Another record year for rail
Auckland’s rail network has had another record year with almost 3 million more passenger trips taken than the year before, an increase of 20 per cent.
And in the last 12 months Auckland’s trains have travelled 3.8 million kilometres – the equivalent of five trips to the moon and back.
Rail Services Manager Craig Inger says it’s been a great year for rail, with almost 17 million passenger trips taken.
“Auckland’s trains are now operating 158,000 services a year – the figures are staggering. When Britomart opened in July 2003 we had just 3 million passenger trips for the year.”
Not only that, but Mr Inger says punctuality for services has improved dramatically, from 82 to 96 per cent.
“This time last year, things were pretty bad. We had some challenges with many of our old diesel trains and the level of service wasn’t good enough. Now that we run just electric trains on most of the network punctuality is much better.
“We now have a rail network that we can be proud of and we’d like to thank Aucklanders for supporting us.”
The last stage of the electric train roll-out, from Papakura to Swanson, was completed on 20 July last year. There are now station improvements underway at Otahuhu and Pukekohe and a new station is being built at Parnell.
More on Auckland’s rail services at Auckland Transport.