The Hamilton – Auckland rail service “Te Huia”, has not achieved any of the outcomes promised from its backers when they were promoting it.
The service was introduced last year with funding of $85.8 million from NZ Transport and $12.2 million from Waikato local governments.
A recent report commissioned by the Waikato Chamber of Commerce on the viability of the service, has found that the service is using a large amount of government funding that in the report is stated as; “An extravagant amount when compared with the costs of alternative modes of transport”.
The service which is being run as a five year trial, by the Waikato Regional Council, continues to use an excessive amount of government funding to carry out its operations. The study was carried out by a final year student from the Waikato University School of Management, Mr. Nicholas Farrell.
His study found that for each trip from Hamilton to Auckland the cost of travelling in a diesel vehicle was $48 compared to $294 on Te Huia. The cost on Te Huia was a combination of $12 fare and a government subsidy of $282. The diesel vehicle costs were taken before the recent rise in the cost of fuels. KiwiRail also uses diesel fueled trains on this service. His study used the IRD costings for diesel fuel.
The Te Huia service has a total subsidy budget for the next three years, of $23.3 million. The report found that commuter trips during the week had averaged thirty passengers per trip which is a loading factor of approximately 20%. Weekend trip had a greater number of passengers with an approximate loading factor of 74% but this still only equates to an overall load factor of 26%.
The Te Huia service was originally promoted on the basis that it would decrease the traffic movements between Hamilton and Auckland and reduce the GHG emissions from vehicle movements yet this study shows that currently: that each car journey (assuming a single person in each one) emits 19.9Kg per person and the Te Huia service using current passenger levels, emits 31.6Kg per person for each journey.
The Chairman of the Waikato Regional Council rail governance group, stated that he was confident that after the effects of the Covid Lockdowns, the service would only get better and more popular and as Te huia improves it will manage to meet its decongestion, GHG emissions, reliability, financial and patronage targets.
In January the service, which starts in Frankton, was extended to finish at the Strand in Parnell and this journey is expected to take 145 minutes. Both of these stations are approximately 2Km’s from their respective central business districts which means there will likely be further additional travel time on other modes of transport required.
When we look a bit deeper at these figures and take them as hourly figures the picture suddenly looks different. 145minutes becomes 2hrs and 25 minutes and if we then think about a return journey this becomes 4hrs and 50minutes, almost five hours and this is without allowing for any other travel time to reach the CBD at either end of the journey.
So we are now looking at trying to attract patronage to Te Huia on a commuting basis and to do so any regular passengers will have to add approximately 5hours extra to their working day which suddenly goes up to 13hrs minimum. This surely would mean that any time saving would immediately become quite critical and therefore the time saving from using your own vehicle (over two hours) would become a huge attraction.
Given that the original Council business case for this service was based on an average weekday passenger count of 240 in the first year rising to a level of 320 in the second year, it is looking highly likely that actual usage figures will be light years below these levels and even with Covid effects taking some of the blame, there still needs to be some accountability shown by the Council Rail Governance Group in relation to the viability of this service in achieving its aims.
One of the main aims of the Te Huia project was to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions and road congestion across the region and so far this has not even come close to being achieved.
The total average CO₂ emissions per passenger carried by Te Huia during 2021 was 31.55Kg, a large amount when compared to the average diesel utility vehicle which would emit an average of 19.7Kg on a comparative journey from Frankton to Auckland.
If every passenger on TE Huia in 2021 had used their own vehicle instead of travelling on Te Huia, this would have resulted in a 37% decrease in CO₂ emissions in comparison with Te Huia.
Given that we are coming up to local body elections soon I expect that there will be serious questions being asked about the viability of the Te Huia service particularly in the light of the emissions and subsidy levels shown as a result of this report.
In my opinion a detailed cost benefit analysis of the Te Huia project so far and the forward projections for this project would only result in a recommendation to cease to offer this service on the grounds that it has and will continue to, fail to achieve the basic outcomes that were used as the foundation of the business case for Te Huia.
Andy Loader