Commuters on Auckland's western rail line will not get more rush hour trains when the City Rail Link (CRL) opens later this year — with emerging plans for a "temporary transitional timetable" to run for the first six months.
A transit advocate has warned this could mean some passengers may face longer waits than they do today, despite the $5.5 billion project's promised long-term benefits.
Auckland Transport (AT) has confirmed stations between Mt Eden and Swanson will maintain current service levels of six trains per hour during the transition period, rather than the eight trains per hour in the peak direction that was tested in January trials.
"The transitional timetable, which will be tested in April, will allow us to progressively build frequency over the period following launch. A common practice when opening new major rail projects around the world," a spokesperson for AT said.
"At peak, there will often be shorter wait times between trains than current services, however, there will be irregular wait times during the temporary transitional timetable period, before additional services are introduced."
Six trains an hour would still run - the same as today.
But where commuters currently get a train consistently every 10 minutes, the spacing under the transitional timetable would be uneven — with some waits of 15 minutes during the peak — due to the need to time services to run through to the eastern line.
Auckland councillors were expected to receive an update on the CRL project tomorrow as focus grows on the public transport's role amid the national fuel crisis.
Trialled network included trains every seven minutes
Details of the reduced "transitional timetable" followed January trials for the new rail plan, which is understood to have hit trouble at critical train junctions.
Those trials had put trains through their paces with seven-to-eight-minute gaps between trains during peak hour for western line stations.
But there would now be "staged increases" to services, a spokesperson for AT added, which would eventually fulfil promises of "more trains, more often" at peak to all stations.
Train commuters are being forced onto replacement buses during the testing. (Source: Breakfast)
"Consistent with international practice and lessons learned from overseas rail projects, we're planning a staged approach to introducing higher frequencies for the new services," a spokesperson for the transport agency said.
"We are planning for a temporary transitional timetable in the early months of CRL operations - based on a new timetable, but with some services removed during peak times to provide reliable services while changes bed in."
Western train riders still expected to see time savings
Transport officials said they expected to provide increased services "within approximately six months" after the CRL opens in the second half of 2026.
"However, we need to carry out the April timetable testing and monitor how the new network performs after opening to confirm how long the temporary timetable should be in place," the AT spokesperson said.
The agency added that the CRL would still deliver "big cuts in journey times" for western line passengers from day one, since the underground rail link eliminates the need for trains to reverse at Newmarket, significantly shortening trips into the city centre.
"It will be easier to connect with people and places by public transport, for example direct East-West trains that connect to three rapid bus routes," a spokesperson said.
Such were the anticipated benefits for the western line that the Government upzoned five inner-suburban stations along the route for high-density apartment development.
But beyond end-to-end trip times, the timetable planning has worried public transport advocates, who say the issue is not just the number of trains but how they are spaced.
From 10-minute gaps to 15-minute gaps
Prominent Auckland transport advocate Matt Lowrie told 1News that western line commuters would face materially worse peak frequencies in the transitional timetable.
"You're going to have some services, where you might have six or seven minutes between trains, and then you'll have nothing for 15 minutes," said the director of the Greater Auckland advocacy group.
Lowrie said that uneven spacing would cause a cascade effect - trains arriving after longer gaps would be more crowded, slower to load, and more likely to cause downstream delays across the network.
The concerns are compounded by a separate earlier cut already flagged for counter-peak services on the western line - trains heading away from the city in the morning and toward it in the afternoon - which were initially planned to drop to four an hour.
AT confirmed to 1News that next month's testing would examine options for the counter-peak frequency, including the impact of more services on level crossing barrier times.
"We will be testing options on this during the upcoming April network-wide testing, including measuring impact on level crossing barrier downtime," a spokesperson said.
"We will be able to confirm more details after results from April tests have been analysed and incorporated."
AT's CRL readiness head Mark Lambert told councillors in a briefing last month that the January test - known internally as Test Case 72 - had identified "pressure points on the existing rail network" and other operational issues.
A second round of network-wide testing is scheduled for between April 13 and 15, requiring a full shutdown of the rail network. Further closures are planned over Easter and Anzac Day weekend for maintenance and signal upgrade work.
Lowrie said the rail network's reputation was already fragile after six years of disruptive rebuild work, with patronage still well below pre-pandemic levels.
The public transport advocate added there was no firm guarantee a more fulsome timetable could be delivered within a six-month timeframe after the City Rail Link opens, given that rail network junction constraints were long-standing infrastructure issues.
He said the lack of prior communication about a transitional timetable was concerning, though AT has suggested it had always been part of internal planning.
"It is common to slowly introduce services to build up something like this. We see it most recently with the Melbourne [Metro Tunnel], but we've seen other projects around the world — Crossrail (Elizabeth Line in London), others like that," he said.
Officials take the first passenger trip on Auckland's City Rail Link after numerous budget blowouts and delays. (Source: 1News)
"It is a transitional timetable, and it's not uncommon to see a transition into a full peak, but normally you don't see a reduction in service quality as a result of something like this.
"Places like Melbourne and others, they talked about it for a long time in advance ... If this was always the plan, they should have been having really strong communications around this for a long time."
The CRL was expected to open in the second half of the year, though transport officials have been tight-lipped about a specific month.
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