Public transport 2045 Ngā waka tūmatanui 2045

Our working paper, Public transport 2045, was intended to provoke dialogue, and to challenge the assumptions that public transport in 2045 would be only slightly different from 2015 — or alternatively, that it would look completely different in every way.

The paper sets out:

• a summary of prevailing views on the future of public transport in New Zealand, based on our interviews with transport experts and other stakeholders
• 4 future scenarios that imagine how automation and urbanisation could affect urban transport in the future, and
• what the implications of increasing automation and shared mobility might be for our public transport systems.

Public transport scenarios in 2045

The 4 scenarios we developed were:

• Shared shuttles — Choices abound for those willing to share. Ride-sharing and minibus services shuttle many people around town, when they aren’t walking, biking, and scooting around compact urban centres.
• Connected corridors — Intelligent networks of automated buses, rail services and cars rapidly move people on major transport corridors. Travellers are automatically guided along routes and serviced by their all-knowing personalised travel apps.
• Mobility market — Cars rule, for both personal travel and ride-sharing. Travellers purchase customised ‘mobility packages’ with prepaid allowances to use on different travel modes and services, including bus and rail options.
• Personalised pods — Fleets of autonomous ‘pods’ have replaced all bus services and most privately owned cars. Pods offer affordable on-demand travel from point to point, with people using pods privately or sharing rides for cheaper trips.

Insights from the project

Our research showed that public transport needs to be at the core of a future where shared mobility dominates or we risk facing higher levels of congestion and more cars in our cities.   

In high-density urban areas, we envisaged a greater need for rapid transit systems – that is, high frequency buses, light rail, and trains travelling on dedicated corridors – to move large volumes of people quickly, safely and cleanly.

We identified opportunities to connect rapid transit services with other parts of a shared mobility system. For example, people could:

• travel the first and last legs to or from public transport stations using shared shuttles, bikes and scooters
• travel on demand-responsive buses and shuttles if they live in low-density suburban areas
• use personalised apps to plan and pay for their travel
• get health benefits from using high quality infrastructure which encourages more active travel, such as walking and cycling, to and from public transport stations.

Although this working paper focused on ways that new technologies and services could affect transport and our cities, an underlying message was that our future should not simply be technology-led. We would need to be discerning about new technologies, and shape them in ways that improve urban liveability and people’s wellbeing far into the future.

To develop a clearer picture of how people currently think about the future of public transport in New Zealand, we interviewed 50 public transport experts and stakeholders from New Zealand and further afield.

Interviewees included central and local government transport advisors, public transport operators, community groups, vehicle-sharing and ride-sharing service providers, and academics.

There was a general consensus that in 2045 much of our current public transport system will still be in place, although:

• more diverse groups of people will use public transport
• high-frequency services will use fixed routes while other journeys will be served by services that respond to demand — for example, ride-sharing
• the vehicles we use for public transport will be more comfortable
• travel times will be shorter, and
• there will be a wider range of transport providers.

Many among those interviewed thought that rail would be fully autonomous, car ownership would decline, and ticketing would be more like the way we buy a telecommunications plan.

We used the information from these interviews to develop 4 scenarios that explore how public and shared transport could be affected by 2 major changes to life in our cities — vehicle automation and increasing urban density.