Transit officials put the phenomenon down to 60,000 tertiary students returning and workers taking no holidays after the summer break.
An extra 8000 cars are on the southern motorway each weekday, raising the total to 200,000 and adding at least five minutes to each journey.
This project is about investigating Auckland’s transport problems and the available solutions.
Public transport in Auckland, the largest metropolitan area of New Zealand, consists of three modes –bus, train and ferry. Services are provided under the "MAXX" brand by private transport providers, coordinated by Auckland Transport, the council controlled organisation that replaced the Auckland Regional Transport Authority (ARTA). Britomart is the main transportation hub.
Historically Auckland was well served by public transport, but an extensive Auckland tram system was dismantled in the 1950s, which, together with the decision not to electrify the rail network and instead heavily invest into a motorway system, led to a collapse in both mode share and total trips. Major projects have been undertaken in recent years to improve public transport, both smaller-scale initiatives such as bus priority measures and large-scale bus and rail infrastructure projects. Public transport use grew by 4.4% over all modes in the year to June 2008 (with rail passenger up 18.4%), and later accelerated even more, growing by 8.3 percent in the year to February 2011 (with rail passengers up 17.9%), with Auckland for the first time reaching 1950s overall numbers again.
There have also been significant gains in the distances travelled by public transport in the Auckland Region, with an associated improvement in subsidy efficiency - with subsidy totals rising 14% in 2008-2009 (to account for increased patronage), but leading to a 39.4% increase in the kilometres travelled (during the same time, patronage in terms of trips increased 7.7%). The increased travel distances were mostly considered due to longer rail trips and more trips on long-distance services such as the Northern Busway.
Despite these strong