Stacey van der Putten: Auckland Transport Public Transport Director on the new capacity numbers for the City Rail Link

A vast change to what's been promised for Auckland City Rail Link's opening capacity.  

In 2022, it was reported 27 thousand peak passengers would be using the rail line from opening day next year. 

That's now gone down to 19 thousand passengers an hour at peak times. 

AT Public Transport Director Stacey van der Putten told Mike Hosking the 27 thousand figure merged a few different elements including design capacity, timetabling, and patronage. 

She points out that 19,000 is still a significant increase on current numbers, as it’s still a 50% increase in patronage. 

Van der Putten told Hosking it will take some effort to rebuild confidence in the rail network after the prolonged disruption, but there’s plenty of enthusiasm for the new line. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Update on Auckland's infamous curl. The Central rail Link new
forecast for patronage is nineteen thousand. People are how is that? Good?
Don't know? Was twenty seven thousand? So what happened to
all the extra people? Stacy Vanderputten is the Public Transport
Director at AT and it's with us, Stacy.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Good morning, Good morning.

Speaker 1 (00:15):
What happened to all the other people?

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Well, I think we're sort of confusing a couple of
things here. There's what i'd call design capacity, and then
there is in terms of what is looking at in
the forward program for timetabling as well as patronage is
mixed in with that too. I can see all these
things have kind of merged, and I understand it looks murky,
but I mean fundamentally, what we're doing going into this

(00:39):
commencement of City rail Link is increasing capacity, and that's capacity,
not patronage by sixty percent of what it is today.
Understand that terribly more.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
I was told by your comms guys, twenty seven thousand
was never achievable and you needed six trains at once
and you don't even have six trains. Is that true?

Speaker 2 (00:58):
Well, yes, and not. So there's a couple of things
to unpack with that. So twenty seven thousand passengers per
hour is what the forward plan looks like, but there's
obviously a progress to get there based on demand in
further investment. That's always been the case. The actual business
case for City rail Link was fifteen trains per hour.
We're actually commencing with sixteen trains per hour. So there's

(01:21):
different what i'll call progress in order to get to
that twenty seven thousand per hour, but there's a planned
approach to doing it. Starting with that would be economically
irresponsible because you know, you've got to drive that demand.
It's already a significant increase.

Speaker 1 (01:36):
Very fair point at nineteen thousand. We should point out
even at nineteen thousand, it's a fifty percent increase in patronage.
That's a push, isn't it. I mean, it may be
that you never you never see a full train. In
other words, it doesn't work.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
No, I highly doubt that. I think you know, this
is a huge game changer for Auckland. I mean, the
network has had considerable disruption over a prolong time, and
it is going to take a little effort in order
to get people to have the confidence in the train
network again. So that will take time, but it will happen.
I know there's a lot of enthusiasm.

Speaker 1 (02:07):
For it among who.

Speaker 2 (02:09):
Among Auckland is Yeah, they've been anticipating this for a
really long time.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
Have you done a survey?

Speaker 2 (02:15):
Yeah, I mean this is great for Auckland. You've got
to look at what it does from an economical perspective.
You know, it helps people move around and that's what
we need to be doing in order to be able
to make our roads more free for the people that
actually need to use them. While having these options is important.

Speaker 1 (02:32):
Sure, what did the surveys say?

Speaker 2 (02:34):
The survey stays that everybody wants a reliable, stable train network.
That's something that's been compromised in recent years.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
Appreciate your time, Stacy, have a good weekend, Stacy vander Puttin.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
Right.

Speaker 1 (02:52):
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