Stakeholder Prioritisation of Public Transport Policy Goals in Auckland, New Zealand

The creation of a metropolitan-wide Auckland Council (AC) in New Zealand provides an opportunity to reprioritise transport policy goals. This paper uses Q-methodology to explore stakeholders’ preferences for public transport development in the city. Three categories of stakeholders ranked 24 opinion statements sampled from recent central and local government planning and policy documents and the manifesto’s of the three largest political parties in New Zealand. The by-person factor analysis using PQMethod software, based on factor scores (Z scores), identifies five distinct viewpoints on policy development. There is strong support for an ‘integrated’ approach to public transport services, and a demand for investment and efficient and effective co-ordination between central and local government. This paper concludes that there is broad agreement over how to reprioritise transport policy goals to make institutional change happen in the aftermath of the creation of Auckland Council.