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1. Introduction

1.1 Research Problem and the Population of Birkenhead
Geographic information systems and remote sensing are considered to be powerful tools for monitoring urban facilities. A fast growing environment such as the area covering suburbs located in the North Shore City of Greater Auckland Auckland (namely Birkenhead, Chatswood, Birkdale, and Beach Haven) requires special attention for its development planning (Fig. 1). Since these four suburbs appear on one remote sensing image, they are jointly known as Birkenhead Region.

Fig 1: General location of study area.
In this research bus routes and bus stops in Birkenhead region were studied. A 1994 spot image as well as a 1999 aerial photograph of the study area were used to extract the main land-use types in the region. Detailed maps for Birkenhead were used as ancillary data to study the properties of existing bus routes. Buffer zones around bus routes and bus stops and querying the database in Birkenhead were used as methods for accepting or rejecting the assumptions of the research.

Birkenhead was an important place for new migrants coming from abroad. European pioneers started to arrive at Birkenhead in 1840. Only few families were reported there by 1870. (Mc Clure, 1987, pp. 15, 23). The Birkenhead Wharf was built in 1882 to facilitate ferry transport to Auckland City. By 1956 the population of Birkenhead reached 500 people. The area was famous for its fine strawberry gardens. The sea going traffic and the strawberry gardens vanished as crowds of motor vehicles crossed the Harbour Bridge to new homes. Meanwhile, the Birkenhead Transport Company prepared for the changeover to road transport via Onewa Road and the Bridge.

The convenience of bus and car travel to Auckland radically altered the land-use of the Birkdale suburb located to the northwest of Birkenhead. In 1961, within only few years of the opening of the Harbour Bridge, Birkdale and Birkenhead’s population doubled. The population of Birkenhead increased from 6,000 in 1961 to 13,000 in 1967 and to 20,000 in 1978. This growth in population gave it a greater importance (Mc Clure, 1987, pp. 183, 197). In 1981, the population of Birkenhead exceeded 31,000 while in 1991 it reached more than 34,000. Currently, the number is estimated to have exceeded 37,500 putting Birkenhead’s population among the top suburbs in the North Shore City (Table 1).
Table 1: Total Population of Selected North Shore Suburbs (1981-2000)

Suburb	1981	1991	2000	% of Increase
Albany	5,085	8,703	14,900	71.2
Birkenhead	31,338	34,293	37517	9.4
Davenport	15,450	16,314	17,228	5.6
Glenfield	23,946	25536	27,221	6.6
Takapuna	30,981	34,095	37,537	10.1

Source: NZ Department of Statistics Percentages and estimates for 2000 were calculated by the author.

The early roads in the study area were so bad that owners of cars were forced to use chains on their wheels in winter. After it had been raining, buses and carts often sank up to their axles in soggy clay. Mr. Charles Verran started a carrying business down near Birkenhead Wharf as early as 1904. In later years he opened a big stable for his horses at the highest point in Birkenhead. The site soon became known as Verran’s Corner. In later years the corner carried on the tradition of being the centre of transport, and Birkenhead Transport Limited later taking on the site (Haddon, 1993, pp. 34-36).

Birkenhead Transport Limited is currently the major private operator of scheduled bus services on the North Shore. The realm of this company cover much more area than the four suburbs mentioned above. The scope of this research, however, is determined by the available remote sensing data. Bus transportation in Birkenhead is considered to be one of the most important services in the region. The adequacy of bus routes and bus stops is a vital aspect not only to the population of the area but also to the planners in North Shore City. Therefore, by integrating the capabilities of geographic information systems and remote sensing, bus routes and bus stops in Birkenhead Region are studied as a problem in urban transportation planning.

1.2 Research Objectives
This research has the following three main objectives:

1. To draw accurate maps showing existing bus routes and bus stops in the study area.
2. To evaluate the adequacy of Birkenhead bus routes and bus stops for the residents of the region. This is determined by generating buffer zones around the sides of the roads in the case of the bus routes and around given points in the case of bus stops.
3. To recommend modification schemes to certain routes or stops depending on the level of adequacy in both facilities. It is aimed that the percentage of a land-use cover inside certain buffer zones in the region can help in determining the acceptance or the rejection of two assumptions related to such an adequacy.

1.3 Assumptions of the Research:
This research has the following assumptions:

1. It is assumed that bus routes in the Birkenhead region are adequate if 80 percent or more of the residential or the commercial land-use are located inside a buffer zone of 300 meters from all routes.
2. It is assumed that bus stops in the Birkenhead region are adequate if 80 percent or more of the residential land-use or the commercial are located within a buffer zone of 300 meters from all bus stops.

These two assumptions are based on the author’s judgment which will allow a normal person to walk about eight minutes to catch a bus provided he can walk 40 metres per minute.

1.4 Significance of the Study:
The significance of the study is demonstrated in the following:

1. The practical nature of the study because it deals with a vital aspect of an important region in the North Shore city.
2. The fact that, to the best knowledge of the writer, there is no previous study that tried to examine the adequacy of bus routes and bus stops in the Birkenhead region.
3. It is based on recent remote sensing data as well as current information about bus services in the study region.
4. It uses the GIS capabilities of Arcinfo and Arcview in analysing and preparing final maps.

1.5 The Data
The test site is a region in the North Shore City composed of four suburbs, namely Birkenhead, Chatswood, Birkdale, and Beach Haven. These four suburbs are called collectively Birkenhead Region because they all appear on one 1994 SPOT image and on one 1999 colour aerial phtograph, both available in the database of the Department of Geography, University of Auckland under the name Birkenhead (Plate 1).

Plate 1: Remote sensing materials used in Birkenhead study: (A) 1994 SPOT images (B) 1999 aerial photograph.
The SPOT image was a colour composite of three multispectral bands acquired on 28 November 1994. Both SPOT image and the aerial photograph were geometrically rectified to the New Zealand Map Grid Coordinate System. This means that land cover maps generated from them could be directly overlaid with road data from other sources.

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