The reliability of Auckland's overhauled train network is on the line from its first service, councillors have warned, with delays or cancellations risking the reputation of the soon-to-be-opened $5.5 billion City Rail Link (CRL).
The warning came at Auckland Council's transport committee meeting on Tuesday, the last update on the project to councillors before it opens to passengers on September 13.
Manurewa-Papakura councillor Daniel Newman put the risk directly to officials, saying the opening would be judged not on a ribbon cutting but on whether the trains ran on time.
"The opening period is going to be successful until you get a delay or cancellation. You have to avoid that. How confident are you that you've done everything you reasonably can that you won't get a delay or cancellation that stuffs up this new timetable?"
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He gestured to a reporter sat behind him.
"I can almost write the story for him if you get this wrong."
Bus replacements, along with day- and weekend-long track shutdowns, have become routine for Auckland train commuters over the past several years, with many disruptions put down to track faults that a disruptive multi-year rebuild was meant to fix.
Successive governments have invested more than half a billion dollars into "rebuilding" track infrastructure, which is now set to be tested in the glare of the CRL's opening.
Auckland One Rail chief executive Martin Kearney said on Tuesday that confidence was high in the new train timetables but stopped short of ruling out trouble on day one.
"The timetable itself has been well tested to the extent that we have high confidence that it can recover from an incident. However, I can't predict – an incident could easily occur on the opening day," Kearney said.
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"I have to say, on the back of where we currently are, we've had a good few months of high performance, which helps us with higher confidence as we go into opening.
"We couldn't be in a better position for opening."
Maungakiekie-Tāmaki councillor Josephine Bartley raised a recent false fire alarm at Waitematā (Britomart) station that triggered cancellations across rail lines in the city.
"With this new thing that we're doing and more connections, will it be fallible to one incident over here, and that disrupts the whole network?" she said.
"How resilient is it going to be, and will it just keep going?"
Kearney said the new design was more resilient in normal running, with greater separation between lines and crews centred on single routes to stop delays cascading.
But he conceded the tunnel's shared stations remained a chokepoint.
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"If that takes place in one of the CRL stations, that absolutely has the potential for widespread disruption," he said.
The warnings landed as officials also confirmed the project had cleared its final regulatory hurdle. City Rail Link Ltd chief executive Patrick Brockie told the committee the last rail regulator sign-off from New Zealand Transport Agency had arrived that morning.
"From a compliance perspective, the project's in excellent health," he said.
To brace for the launch, officials have built what Kearney described as "the most coordinated response we've ever had before in transport in Auckland for such an event".
That included "hot spare" trains and crews stationed across the network, and all 40 passenger railway stations in Auckland staffed on opening day.
The very first passenger train to enter the CRL will leave Ōtāhuhu at 4.50am on September 13, with the day-one timetable to be locked into Auckland Transport's online trip planner this weekend so passengers can check their new services.
Extra services will run until 3pm on the opening Sunday to cater for an anticipated spike in interest, following three "first look" open weekends that drew almost 45,000 people.
The CRL is a 3.5km tunnel under the city centre that joins Auckland's existing suburban lines together, turning the downtown Britomart terminus into a through-station.
More night trains to come – AT
The redrawn network will open on a reduced "transitional" timetable before ramping up within six months, AT rail services group manager Mark Lambert re-confirmed.
A reduced start is partly a legacy of testing in January, with congestion at rail junctions during full-scale rehearsals forcing officials to discard initial "day one" plans.
It means most stations will keep six trains an hour at peak rather than eight, as originally intended, with waits stretching to as long as 15 minutes.
The first round of improvements was due in November and December.
Lambert said that would extend the eight-trains-an-hour service west from Kingsland through to Henderson, and stretch evening services on Friday and Saturday nights.
"Friday and Saturdays in that November and December improvement, we will increase the 15-minute frequencies through to around 11.00 to 11.30pm," Lambert said, with last services then running at 30-minute intervals through to between midnight and 1.30am.
He said the operator was also in talks with KiwiRail about improving Thursday nights.
"We are … engaging with KiwiRail as to whether they can reschedule part of their maintenance, that they would do early ramp downs on Thursday evenings as well."
A second round of increases is planned for around February, before the six-month mark, lifting southern line services between Ōtāhuhu and the city centre and, "subject to engagement" with KiwiRail, extending improvements through to Pukekohe.
Sean Sweeney said politicians cancelling one project to start another is driving up prices. (Source: 1News)
Pressed by North Shore councillor Richard Hills on whether the ramp-up could happen faster if patronage was high, Lambert said officials wanted to hold the line on the six-month timeframe to see what was working.
"We are trying to stick to the six months and actually understand what's working, and maybe if anything isn't working, so we could actually make those changes as well."
Brockie also told the committee a review of the project's delivery was under way and would be made public, with the intention it prove useful for future major works.
He said the interviews behind the review were largely complete and the team would work through sections of the report over the coming months. The review would examine decisions made both before and after City Rail Link Ltd was set up in 2017.
"We are going to look at the pre-2017 period before CRL was established. So the review does cover pre- and post-City Rail Link Limited's establishment to look at the decisions that were made again pre and post, so that won't be overlooked."
It follows a commitment by Transport Minister Chris Bishop in May to a "post-completion full review" — which he said was "not often done in New Zealand" — made after former CRL boss Sean Sweeney argued the project could have been delivered more cheaply.
Sweeney argued the project's design was flawed at conception and that it could've been done for half if officials prioritised smaller stations and shorter trains that ran more often.
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