Upper Habour Bus change a step towards rapid transit
by Matt Lowrie
It appears that Auckland Transport is finally set to improve Auckland's busiest non-frequent bus route, the 120.
As highlighted in my post a month ago on Auckland's busiest bus routes, the 120 is the busiest route that doesn't already run frequently all day/week and carries more passengers than many other frequent services. It was also the busiest non-frequent bus route prior to COVID too.
In 2024 the 120 had around 771,000 boardings and notably that was up 18.1% from 652k boardings pre-COVID, making it one of only a small number of routes that has grown over the last five years. It is one of an even smaller group that grew without any major changes to the service with only one minor change in November 2023 when the Northwest changes were made, but ridership was already back to pre-COVID levels by then.
The route even does pretty well on metric of boardings per service hour - the total number of hours buses are operational for. For 2024 the route averaged 36 boardings per service hour, well above AT's target for the route of 15-24.
So what is the 120?
The Route and Service
The 120 runs between Henderson and Constellation Busway Station via Westgate and delivering people to these three key destinations helps to explain why it is so well used for a non-frequent service, it's a route that does many different things. There is also an addendum to the route where some of services in the morning and afternoon peaks will run along the busway to Akoranga Station in order to serve some of the schools in the area, but they only do this on school days.
The route is also important because it's the only one that currently crosses through the Upper Harbour area and for a few decades now the city's planned rapid transit network maps have shown a route through this area.
The full route runs every 30 minutes throughout the day but at peak times there are additional services to and from Westgate. Prior to the Northwest changes in November 2023 these extra services started/terminated at Hobsonville. The 'SCH' services in the timetable below are the ones that extend to Akoranga, though I think AT have the labels for the 7:00 service around the wrong way.
Despite how busy it is, and the need for a future rapid transit corridor through the area, the route suffers heavily from a complete lack of any bus priority. Even the bus priority added to Fred Taylor Dr recently aren't of any use because the lanes are in the centre of the road and only lead to/from the motorway so are only useful for the WX1, meaning the 120 has to keep sitting in traffic with other vehicles.
The lack of reliability is really highlighted by the timetable. During the middle of the day the route is scheduled to take about 51 minutes (google suggests a car trip at this time would take 20-35 minutes) but at peak time it is scheduled to take 80 minutes and especially at this time of the year, even that is often not achieved.
The main culprit for this is congestion on Upper Harbour Dr and Albany Highway and that is reflected in the timetable if we break down the times between each of the key locations mentioned. The Greenhithe to Constellation section makes up more than half of the additional travel time, though in personal experience it is often more than that. I've experienced buses multiple times that have had to wait for minutes at a time for the timetable to catch up at Westgate, Hobsonville and Greenhithe but then arrive at Constellation late.
This video I took a while ago only captures some of the congestion in the area. It starts only the very end of Upper Habour Dr and congestion can easily extend a kilometre or more prior to the start of the video.
120 to become the 12
The upgrading of the 120 to become the frequently running 12 has been on the cards for a long time but has been regularly pushed back to save money. Most recently this was meant to happen as part of the other Northwest improvements that went live in November 2023.
Assuming the recent concerns over public transport funding don't delay it again, it appears this change will finally happen next month and will mean the service will run every 15 min, 7am to 7pm, 7 days a week and is being funded out of the Council's Climate Action Transport Targeted Rate.
Along with just running more services, a consultation late last year also highlights AT will make a sensible change to allow it to avoid some of the worst morning peak congestion by making use of the motorway.
I'm sure the motorway route will have its own challenges. For one the Albany Highway off-ramp gets notoriously congested in the morning peak with traffic often backing up well down the motorway and motorway shoulder. Meanwhile a new route, the 902 will be introduced to service the route previously taken by the 120.
As someone who has used the 120 quite a bit, I think this change is good. My anecdotal observations were that there was a lot of ridership from Greenhithe but very little ridership that came from the section being replaced. The faster and more reliable journey should also help usage to grow further.
Future enhancements?
While a full busway style solution is going to be decades away, I think this change also highlights a way for AT to progressively deliver an interim rapid transit service for this corridor (and potentially other corridors). It would need a bit of infrastructure to enable, like stations and potentially even new motorway ramps but over time other parts of the route could progressively be shifted to the motorway corridor too, further speeding up services.
Essentially, how could Auckland Transport and NZTA deliver a WX1 style solution between Westgate and Constellation.
We will wait to hear exactly when the service is scheduled to change because it will be great to see it finally happen.
I believe the timetable is displaying correctly. Stop F is the terminating stop for inbound services from Sunset Road entrance.
It would've been nice to see the 120 improvements come as Tranzurban take over the operation of the route, but hopefully it happens asap!