IFT - Infratil

[Zaphod]

What about parking costs?

However, i do agree about ticket pricing. They also need a fully interegrated ticket like Londons Oyster card - all you can travel (in certain areas), regardless of provider, for one flat monthly fee.

As I understand, the current problem with integrated ticketing is that the regional authority does not have the legal authority to impose such a regime. That is one aspect that the Government are attempting to address. Once this issue is ironed out, then an Oyster-type card could be introduced.

[BRICKS]

WHAT cant be understood if everything is traveling so well why is the share price trending down so will it become come the next BARGAIN..

[p2r]

In Japan you take the train because it is twice as fast and all the motorways are toll

[POSSUM THE CAT]

Zaphod A car has most of its costs in fixed items depreciation, registration, insurance and garaging remain the same no matter how little it is driven so the cost of extra mileage is in most cases fuel. And in some cases bus fares are over $2 per killometer depending on where you are travelling and the arbitrary zones rather than distance. And when the supply of cheap second hand busses from Britain and Japan dry up (as these busses do not comply with their anti pollution regulations) or we introduce similar regulations what is going to happen. The sooner the cut their losses the better. Many years ago I used to maintain busses and I have a pretty reasonable idea of the costs involved.

[QOH]

director or CEO in charge of the buses at a recent shareholder meeting. ( Actually after a few wines I had offered my services to do an onboard survey of the buses for them) He told me they work on a bus costing $2 per km to run. Was quite useful information, now whenever I'm on a Karori bus I do a head count to try and estimate if the bus I'm on is paying its way. Fills in the journey.

[POSSUM THE CAT]

As Australian tax allowance for reducing your taxable income to allow for use of your own vehicle for work related purposes was $A0.55, for a car between 1300 and 1600cc, two years ago. I think his pricing is very optimistic.

[Zaphod]

Zaphod A car has most of its costs in fixed items depreciation, registration, insurance and garaging remain the same no matter how little it is driven so the cost of extra mileage is in most cases fuel. And in some cases bus fares are over $2 per killometer depending on where you are travelling and the arbitrary zones rather than distance. And when the supply of cheap second hand busses from Britain and Japan dry up (as these busses do not comply with their anti pollution regulations) or we introduce similar regulations what is going to happen. The sooner the cut their losses the better. Many years ago I used to maintain busses and I have a pretty reasonable idea of the costs involved.

Yes I agree that most costs relating to cars are fixed, however your first post addressed the cost of running a car as the cost of putting fuel in the tank. If these other factors are taken into account then generally speaking, public transport is already a cheaper alternative.

A $2 per Km bus ride is a pretty unusual example. Either you are referring to the running cost, or perhaps this could occur from a patrons perspective if you are only travelling a short distance (i.e. from the inner border of Zone2 to the middle/outer border of Zone2) however that is far from the norm. There will always be such extreme examples for either public or private transport options.

NZ Bus's fleet is predominantly comprised of MAN, Merc and Volvo busses, almost all of which were built in NZ (with the exception of the odd-built Australian model) . The older models (MAN SL-202's, Merc 0305's, etc.) are non-compliant with emissions standards, but the modern busses used by NZ Bus and other providers such as the Volvo B7R's and MAN 12.223's etc. are all fully Euro 4/5 compliant. There really aren't many Japanese or (especially) British buses left on the roads.

The biggest problem for NZ Bus is the capital cost of new equipment, and that is quite concerning. A new Volvo B7R in city SLF configuration costs somewhere in the vicinity of $350K. In one of the updates Infratil indicated that they are placing an order for 121 new busses, of which NZ Bus will foot the bill for a sizable proportion of the cost with the rest being borne by local authorities and central Government. IMO this is a problem in such a low-margin business.

[CJ]

As Australian tax allowance for reducing your taxable income to allow for use of your own vehicle for work related purposes was $A0.55, for a car between 1300 and 1600cc, two years ago. I think his pricing is very optimistic.

I use to get 63c per KM from work. I was running a second hand jap import (2l Turbo AWD) and that worked out to be very accurate by the time I sold it (including all costs). That was several years ago before petrol prices when up but as other shave said, depreciation and maintenace add up too.

[shasta]

I use to get 63c per KM from work. I was running a second hand jap import (2l Turbo AWD) and that worked out to be very accurate by the time I sold it (including all costs). That was several years ago before petrol prices when up but as other shave said, depreciation and maintenace add up too.

I like Infratil's thinking regarding the NZ Bus business, especially in Wellington where the public transport works well.

Like QOH, i too use the Wellington bus system extensively, as it's cheap ($1 gets you most places within the city, else $2 will), reliable & extremely popular esp during the peak "business" hours.

I sold my thirsty Nissan Skyline over 3 years ago, as parking is a huge problem in the inner city & not withstanding the costs of parking, it's a hassle finding "free" parking.

Infratil would do well to replicate the Wellington model elsewhere.

The link between the buses & the train system is great.

Mind you fine warm days like today in the Nations Capital & everyones walking!

Disc: Ex Infratil shareholder

[POSSUM THE CAT]

CJ I agree so $2.00 A KM is very cheap for a bus more like $3 or $4 would be more realistic so as I said QOH saying some of infratils management was estimating the running cost of a bus at $2.00 per Km sounds Rediculous