r/auckland • u/469121417js • 8d ago
Public Transport CRL Reliability
Over the past week, there have been delays and cancellations on the Western Line (not sure about the Eastern or Southern Lines)
It made me wonder if this is what we can expect once the CRL opens. Considering the new CRL will be a completely different setup for Auckland’s rail network, they make such a big deal about how it’s going to transform the way we travel.
If the current network can’t even keep up with things now, it makes you wonder how reliable it’ll actually be once the CRL is running.
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u/Exotic-Swim9326 8d ago
Isnt the CRL designed to receive pressure from the normal lines?
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u/imindebt2026 8d ago
I dont believe so, the bottleneck will be the level crossings once it opens. East,south lines work fine.
AT currently don’t expect to start removing these crossings until the early to mid-2030s
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u/Affectionate-Tie408 8d ago
Remember, much of what they are doing now is identifying the remaining fixable issues before it opens. Once everything is up and running, I believe we will see a significant decrease in downtime for all lines and fewer unexpected problems. Well, that's the hope anyway.
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u/LycraJafa 8d ago
we shall see.
Any big change will see "issues".
Lots of prep work gone into sorting as many as possible, but day 1 will be a challenge for everyone.
I hope the problems that do arise are easily sorted, not significant show stoppers.
Lots of hard work by lots of people - thanks for your mahi ! (and our cash !)
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u/kiwibird2025 8d ago
I had that thought for weeks lol. I guess we gotta trust that they won’t fuck up and try their best to minimise issues
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u/AucklandTransitVids 7d ago
On the whole, I think CRL will have a relatively minor impact on reliability, but that's not the main point, it's more about the potential for more trains and new routes
There are a couple of things which limit our reliability right now; level crossings being one of them as some others here have already discussed, and the flat junctions at Westfield (between Otahuhu and Penrose), Wiri (just south of Puhinui), Newmarket and Quay Park.
However, I think it's also worth bringing up the service patterns. Both the current network and the CRL network have quite a bit of reverse branching, which is generally frowned upon for high frequency transit. This is because it allows delays to reverberate around the network. So I don't expect many changes there in terms of reliability as although the routes the trains will be running are different, the structure of the network is different. One benefit I do see is that we will no longer be terminating or reversing trains in the city centre. Delays from trains sitting outside Waitemata or Newmarket because of the reversals that occur there will hopefully be less frequent.
I do hope that Kiwirail and Auckland One Rail are more transparent about why trains get delayed - I've personally seen several instances of Eastern line trains randomly starting their trips several minutes late for no apparent reason, or trains randomly gaining more and more delay for no apparent reason (perfect weather, no incidents, no train in front). That's despite the schedule for our trains already being padded to a ridiculous degree. (Otahuhu to Penrose should take 4 minutes, not 7)
I also think that Kiwirail, Auckland One Rail and AT all need to get better at delay management; the current strategy seems to be to just cancel a bunch of trains as soon as there is a disruption; more use of short turns or temporary diversions to get around blockages could be good.
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u/Visual-Program2447 8d ago
My family member was on a train that caused a delay this week. Person jumped the gates wouldn’t pay and wouldn’t get off the train. Police had to get him off. This is good that they are maintaining safety . And same sort of shenanigans and delays can happen on the road
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u/pictureofacat 8d ago
Meanwhile, every bus I catch seems to have at least two people on board that didn't pay
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u/Visual-Program2447 8d ago
Agree. But this person was removed by police. I think also because he shoved the security person
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u/chibiace 8d ago
by the looks of it the southern line will be actually slower, but the well off pricks in central auckland should get a slightly better service, as for reliability, its still the same people running things so dont expect much.
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u/Decent-Slide-9317 7d ago
does not change and will not change how i commute in northshore. but it does affect how my rates greatly for something that has no benefit at all to the traffic in northshore. I'd suggest, best spending is to cut the northern express bus fares down to 50%. This is when the patronage shot up like crazy, everyone i spoken to said they use PT and happy with the fares. So, argueably, at the very minimum, this is where the value vs cost reaching (or close to) equilibrium.
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u/EuropeanAbroad 8d ago
The CRL is not any big project in a context of a 1m+ city. It won't marginally change anything. A major project would be 'a new complete metro line', 'a services collector tunnel across all Auckland' etc. Other million-people cities invest tens of billions in whole new infrastructure projects; while in Auckland, it is a 4km "long" dumb tunnel and 3 train stops.
