The Super Gold Card loot

C4FFF obtained the official information figures on how much Fullers has raked in from the Government Super Gold Card subsidies.
A tidy sum of $756,000 went straight to Fullers' bottom line as it was achieved and received without any increase in costs for the company: hardly any extra staff or sailing had to be put on the Waiheke run (and it showed in the groaning boats over the summer).
The Herald reports:

Excursions to the island by an average of just over 200 pensioners a day accounted for almost a quarter of the Government's contribution to free off-peak travel on trains, buses and ferries throughout the Auckland region. [...] Campaign 4 Fair Ferry Fares spokeswoman Cathy Urquhart, who obtained the Government subsidy breakdown from the transport authority, says she is not begrudging senior citizens and war pensioners the freedom of her island.
"That's absolutely fine, seeing them all over the island," she said yesterday. "But at the same time we've got young people having to move off the island because they can't afford the fares. Fullers is pocketing a huge benefit from the Super Gold card scheme and the falling diesel prices, but haven't yet passed on those savings in a fair and transparent way."
Dr Urquhart's group campaigned fiercely against increases in ferry fares in October after Fullers blamed hefty fuel and maintenance cost rises. Although Fullers has since reduced one fare and also partly rescinded increases on other routes, the group has continued to press for more cuts as diesel prices have kept falling.
It issued a table yesterday claiming that the monthly Waiheke fare was now 23 per cent higher in terms of how much diesel it could buy than an average level since mid-2005.

Fullers responded with the usual bleating of other rising costs and the purchase of two inappropriate vessels from Tasmania who can't do the Waiheke run when the wind is blowing. But no response of the hypocrisy of using diesel hikes to increase fares and then denying a fare discount when diesel prices are at 2 year lows.
The drop in patronage that "has now been stemmed" was due to the gouging the company indulged in last year. Ferries were the only public transport mode that lost customers last year. It's not rocket science to find out why.
So now Fullers pockets are lined with out tax dollars, plus monopoly fares. Congratulations, Brian Souter, you bought a money printing press.

After dark rip off

Something I hadn't noticed before, not being a casual ferry ticket buyer, but has apparently been going on for yonks. When you want to take the Fullers ferry from Waiheke later in the evening you cannot buy a ticket at Matiatia wharf because all the staff have gone home for the night. You have to buy a ticket on the boat. But Fullers charges an extra $5 on top of your fare for the privilege.

So if I get this straight: you have to pay a $5 surcharge even though the Fullers saves on closing its ticket counter.
And this is not the case at the Auckland wharf.

Four words (borrowed from Catherine Tate): What a fucking liberty.

Come on Fullers, where's our pay off?

We all remember that breathless and melodramatic press release by Fullers in August last year announcing that due to the eye popping diesel prices, ferry fares needed to rise from $300 to $344. The diesel price was emphasised in their justification to gouge us.

Now that the diesel prices have collapsed over the last three months to levels ($0.97c/litre) seen in August 2005, December 2005 and February 2007, we could be forgiven for thinking that fares could be restored to those contemporary levels too. What is good for Fullers should be after all be good for those customers that keep laying the golden eggs for Infratil.

So, come on, Fullers, the fares should drop to $260 a month if you had any sense of integrity (and were faithful to your own PR spin)

We'll Take You There..Well Actually, We Won't!

Last week I was left stranded and speechless with two fellow passengers as the 5pm ferry left at 459pm by the Max Electronic Board which shows departures. We were actually there at 458pm. We argued with the guy closing the gate - the ramp was already up - but he insisted that he 'had let three people on already' (a quota of late people??) and that the 'Captain's watch' said it was time to go. In vain did we show him the Max time, the other clock time, and our own timekeeping devices! All this while a crew member who could have let down the ramp was clearly in view. Two of us missed commitments on the island. What was especially galling was that this member of staff (Brian) didn't even apologise, not once.

We decided to fill in the half hour between ferries by filling in synchronised complaint forms. In their reply to my complaint, Fullers say 'they agree that there is an issue with the synchronisation of clocks on the wharf' and 'have in fact just discussed this matter with ARTA'. No apology for the rude member of staff. They do promise that they are working on this 'to ensure that there is a standard departure time our customers can rely on', but no timescale for this is given!

I'd really like to know, too, whether the ramp goes up at the point of departure, or a minute or thirty seconds prior. They need to be absolutely clear about this. Is the last boarding time actually one minute to departure? People could be forgiven for thinking that if the ferry departs at 5pm, they can get there just seconds before. It wouldn't do any harm for Fullers to be completely clear about what their boarding processes are, would it? Of course, this would necessitate seeing things from the point of view of the customer, something that monopolies don't have to do..

