Delivering City Rail Link – a behind the scenes look from Head of Delivery, Alan Trestour

At first glance, the early success of Auckland’s City Rail Link might appear inevitable for a project that improves public transport connectivity in a road-congested city.

But behind the scenes, delivery partners have worked tirelessly to mitigate the threat of an “operational showstopper” – never growing complacent that their meticulous planning would guarantee a flawless outcome.

The thinking behind this was understandable. With new routes, stations, and train frequencies, CRL would overhaul the rosters of more than 600 rail personnel, adapting them to new working practices and safety procedures.

Customers, too, would need to adjust to the new east-west flow and connections that would bring several new stations onto the rapid-transit map.

Now weeks since becoming operational, CRL has been an indisputable success. Rail patronage has surged 62 percent across the Auckland network with 528,007 train boardings recorded in the week after its opening.

Ahead of the New Zealand Rail Conference, CRL’s Head of Delivery, Alan Trestour from Auckland Transport, reflects on the journey so far, outlining what he believes are the main factors behind its success.

Intensive collaboration

Delivery partners had daily leadership-level conversations and weekly follow-ups on agenda items – a frequency Alan claims is not standard on all projects, but one which was warranted given this one’s scale and complexity.

“We collaborated extensively and tracked single activities down to the fine details on a regular basis,” he said.

“It was important to have this ongoing dialogue and exchange of information throughout the project, and I think every single meeting counted towards the outcome.”

The discussions were centred on “best for program” outcomes that set aside commercial interests supported by One Client Alliance governance framework.

“Everyone had this collective sense of what CRL needed to deliver for Auckland customers before we opened and, while each party was aware of its scope and deliverables, individual priorities fell by the wayside.

“In 25 years of working in rail, I don’t think I’ve seen that level of collaboration and commitment by so many different organisations altogether [up to 7 parties involved]. Each party went above and beyond what was expected of them,” he added.

Transparency

During meetings, Auckland Transport acted as an open and transparent arbitrator when discussing interface challenges. Leveraging team capabilities, partners heard lessons learned from previous projects, with all operators providing buy-in with their ways of working.

Alan said this was crucial when it came to planning around top risks mitigation scenarios and opening window certainty.

“Through these discussions, we locked down a “top ten” list of critical risks and had open discussions about which party was best placed to resolve those. CRL Limited, for example, took the lead on technical issues affecting third party emergency services and back-end issues.

“With a project of this scale, it pays to be realistic about what could go wrong and ensure there are multiple contingencies in place to mitigate that risk from happening,” he added.

A winning mindset

With talk of worst-case scenarios, there was a risk it could dampen morale. But Alan said the team’s vision helped everyone maintain a winning mindset.

“We built this early picture of what success would like look for every milestone and it served as a North Star through all the trickiest stages of the project,” he said.

“Everyone took a sense of pride in what CRL would achieve for Auckland and I think that outshone any day-to-day challenges in making that happen.”

Meticulous planning and testing

Among these challenges was the CRL’s timetable, which took eighteen months to design and a further three years to hone.

Between January and July 2026, the train network was closed on limited occasions to validate operator arrangements and procedures to deliver the timetable through full network-wide tests.

Since opening, the timetable has proven resilient.

“The planning, testing and operational rehearsals essentially helped build “muscle memory” amongst operators,” Alan said. “It was far superior and accurate than modelling alone.”

Further insight

Sharing more behind the scenes takes from CRL, Alan Trestour will present at the upcoming New Zealand Rail Conference, held 2-3 December at the Grand Millenium Auckland.

The theme of this year’s event is Shaping the Future of Rail in Aotearoa - Te Kitenga. Mahi Tahi. Auaha. (Vision. Collaboration. Innovation.)

Learn more and register your tickets here.