KEY POINTS:
Employers are being urged to boost public transport in Auckland by giving subsidised fares to staff.
The call comes from the Northern Employers and Manufacturers' Association, which intends proposing a partnership scheme to the Auckland Regional Council under which workers could ride on buses, trains and ferries for
25 per cent of current fares.
Association chief executive Alasdair Thompson said yesterday that such a scheme would be voluntary, but he believed many of the more enlightened employers would be prepared to provide matching sums to reduce costly investments in carparks and ease economically damaging traffic congestion.
The scheme would also depend on a continuation of public transport subsidies from the regional council and Government funding agency Land Transport NZ.
But it would make these far more cost-effective by boosting passenger numbers.
Mr Thompson was expanding on a submission by his organisation in response to the council's annual plan, which proposes a regional spending boost of $31 million for public transport in the coming financial year, to $155 million.
The association said that meant each of a million more public transport trips proposed in the plan, to push the annual total to 53 million, would cost ratepayers more than $30.
It said it was all for investing in effective public transport "but we totally object to the waste and lack of accountability inherent in the figures being made publicly available".
Mr Thompson said he had been impressed by a free bus scheme in Palmerston North for students and staff of Massey University, which the university says has removed 400 cars from the city's roads.
Half the scheme's annual cost of about $750,000 is paid for by Land Transport NZ, leaving the university with 35 per cent of the bill, and the Horizons Regional Council with 15 per cent.
The university's deputy vice-chancellor for the Palmerston North campus, Professor Ian Warrington, said carparks were difficult to find before the scheme began but the free buses had removed a need to spend about $2 million providing new parking spaces.
Mr Thompson said the smart-card technology behind the scheme could be used to enable fare discounts in Auckland on buses, trains and ferries.
The association had about 6000 members in Auckland with about 175,000 employees.
As well, he said, the scheme could also be offered to other firms and the region's universities.
He will present details to a meeting in two weeks with officials of the regional council and its operating division, the Auckland Regional Transport Authority.