Petrolwatch

From the AA press release:

Fuel prices were steadier for the month of February compared to January, with a litre of petrol ultimately ending the month just one cent higher than at the start. According to AA PetrolWatch, 91 octane petrol began the month on $1.63 per litre in the main centres, rising to $1.72, before falling to $1.64. By comparison, diesel prices fell from $1.04 per litre to $1.01, after briefly rising to $1.07 earlier in the month.
AA Senior Policy Analyst Mark Stockdale says “international refined petrol prices stabilised during the month after increasing all through January. Refined prices then began to fall in late February and pump prices followed. However, the size of the pump price drop was diminished by a fall in the New Zealand exchange rate, which then put the brakes on another price reduction.”
“While international refined diesel prices, like crude oil, have remained fairly stable since the start of the year, they also began to fall in late February, which led to the lowest diesel pump price since April 2007.”
The lower diesel prices have seen the gap between diesel and petrol increase to 63 cents, from as little as 27 cents during the peak fuel prices in July 2008.
“Diesel users are currently having a good run from the lower prices, after being badly hit in the pocket last year. Currently, a two-litre diesel car will be saving about $1000 in fuel costs over 14,000 kilometres compared to an equivalent petrol-engined car, or $484 when including the cost of purchasing Road User Charges,” says Mr Stockdale.
According to AA PetrolWatch, this time last year petrol was retailing for $1.75 per litre and diesel $1.29 per litre.

So diesel is down just under 3% in the month. Straight to the Fullers bottom line, again.

A "free" bus system

It pays to occasionally look overseas for examples of how other communities tackle their transport problems.
One interesting experiment is the Belgian city of Hasselt (pop. 70,000), whose City Council in 1997 decided to (partly) subsidise bus travel within the city, making it free for residents to use. It's called the zero fare system.
After 11 years of operation, a few national politicians are now demanding a scientific study into the social and economic effects and effectiveness of that system.
The costs are estimated to be "almost 5m euro" (about NZ$12m) a year, borne by the City Council, the regional Flemish Government and national public transport company De Lijn. In cost distribution terms, all Flemish people pay 50 euro cents a year, but Hasselt residents pay 21 euro a year in local tax to pay for the free bus.
The uptake of the free bus system increased 13-fold since 1997, but is in relative terms actually quite limited: only 9.3% of residents use buses for commuting purposes. Other cities without a zero fare system have actually a higher uptake. This is leading to the conclusion that it's not the fare level but the frequency and public transport network density which largely determines whether people will forsake using their cars for commuting.

Waiheke Bus "optional" routes

I seem to strike particularly terrible bus drivers on Waiheke. They are either late, don't know where they are going or batty.
On Sunday night getting slow route 3 home to Surfdale I expected to get off at a bus stop in Wellington Road. But instead the driver went straight ahead to Ostend without making the customary detour through East Surfdale.
When remarking to him that he forgot to turn left he said that the detour is "optional" and I should have asked him before we started at Matiatia.
I had never heard of optional bus routes on Waiheke. Are there many of them? Is the Waiheke Bus Company really a taxi company and if you ask the driver nicely he'll drop you off at your door? (Considering the huge fares the WBC is charging, the taxi companies in many cases in price-competitive against the bus!) Or does "optional" mean "when the bus driver can be bothered"?
I was also wondering how long passengers at "optional" bus stops have to wait until a bus appears.

Pier 2 Auckland

We mustn't forget the other end of our commuting ordeal, the wharf system in Auckland City, which is maintained and financed by (mostly) the passenger levies on Waiheke travellers. The dispute between Auckland City and Fullers over the wharf tax (which is in practice a "departure tax" similar to what used to be levied separately at Auckland International Airport) is still ongoing and unresolved and still being collected by Fullers and still sitting in a high interest earning account. But that isn't the subject of my entry here.

This morning the 8am Superflyte docked at the western end of Pier 2, where the Halfmoon Bay ferries depart from. It has for years had an impressive double gangway, complete with a somewhat aesthetically pleasing canopy and hydraulic floatation and levitation devices. The problem is that it has been months (I can't recall the last time) since it has last been used by disembarking passengers. All have to use the lower gangway, no matter how heavy the demand is, leading to delays in disembarkation. Why is this? Is it another engineering white elephant like the Matiatia $360,000 sheep run? Does anyone actually know, let alone care? Hello, come in, ARTA?

C4FFF on Waiheke Radio

Via Shirin: Local radio programme, Vocal Local, broadcasting on Waiheke Radio (88.3FM and 107.4FM), will interview Cathy Urquhart on what's going on with C4FFF.

Free showers on Superflyte too

Not only has the Quickcat ongoing problems with leaking airconditioning units spouting water all over passenger seats (have these people never heard of Legionnaire's disease?), Superflyte now has water leak problems with its system too. The middle gangway upstairs now resembles a dripping forest. At least it goes on the carpet and not on the seats.
Soppy carpet, hmmmmm.