The Auckland rail network spans 200km. KiwiRail is rebuilding it, bit by bit. Photo / Kiwirail
As Aotearoa’s biggest, most populated city, Auckland is a vast urban sprawl. It’s home to 1.6 million people and growing, it’s the gateway to our country for visitors and trade imports and delivers 40 per cent of the country’s GDP.
New Zealand’s success is aligned to the success of Tamaki Makaurau.
Large infrastructure takes commitment, patience and time to build. Look at the timeframes associated with the Harbour Bridge crossing. It took a team of 1000 workers four years to construct 1.2kms of road and bridge. But now Aucklanders can’t imagine life without it.
When the airport moved to Māngere in the 1960s it was controversial. People couldn’t imagine back then, what air travel would look like today and what a huge tourist industry New Zealand would achieve.
The point is that large infrastructure takes time but is worth the wait, and transforms the way we move people and freight.
It’s hard to get across the scale of what KiwiRail is achieving with our infrastructure work. The Auckland rail network spans 200km. Much of it was built more than 80 years ago. We are rebuilding it. Bit by bit. And timeframes are tight. We have three to four years to complete what would normally take a decade so it’s hardly surprising there’s disruption. We get that it’s frustrating. Bottom line is that for Tāmaki Makaurau to be a world-class city we need a well-functioning, effective public transport system that moves people and freight where they need to be, more conveniently than if they use trucks and cars on roads. Auckland can’t handle more road congestion. That’s why the work we’re doing now is an important step to make it easier for Aucklanders in the future.
A big part of this is preparing for the City Rail Link. Our work to get the network ready for this will allow it to operate at maximum effectiveness. It will transform rail travel for Aucklanders allowing the network to more than double capacity at peak. By 2035, CRL stations will transport 54,000 passengers an hour at the busiest times.
For well over a decade funding for day-to-day track maintenance hasn’t kept pace with wear and tear, as the number of passenger trips increased by more than 10 times since the 1990s and rail freight into Auckland, particularly from Port of Tauranga is increasing too.
The scale and invasive nature of the infrastructure work we are currently carrying out is significant — and we’re doing this work while rail services keep running.
This has required Auckland Transport (AT) and KiwiRail to close lines and disrupt services at times so we can deliver the volume of work in a much shorter time frame.
We also acknowledge that any unplanned disruption such as heat restrictions we experienced in January/February also add to frustration, especially when this occurs on parts of the network that have not yet been upgraded.
Where works have been completed, the benefit of the upgrades have lifted asset reliability, reduced disruption, and significantly improved train services for passengers.
For example, the reopening of the section of the Eastern Line following Rail Network Rebuild work (March 2023 — January 2024) has resulted in a 58 per cent increase in train frequency and a 35 per cent reduction in disruption to services for passengers. This greater reliability and performance prove the benefit of these works.
We’re also in a position to incrementally increase the number of containers from Ports of Auckland. We know each container carried by rail delivers $106 in positive benefits (based on a calculation of carbon emission, congestion and road maintenance reduction, along with road safety benefits). A huge benefit to Auckland’s economy and quality of life.
We look forward to progressing this opportunity with Port of Auckland and Mayor Brown.
Sustainable funding is essential for the continued maintenance and repair of the Auckland network to ensure service reliability. Collaborative work with AT and Waka Kotahi (NZTA) is being led by KiwiRail to evidence-base a comprehensive funding requirement.
The options being prepared will provide the government with choices to consider — a “risk and consequence” profile that links directly to performance and benefits passengers can expect from a range of sustained investment options.
The work we are doing pre-CRL will create a “maintainable network”. The entire Metro maintenance model will change.
We have a new management plan which identifies the repairs, replacements or upgrades needed within the rail network. The plan fundamentally shifts KiwiRail from a reactive maintenance state to a preventative long-term forecasted approach.
This will enable us to transition to preventative maintenance offering significant benefits to passengers including far fewer disruptions, proactive maintenance and renewal of assets and a more resilient, reliable, sustainable timetable with reduced disruption.
The focus is on introducing new ways of working. We will leverage technology, automation and mechanisation to increase the speed at which we can work. This will allow our teams to transition from “labour-intensive” ways of working to more machine-enabled, safer and faster operations. It will increase our productivity and use of valuable time, so we reduce disruption and allow more space on the network to run trains at greater frequency. This is international best practice and how other modern international metros are successfully operating to meet future demands.
There will be shorter shutdowns and longer forecasts with three-to-four-year cyclical maintenance. We will have the ability to segment the network to keep unaffected areas operating so trains can continue to run. We will still require time to complete necessary maintenance. However, complete shutdowns of the network beyond 2026 will no longer be a regular requirement.
We have initial funding for this through the Rail Network Investment Programme (RNIP), which outlines rail infrastructure investment nationally, and the Rail Network Growth Impact Management (RNGIM) capital programme until 2027. Beyond 2027 we need a sustainable funding model to be able to protect and maintain our network. Without this, we will be in danger of sliding back into decline.
AT and KiwiRail agree that the current funding mechanism isn’t working. The way it is set up (in Auckland and Wellington Metro) is a ‘user pays’ model that relies on the local transport agency to fund about 70 per cent of the network while KiwiRail pays the rest (for its freight on inter-regional services). NZTA funds 51 per cent of AT’s portion. We need $1.6 billion over 10 years to keep the network operating at acceptable efficiency and carry out further ‘next tier’ maintenance and renewals. Given the benefits of a well-functioning rail system for Auckland’s productivity — which is a significant part of New Zealand’s productivity — there may be a case for additional ongoing central government support. We’re in discussions with the Minister and Ministry of Transport on how to address these funding issues and whether there is a role for more centralised long-term funding.
Rail passenger numbers are expected to increase fivefold over the next 30 years and if we want to improve New Zealand’s economic productivity, we can’t afford to let the Auckland rail network slide into decline again.
This would put us back where we started (a managed decline similar to 1995-2015) with a need for intrusive, widescale maintenance and renewals, shutting large parts of the network — a vicious circle.
Here in Auckland, KiwiRail and Auckland Transport ultimately both want the same thing: a resilient and enduring funding pipeline to allow the confidence and certainty we need to plan and forecast for the long term to support the growth for Auckland and New Zealand.
Long-term future for Auckland rail Looking to the medium to long-term future, our vision for maintenance is integral to our plan to keep our network functioning effectively and meeting demand as passenger and freight numbers increase.
Our 30-year plan — the Strategic Rail Programme — produced in collaboration with AT, provides a forward look at what our rail network needs over the next three decades across a range of scenarios, from local, regional, and national perspectives. It seeks to address long-term aspirations for metro passengers, logistics operators and regional passengers and sets out a clear pathway and pipeline of planning and investment to make this a reality.
We are working 24/7 to build a network that can support increasingly frequent passenger services, with faster journey times, and greater capacity for freight trains.
The key to achieving our future plans is to secure the necessary funding pipeline and associated confidence to allow us to deliver what we need to meet ongoing future demand and deliver a world-class rail system for Auckland and New Zealand.
Red and green tape and orange cones on 'lofty' projects are the bane of Brown's existence.