Part 6: Performance reporting could be improved

6.1
Auckland Transport is a substantive council-controlled organisation.¹¹ As such, it must:

• prepare and adopt a statement of intent to state publicly its activities and intentions for the year and the objectives that it will contribute to;
• provide an opportunity for Auckland Council to influence the organisation's direction; and
• provide a basis for its accountability to Auckland Council.

6.2
We expected Auckland Transport to inform the public about how reliable its services are. We also expected Auckland Transport to report its reliability performance to Auckland Council.

6.3
Auckland Transport's performance information is reported in its statement of intent, annual report, and quarterly reports to the Council's Transport, Resilience and Infrastructure Committee. However, the more detailed information about passenger numbers, punctuality, and reliability that Auckland Transport reports does not include information about all types of transport.

6.4
In our view, there are opportunities for Auckland Transport to provide further insights that would enhance its reporting to Auckland Council and the public.

Information for Auckland Council and the public could be more detailed

6.5
In our 2015 report Governance and accountability of council-controlled organisations, we explained that, although there is no single model for monitoring council-controlled organisations, a good monitoring system will have certain features. These include:

• agreement on the statement of intent;
• regular reporting by the council-controlled organisation (at least quarterly) on progress against the objectives in the statement of intent; and
• a good relationship between the local authority and the council-controlled organisation, at both governance level and officer level, which enables issues to be dealt with early.

6.6
Auckland Transport must report on its operations quarterly. It must also prepare an annual report within three months of the end of each financial year.

6.7
Auckland Council's Transport, Resilience and Infrastructure Committee provides oversight of Auckland Transport. Auckland Transport's Chief Executive updates the Committee on strategic issues, operational matters, and key performance measures each month.

6.8
Auckland Transport also provides updates and reports on specific projects to Auckland's 21 local boards. The local boards are responsible for local-level governance at Auckland Council through decision-making on local matters. They also contribute to regional strategies, plans, policies, and decisions.

6.9
We saw some examples of Auckland Transport providing Auckland Council with progress updates and some performance information, including about passenger numbers.

6.10
However, we saw a mismatch in expectations between Auckland Council and Auckland Transport about the level of information that Auckland Transport should routinely provide.

6.11
Staff at the Council told us that they would like more detailed information than they currently receive in the statement of intent and annual reporting. Those staff told us this was needed to inform quality advice. We also heard this affects the ability of elected members to communicate effectively with the public and stakeholders because they cannot provide any more information than what Auckland Transport has already reported.

6.12
Auckland Transport told us that it supplies detailed information to the Council and elected members, and that it has recently improved the advice and information that it reports to the Council, particularly to the Transport, Resilience and Infrastructure Committee.

6.13
As discussed in Part 5, we consider that Auckland Transport could produce more meaningful insights that better reflect passenger experience. These insights might also help to align expectations between Auckland Transport and the Council. In our view, Auckland Transport and the Council need to work together to agree what information is appropriate to support Auckland Council to effectively carry out its governance role.

Performance information should be more accessible to the public

6.14
Feedback on the Public Transport Plan expressed dissatisfaction with public transport, including because of delays and disruptions. The feedback said that many Aucklanders felt that Auckland Transport was not listening to them and what they wanted. In a December 2024 survey, only 33% of respondents felt that Auckland Transport listened and responded to them.

6.15
There is considerable public interest in how well Auckland Transport provides public transport. However, to understand how well Auckland Transport is performing, people must look at its statement of intent, annual report, and updates to the Transport, Resilience, and Infrastructure Committee on Auckland Transport's or the Council's websites. Much of this information is at a high level and not available by type of service.

6.16
It is important that performance information about public transport reliability is available and accessible to the public. Effective performance reporting that clearly explains what is being delivered and the difference that is being made for New Zealanders helps to maintain trust in public organisations. We encourage Auckland Transport to better inform the public about its performance, including by providing improved insights that are not only more detailed than the information it currently provides but also more easily accessible.

6.17
Auckland Transport provides patronage information for bus, rail, and ferry services on its website. This includes a daily patronage spreadsheet and monthly patronage data backdated to July 2005. Auckland Transport's board reports include monthly patronage reports that provide a trend analysis, forecasts, and targets.

6.18
Auckland Transport also provides bus performance reports on the same webpage. These are spreadsheets that contain monthly performance information about boardings, boardings for each service hour, punctuality, and reliability for each bus route in Auckland. The report also provides information about route changes. Information is available from 2019 onwards.

6.19
This performance information is valuable because it allows the public to understand how bus services are performing at a more detailed level than in Auckland Transport's accountability documents. However, there is a lot of information, it is not in an ideal format, and to understand performance the public would need to analyse it themselves. Auckland Transport does not provide equivalent performance information for ferries and trains.

6.20
We see significant opportunities to improve the accessibility of this information, such as by providing insights in a customisable format where someone can easily find information about the routes they take.

6.21
Auckland Transport staff told us that work to improve this public performance reporting is under way, and we have seen some early work. The draft reports appear to be an improvement on what the website currently provides.

6.22
These reports would allow people to filter information about patronage, reliability, and punctuality by date, type of transport (including ferry and rail), and specific route. We also saw graphs showing trends in the year and month to date.

6.23
This is an encouraging development. Auckland Transport told us that this work is expected to go live by September 2025.

11: Substantive council-controlled organisations are wholly owned Auckland Council entities that are responsible for delivering a significant service or activity on behalf of Auckland Council or that own or manage assets with a value of more than $10 million. A substantive council-controlled organisation is a concept in only Auckland's local government arrangements.