CRL Time Savings

For a little bit of Friday fun I've modified a rather nifty looking map for the CRL.

My image doesn't quite have the polish of the original but what it does is how how much faster the CRL will make trips for western line users to some of the key existing destination.

So the first image we have is the original which shows the travel times expected post CRL to Aotea Station. From the looks of things the CRL is some 20mins faster than the existing western line, which it is assuming you were previously taking the train to Britomart and then walking up to Aotea Square

In the next image I have modified the original to show the travel time saving each step of the way. As we can see the saving is generally nothing until you get to Mt Eden, from here it depends where you are going.

If you're going to Britomart you can shave 7mins off your trip taking the CRL, If you're going to Newmarket however you're looking at staying in your train seat for another 20mins, longer if you're going to Grafton Station.

Important to note here however is that you can easily change trains at either the new K Road station (depending on Mt Eden Links) or modified Mt Eden Station (Kingsland depending on the final form).

Depending on your luck you may have a seamless transfer and so it will only take another 5mins or so to get to Grafton or Newmarket. And depending on the weather you could always walk. If you have bad luck it could take another 10mins which isn't all that bad.

You also have the option of taking the Newmarket train (the one that doesn't go through the CRL), this means your train will be less frequent but when it comes it will be just as fast as the current train. 

To put this into the context of the existing travel times however, right now Mt Eden to Newmarket takes 5mins, post CRL we have a few options:

• CRL route = 20mins, 400% longer
• Mt Eden fast transfer = 10mins, 200% longer
• Mt Eden slow transfer = 15mins, 300% longer.
• Newmarket train + waiting = 5mins, no change but less frequent.

To finish off, lets not forget the CRL is not about improving travel times to Newmarket, its about improving travel times and capacity to the CBD. This is where the big benefits are and it's also where most of the customers are.

What is Congestion

Back with a new post at long last.

I've been busy working on a number of major project tenders for the past few months but I thought it was time to create another post.

For this one I'm going to talk about congestion, what it is and how levels of it can be changed.

What is it Congestion

Congestion in its most basic sense is rather simple, its what happens when you get too many people doing the same thing. Congestion happens everywhere from on roads, inside a train carriage, along a railway line and even at the super market.

The initial effect of congestion is to discourage people from doing what they want to do. Each person has their own level of tolerance however the general rule is that the less congestion the better, unless your in a situation where congestion adds atmosphere such as a sports game.

From a transport perspective congestion makes your journey take longer and less pleasant. Even if the level of congestion doesn't make the trip take any longer levels of comfort are reduced, this is most evident systems such as trains and ferries where a user may choose to avoid traveling at a certain time to ensure they can have a seat on their own.

Another aspect of congestion is the interaction between other users and systems on your journey. For example, every intersection you go through on a journey results in a delay which adds to the level of congestion experienced and reduces the capacity of each approach at the intersection. This delay holds true for multiple form of transport such as road and rail systems and is the reason why we look at grade separation where they are high levels of interaction.

Impacts of Congestion

The two main impacts of congestion are longer travel times and the reduction of travel. Longer travel times reduces the distance an individual will travel which in turn reduces where they can choose to live, where the work, where they spend their money, what they do for recreation and how much free time they have.

The other impact is wasted time and lost productivity. The more time spent traveling the less time is spent doing what we are actually wanting to do, be it working in an office or relaxing on the beach. This loss of productivity does't just effect the individual but the community in general. When travel times are short and reliable we can build inefficiencies and greater levels of centralization.

For example, modern super markets are large warehouse sized developments that are able to provide lower prices by buying in bulk, minimizing transport and lower staffing costs. These developments are only possible by having a large throughput of customers. In order to have this they need to have either a densely populated catchment or a large catchment. If the transport network in the vicinity of the supermarket is too congested people will be put off from going to that particular supermarket and go elsewhere.

Reducing Congestion

Now that we know what congestion is, what happens when we try to reduce it.
To be in the position where you are trying to reduce congestion you would have to assume that congestion is a problem and therefore you are suffering from the impacts of congestion. In other words, people have already been taking steps to avoid the congestion themselves by choosing not to travel, traveling at different times, traveling on different modes or working/living in locations that aren't their first choice.

This means that when you do something to try and reduce congestion the improvement you make may result in these people coming back. This may give the impression there has been no change when in actual fact there has.

The most common place we see this is induced demand. This is often told as a phenomenon inherent with road construction and often used in a negative sense as an argument against road improvement. Induced demand however does not limit itself to roads but can go anywhere, it is simply humans taking advantage of the options they are given.

This then brings us to the question, is congestion the problem that we need to address or is it something else. We can certainly reduce congestion, we can put other disincentives on the transport system so that people don't want to use it, we could add so much capacity that everyone can use it all at once. But with finite resources and a desire to have a city that is not defined by its transport system means these aren't really an option.

This is what I will look into with my next posts.