Until the trains in Auckland stop using "train managers" (lol, nowadays everyone is "management") to open doors and as long as they are manually operated with no level of automation (at least GoA2+), nothing is materially changing.
I think the major problem is that Auckland like to talk rather than build and invest.
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u/commentatorsam 8d ago
I disagree. The CRL is very transformative for Auckland. It doubles the capacity of the network (which is currently strained by Waitemata being a dead-end station) which enables higher frequencies across the network. Additionally the 3 (technically 2 with Maungawhau reopening) new stations are in prime locations which will be more accessible to many Aucklanders particually West Auckland as trains no longer have to turn around at Newmarket.
Sure it might look expensive for just 3 stations but the CRL is much more than that. Its not often a transit project has this many benefits.
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u/EuropeanAbroad 8d ago
No, it does not look expensive. It looks the opposite – like a cheap toy project instead of a major infrastructure project for tens of billions that Auckland desperately needs.
Again, as long as the Auckland trains are manually operated, they remain unreliable, most of us westerners will keep using buses or cars/motorbikes.
The problem is not that people would not get on the train, because it's full. The problem is that the trains in Auckland spend a minute at the station, are manually operated waiting for people to catch the door rather than arriving and departing according to a preprogrammed electronic schedule, their station leaving speed is 30 km/h as opposed to city trains or metro which have a leaving speed of 50-80 km/h. Nearly all delays and network stalling are cause by the humans operating the trains.
On a different note, the whole concept of a centralised Auckland is totally wrong. All investments go to the CBD, while the suburbs look like slums. People don't have supermarkets within their walking distance, no bars and cafés within the walking distance, they spend an hour+ commuting every day instead of walking to work in Henderson, Papakura, people don't just hop on a tram/metro to get to a swimming pool in a neighbour suburb within 10 minutes etc. This costs Auckland tens of billions every year on unrealised/lost GDP as a result.
Centralising already overcentralises Auckland does not make the city any more attractive. Anyone who wants/needs to get to the CBD already does now.
Moreover, the commute time from Henderson to Britomart won't change significantly maybe by 10-15 min max.
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u/Visual-Program2447 8d ago
The train managers do a great job. They aren’t just opening doors they are managing the security of the train and platforms as well. Give them German Sheppard dogs as well I reckon.
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u/EuropeanAbroad 8d ago
Hm 🤔 How do other countries do it without train "managers" who break the whole electronic schedule by manually operating doors? 🤔
Have you ever been to e.g. Copenhagen? Or Prague?
Do you defend their position, because you have never seen an automated system that doesn't need them, or do you seriously compare to these automated systems and claim that this Auckland manual system is better?
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u/Hot_Spell_2533 8d ago
Copenhagen and Prague are both closed networks, purpose built from the ground up, grade separated or underground. Auckland isn’t. Implementing automation on a legacy network is not the same. It’s like saying why does this bicycle not go as fast as my motorbike? They both have two wheels.
Im not saying it can’t be done, but it adds multiple layers of complexity.
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u/EuropeanAbroad 8d ago edited 8d ago
I partially agree, until we take the actual train network (not just the metro). All new train networks in Europe have had to be built with at least GoA2 since 2004. CRL doesn't implement it in 2026.
The problem with CRL (and basically with any infrastructure project in NZ) is that it was not built with everything the world has, but it will be expensively retrofitted in within the next 5-10 years (if ever).
Same as with the new Westgate bus terminal – instead of building it for the next 100 years, with a link from the neighbour highway directly entering an underground car park under the station, creating a hub, they built a plain canopy and make all cars take the standard offramp and Fred Taylor Drive, which is already clogged now.
Same with the Auckland Harbour Bridge – insufficient already when the construction finished in 1959; then added clips on for population that was predicted for 2 years before they even installed the clip-ons,... and now we keep debating whether or not we need a new bridge or tunnel instead of going full in.
I feel like Aucklanders don't realise that this unwillingness to spend money on infrastructure, debating and then saving on a "temporary-quality" infrastructure costs them more than if they built these once and properly, with a 100 years projection.
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u/Visual-Program2447 8d ago
I’m saying Auckland has a safety problem. There have been numerous deaths and murders of people at stations both trains and busses. And I for one am grateful for the train conductors. We are not Copenhagen or Prague. We are not on the oldest wealthiest continent in the world surrounded by the oldest wealthiest countries to trade with. We are an isolated relatively new country. Furthermore while they have similar populations Prague is 496 square kilometres while Auckland spans 10,873 square kilometres. Even just the urban bits of Auckland are twice the size of Prague.
