that increasing urban densities isn’t a worthy goal).

Certainly urban density makes it easier to make public transport successful, but I’d agree that it is possible to make public transport work a lot better in low density environments.

Indeed, in Melbourne, relatively high quality SmartBus routes (that run every 15 minutes for most of the day on weekdays, very good by suburban Melbourne standards!) have been trialled in the outer suburbs, and the patronage response has been much stronger than typical elasticities (the subject of another post).

More generally, in Melbourne over the last three years we’ve seen a very strong correlation between growth in service provision (26% more kms) and growth in patronage (29%) – more than any other potential driver of patronage (again, topic for another post).

Comparable cities for population and density

Finally, by plotting population and density, you can see which cities are most similar – at least in these two respects (I’ve only looked at cities under 7 million and UK cities are off the density scale). I’ve labelled Australian cities and nearby equivalents. Note: the US and Canadian data is year 2000, while Australia is 2006.

8 Comments | Australian Cities, Melbourne, Mode share, Urban Planning | Tagged: | Permalink
Posted by chrisloader

Car and transit use per capita in Australian cities (Peak Car)

Fri 8 January, 2010

[post updated in January 2016 with data from the 2015 BITRE Yearbook. For some more recent data see this post published in December 2018. First published January 2010]

Thanks to the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics’ Australian Infrastructure Statistics Yearbook 2015, a great set of time series data is available on transport behaviour. This post looks at trends in private and public transport use in Australian cities up until 2013-14.

The first chart shows car passenger kms per capita peaked in 2004 for all cities and has been mostly in decline since then (with the possible exception of Adelaide in recent years).

car pass kms per capita 4

This is clear evidence of “peak car” use per capita in Australian cities.

Canberra has the highest car passenger kms per capita – perhaps due to the low density city, relatively sparse bus services, and general ease of using private transport.

The underlying figures show relatively little growth in total car passenger kms in most cities in the ten years since 2003-04:

index of car passenger kms 2

Perth has shown the greatest increase in total car passenger kms despite the reduced car use per capita, presumably mostly reflecting strong population growth. Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne show a flat-lining in car passenger kms between 2004 and 2009 (a period of time that is becoming very familiar on this blog). I’m not sure why Adelaide has seen declining car passenger kms (it’s population did grow over this period by 10%).

Does this mean we are travelling less? The following chart shows estimated motorised passenger kms per capita, and yes in all cities there was a peak in 2003-04 followed mostly by declines. This might be people taking shorter trips, people taker fewer trips, and/or people substituting motorised transport with non-motorised transport.

motorised pass kms per capita 4

There is another story in the data. Mass transit passenger kms per capita rose significantly in Melbourne and Perth between 2005 and 2011:

mass transit share of pass kms 4

However, more recently there have been slight declines in Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, and Canberra.

Sydney shows up with many more mass transit kms per capita than any other city (68% of which is on rail). While I am not sure exactly how BITRE sourced their train patronage data for “Sydney”, my experience is that patronage data is only readily available for a very wide definition of Sydney’s railways including lines beyond the Sydney Statistical Division including Newcastle, Nowra, and the Hunter Valley.

You can also see a spike in mass transit use in Sydney in 2000/01 – the year containing the Olympic Games.

Previous strong growth in Brisbane might reflect considerable investment in bus services (BITRE have published three years of bus data showing Brisbane increasing from 53.0 million kms in 2005-06 to 61.2 million kms in 2007-08). More recent stagnation in mode share might reflect above-CPI fare rises and changes to patronage measurement methodology.

The data also allows a calculation of mass transit’s share of motorised passenger kms:

Melbourne and Perth are the stand outs for mass transit mode shift based on these figures, particularly in the years leading up to 2009. Adelaide, Sydney and Brisbane also saw mode shift between around 2004 and 2009, but Adelaide and Brisbane have gone backwards since then.

Note there are other ways to more directly measure transport mode share – primarily household travel surveys, covered in another post.

Finally, here is a stark comparison of total car and mass transit passenger kilometre growth since 2003-04 (with population growth included for reference):

car v pt growth aus large cities 2

Car use has grown more than four times slower than population growth, and almost seven times slower than mass transit use.

Business as usual no longer

In the frequently cited BITRE 2007 report on congestion costs, they made a “business as usual” assumption that mode shares will not change (ref page 8) and that car use per capita would increase (ref page 47), and then forecast that avoidable congestion costs in Australia will more than double between 2005 and 2020. The latest BITRE evidence is that mode shares are not business as usual in most cities and that car use per capita is decreasing. See another post reviewing the forecasts of the costs of congestion.

An updated 2015 BITRE report on the costs of congestion looks at the issues of per capita vehicle user into the future in a bit more detail, including acknowledging researchers highlighting peak car.

Their new high case scenario assumes the recent downturn in per capita vehicle use is essentially all GFC related (and has persisted for 10 years), and that things will now bounce back to old patterns (and grow even faster than the 2007 forecast). Their medium case also assumes a reversal of trend, but that we’ll only return to the previous peak level by 2030, and a low case continues the current trend.

The following chart shows forecasts compared to estimated actual vehicle kilometres per capita.

BITRE vkms per capita estimates

The 2007 forecast was not only trending in the wrong direction, their starting assumption about vehicle km per capita for 2007 was well above the (revised) estimated actual.

The new estimates for the “avoidable social costs of congestion” in 2030 are $48.2b for the high case, $37.3b for the median case, and only $25.1b for the low case. BITRE suggest this median estimate is the upper range of what is plausible, but if current trends continue, the avoidable social costs of congestion would be a third lower.

See also a recent piece on this subject by Professor Peter Newman in The Conversation.

Some disclaimers:

  • I’ve called it “mass transit” as the data does not seem to differentiate public, school and private bus passengers. Passengers on chartered buses aren’t usually considered “public transport”, but they still are a very space efficient way to move people on roads.
  • km figures are reported on financial years, while population figures are for June at the end of that financial year. So the “real” per km figures are slightly less, but I’m really just looking at trends and relative numbers here.

1 Comment | Australian Cities, Melbourne, Mode shift, Road Traffic | Permalink
Posted by chrisloader

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