KiwiRail Upbeat

 

KiwiRail’s CEO is upbeat about how KiwiRail is doing and says its business is turning a corner.

For the first time in many years we can envisage a vibrant, growing rail business being a meaningful contributor and backbone to New Zealand’s integrated transport networks,” Jim Quinn said.

“Our customers have signaled they will support our business if we can provide more timely and more reliable services. We have developed a ten-year Turnaround Plan to meet this challenge and to increase earnings from our freight business by making our backbone – the Auckland to Christchurch route and all points in between – relevant again for our customers.

“Already in the past year freight customers have shown their support with some investing in rail-served developments either on or beside KiwiRail land, helping to more closely integrate rail into their services.

“Newly introduced short-haul rail shuttle services between container terminals and inland and coastal ports are another sign of customers looking to rail to help with the efficient movement of export goods.

“These developments bode well for the future and are backed by a lift in freight volumes in the second half of the 2009-2010 year.

“KiwiRail Freight’s first half year revenue – 12 percent down on the same period last year - reflected the impact of the New Zealand economy on Freight and all our business units. However the energy of our team and the commitment of our customers meant we bounced back well with an 11 percent lift year on year in revenue in the second half.

“The state of the economy translated into relatively flat revenues for our Interislander business, but despite the commercial vehicle market contracting by 1.6 percent, Interislander increased its market share by 0.5 percent.

“While also challenged by economic conditions, our long distance passenger business had a positive result for the year with 10 percent growth in passenger volumes and revenue across the 12 months.

“However our metro business faced a challenging year through ongoing disruptions to Wellington metro services, caused in large part by a major network upgrade currently underway.

“The completion of much of the infrastructure work by mid-2011 and the rollout of Greater Wellington Regional Council’s fleet of new Matangi trains will have a noticeable difference over the next 12 months.

“As we look towards the year ahead our challenge is to deliver on the goals we have set for the company. I am confident that we can show our customers that we will improve our service levels, add value to their business, and vindicate their support for us.”

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1 Comments

 
  1. Matt says:

    That’s excellent news. It’s sad that things have fallen so far that it’ll take 10 years(!!) to get the infrastructure back to a level where rail’s a truly viable competitor to road, though.

 

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