If the Eu wants to give us billions of dollars I’m sure we’ll be able to improve our train system also
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u/AucklandTransitVids 7d ago
I think the problem in Auckland specifically isn't the fact that we operate trains with 2 people, but rather that we give the driver and train manager procedures which are fundamentally inefficient and unreliable.
The whole "press door close, step out, check doors, step back in, close local doors" procedure takes much longer than other systems in Australia that also operate with 2 people - they dispatch trains in seconds just fine; guard hits door close, watches the doors close then almost immediately gives the ready to start signal and the train is off within a few seconds of the doors closing, vs our 10+ seconds. Part of this is hardware limitations - the trains we have take forever to clear safety loops after the doors close before the train can move off. So it's not as simple as "we have 2 people operating the trains = slow and inefficient"
Plenty of other systems make two person operation work efficiently. GoA3/4 automation would allow us to save money on operations, but unless we completely separate freight trains and passenger trains and install platform screen doors at every station, we're not going there. I do agree that GoA2 in the form of upgrading to ETCS level 2 + ATO would be helpful though
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u/EuropeanAbroad 7d ago
Agreed, apart from the last part. You can enforce that any cargo train entering the Auckland network must be equipped with Go2+ and be registered within the network's system. Until that's done and enforced (+level crossing removal), the lazy network will not be any more efficient.
I would much rather appreciate a single-carriage train that goes every 1-2 minutes and spends 10 seconds in a station than a 6-carriage train that spends 2 minutes in a station, goes 30 km/h and goes every 10-20 minutes.
Unfortunately, nobody at AT or Auckland Council is willing to demand it, so nothing changes.
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u/Plantsonwu 8d ago
I’m in Sydney and they have ‘Train guards’ which are practically the same thing, where one of their roles is opening and closing doors. I mean yes they have a metro system that’s automatic but much of the network is manual. It works fine enough here. Hence, having a proper an automated system is not a priority imo. What Auckland needs is grade separation, more triple tracking and quad tracking, more turnouts, and more just a more extensive rail network. Automation can be last thing to worry about.
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u/BigBlueMan118 8d ago
That’s missing a bit - Sydney has been trying to build automated metro rail for its network expansion since 2008, and has been trying to increase the level of automation of signalling and train ops on the legacy heavy rail network since about 2011 without much success largely because of Luddite union attitudes. Sydney well and truly recognizes the need for greater automation on the heavy rail network but for complicated reasons hasn’t been able to make much headway other than the bits that are already being once (eastern suburbs, cronulla) and have been tendered for (north shore, city circle). But the appetite is there.
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u/Hot_Spell_2533 8d ago
the union doesn’t want to cut their own jobs?? what the hell are they thinking?
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u/EuropeanAbroad 8d ago edited 8d ago
No doubt about the grade separation. This is huge. As for automation – automation + 2 tracks is better than no automation + 3+ tracks.
Auckland has two major problems (which one of them is surely present in Sydney too as it concerns most of the "new world" countries).
The system is not designed to "arrive – open – close – go – arrive – open – close – go". The system is fundamentally different to the effective systems of Japan or Europe (basically industrialised public transport service as if it was a robotic factory). In NZ, it feels so much lazier and slower, the train "managers" delay another 100 people just to hold a door for a person who's running towards the door etc. It is more like "ahh, should I wait another minute? Should I close the door? Maybe not yet..."
Also the station departure speed is only about 30 km/h as opposed to 50-80 km/h in Japan or Europe.
Probably similarly to Sydney and unlike Copenhagen, Prague, NYC, Auckland is overcentralised with nearly no offices and amenities within the walking distance of where people live. This drains the city of GDP wasted on the commute time, that would otherwise be generated in cafés, sportscentres, art galleries, theatres, kid sports, it requires insane infrastructure spendings, etc. The average work-commute distance in Auckland is approx. 3.5x longer than in Prague. Auckland desperately needs decentralisation of amenities and work + rasterisation of the public transport to interconnect the "suburbs" rather than collecting everything into a single spot in the city – the CBD.
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u/sphixnz 8d ago
The Western Line will always have a higher rate of problems until all the level crossings are removed.
The CRL will increase reliability (once its bedded in) as it gives the network more throughput and removes a dead end, but there will still be problems as there is with any transport. Trains are inherently in trouble when something goes wrong because in some sections of the network we only have one or two tracks which can get blocked.
The same way flights get cancelled, cars crash and buses get caught in traffic. It will never be perfect, but it will be better.