Thomas Coghlan

Maybe people on the Carpatie Coast in Wellington.

Their trains to central Wellington cost a lot of money.

Maybe people in the Hutt Valley in Wellington, their trains cost a lot of money.

I'm talking about Wellington because that's where I live.

But of course, you've got the city rail link opening up in Auckland.

So there will be parts of Auckland that will be very well connected to central Auckland now.

So I think the city rail link is pretty good for the west and south of Auckland.

I think there are some pretty good connections from Emery up north as well.

There's the busway there.

So those parts of the country where you might find people who are thinking, gosh, maybe I will leave the car at home and give this a go.

If you're going to do a policy like this, there has never been a better time to launch a policy like this in some ways.

So, again, if you live in a city and you do have the option, the economy is telling you don't drive, leave your car at home.

Fuel is very expensive and try something else out.

And you have seen the data that is feeding through the Ministry of Transport publishes some data and it does show ridership is up.

Not massively.

It's really hard to shift people's rusted-on behaviour.

We are a car-dependent country.

We love to drive.

But you are seeing increased public transport use.

The other political issue, of course, is that for most of the country, geographically speaking, this is not an option at all.