Subscribe to RSSUrgent Review After RWC Train Disaster
Back in November after the U2 train I warned about the chaos for those travelling to Mt Smart for the concert by train and explained the holdups and how the needed to get sorted for the RWC. That was almost a year agio:
It was caused by an Idiot pushing emergency chord caused problems (Good to see the Herald quoting AKT and using one of the photos!)
That is a good lesson in preparation for RWC- but still highlights how the lack of information on board leads to unrest.
Passengers tonight struggle to reach Eden Park }Reader Andrew W
And ferries which were supposed to just stop during the fireworks had to be cancelled as too many people queued to get across to the CBD to join in the festivities.
Tempers boiled over in the CBD as long queues waited to get to either Eden Park - or over at the alternative Britomart entrance at the Westpac building.
No queue was moving and there were no announcements.
People panicked they would not be able to get to the game - or home in time for the TV opening ceremony.
There was a mad rugby scrum formed at all Britomart entrances as remarkably there were no cordons to enable proper queues to form.
Aucklanders are not used to the familiar pattern in big overseas cities where people pack platforms and wrestle to get on board the crowded train.
In this case, it was hard to sight a platform.
And people were going crazy with deadlines to meet -either to get home to watch TV or to get to the game in time. Because of the huge crowds taking over Queen St and downtown - including walking on the road on Queen St - there was no sign of any taxis for them to catch. Several companies said today they would not accept any more bookings.
At 5pm people crowded Britomart’s front entrances ready to push in when the doors opened.
Some of the comments I heard are unprintable.
It was no better at 5.30pm. Queues snaked around the side street.
Over at the other entranceway for the normal train services, people were getting extremely agitated as long queues formed with no sign of movement.
No wonder some people gave up and went to the new McDonalds next to the Britomart transport centre.
However much further up Queen St - if people can weave their way through the huge crowds, buses were running to Eden Park.
But it was a battle for to people to make it that far because of the thick crowds competing against the car traffic.
And the chaos of people walking the streets amid the traffic was inevitably to lead to a tragedy. There are reports coming of an accident involving a bus, car and pedestrian downtown.
It is appalling that authorities did not close of all streets downtown including Queen Street not just Quay street, which was closed off at midnight when they expected a hundred thousand or so people wandering in a festive mode oblivious to traffic.
Queens Wharf filled up with its restricted 12,000 in about half an hour and other parts of the waterfront were shut down early as thousands flocked into the CBD.
See:
Over 100 comments on Friday night’s disaster as it unfolded
Auckland escapes a bullet - most global media don’t mention the Auckland failure
Government attacks transport fail
Weekend North Harbour matches work well -with buses
What happened in Queen St when pedestrians took over
Photos from the craziness on the streets
108 Comments
Thanks Mr Joyce for delaying the EMUs!
No-one will blame Joyce for this. They will just be put off trains altogether. This, I fear, is the end of the City Rail Link’s chances - and Joyce now has his excuse for many more motorways.
This is a joke right - they knew about that Emergency Button from the U2 train disaster which I was caught up in myself and was months ago & here we are RWC day and the embarrassment that I suspected would happen has with this fail - unfortunately this time the whole world is watching - hmmm not so great!
I can safely report that no-one is crowding the Manurewa train station. Good luck to all the losers in town.
Get the boofheads off the road & let the traffic through. As expected all the ordinary commuters are inconvenienced for a game of rugby. I wish the Warriors were playing tonight.
Not cool, When the word gets out to the International media then it is going make a real humliating start to the games.
Thanks Joyce, thanks….
Britomart was absolutely hopeless.
When I was there at about 6.30 officials had closed off the main entrance and the queue to the Westpac entrance went well back on to the square not moving, yet from what I could see through the main entrance the platforms weren’t too bad.
I gave up and got a bus about a kilometre away from Downtown to my destination.
You are right, a bit of Quay St closed was never going to cut it with this many people and the amount of punters who turned out can’t be a surprise.
Trains have just proved Joyce right again. With faliures like this its no wonder he thinks the future is in highways!
1
“At 5pm people crowded Britomart’s front entrances ready to push in when the doors opened”
And right there is the problem. They closed Auckland’s busiest railway station on it’s busiest day, because they tried to treat rugby patrons separately from normal patrons.
Trying to run two patronage bases on one network will never work.
Get rid of the separation, get rid of the replacement buses, and just run all trains for everyone.
And DON’T CLOSE BRITOMART!
Six years of planning, and all they did was complicate things. Ah well, just six more weeks to go….
I await the inquest.
Emergency stop button: penalty for improper use $1,000
Would a City Rail loop have helped? Another way there?
A FAIL from what I can see and don’t blame Joyce - what if anything has it to do with him?
Quite simply it looks like “PT was over sold” by officials to get people to town and to the game - too many people trying to use it. If this happened in 3 or 4 years plus time then maybe Joyce could be to blame as that is when the true effects of his Governments investment decisions’ or any lack thereof would be truly felt.
Giel, what I think it does show is that Auckland has a system that is extremely vulnerable to disruption (the frequent network knockouts should have made this clear), and that it is incapable of handling serious numbers.
The reasons for this, and the apportionment of blame, are genuine questions.
An absolute shambles….I went to Britomart at 4:30 to catch a train to Papatoetoe and the doors were CLOSED? It was totally hopeless….. and if that is going to happen for a Tonga NZ game, God help us when the finals are on…And who in their right mind allowed the ferry wharves to become so jam-packed with sightsee-ers…that it was too dangerous to disembark passengers?
Shows why they need to build the CRL
Haha, nothing like a bit of chaos in the city.
I had to get the Southline train into the city (after 10 hours at work) at about 6pm. From Middlemore north no-one could get on the train.
We were going to divert from the Glen Innes to the Newmarket line in an announcement (because of some “accident” which I assume was the button), then changed back without telling anyone. Hard to get out of Britomart too.
I feel really sorry for people who had to get back into the burbs via the train. And even sorrier for the people who had tickets and couldn’t get to the game. It’s about an hour to walk from town to EP.
Still, it’s great to see the city so packed. Most people were pretty well-behaved and happy despite pre-loading with booze and dangerously dense crowds.
In hindsight, I guess they should have prepared for more people!
Someone let off a fire extinguisher as well?? Seriously? http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/raw-video-auckland-train-passengers-vent-frustration-4-29-4394904
If THAT was an example of how “organised” the trains will be for the finals, Auckland will be a laughing stock….Main station, main ferry terminal, main entertainment area all within about 200 metres of each other…what an absolute shambles…some serious decisions need to be made about crowd control.
I tried to catch a bus from Beach Rd to Newmarket after the opening ceremony. I waited an hour, ten Link buses went past - ALL FULL.
Looks like all the planning was for Eden Park, and Auckland Transport wasn’t expecting anyone to show up at Queens Wharf?
Who on Earth decided o keep the main doors of Britomart LOCKED until after 5;00 pm??? The fact that 100′s of people were there before that should have been an indication of how busy the trains would be…and after the fiasco of the U2 concerts, why in heaven’s name were there no security people in each car near the emergency buttons? An entire system thrown into chaos because of short sightedness. And how many MORE games are there in Auckland?
Can we pedestrianise Queen Street now?
Man Alive.
80 years of underinvestment……. expecting it to cope with unprecedented numbers……sounds like all the planning was terribly short sighted. why was quay st the only st closed??? What a shame.
the waterfront was completely oversold. telling businesses to send people home at 3 was just an excuse to go straight there. for the hour or so i spent on quay street none of the much-hyped big screens were working, the whole area was far more crowded than anyone must’ve anticipated, saying that people are misbehaving is not surprising considering the numbers.
Cant they disable the emergency buttons? Obviously they know its not for an emergency.
Was stuck on the platform in Panmure hoping to get onto the Queens Wharf, so I ended up going back to Papakura and watching the ceremony and game on tv, which was fine.
Underestimated numbers heading downtown & rail system will never cope with the numbers that eventuated. But key issues are being far too slow in dealing with ‘incidents’ (need a team of dedicated train controllers) and usual lack of communications. Needed spare locos sitting at strategic points (as per towies on motorways) - but frankly don’t make Britomart the focus for getting to games - run specials with pre-booked ticket holders only from the burbs to Kingsland & Morningside.
“Cant they disable the emergency buttons? Obviously they know its not for an emergency.”
And during an emergency - like when one of those hundreds and thousands is caught in the door, while the train moves off - what do you do with the emergency button then, if it’s deactivated (not to speak of the legal issues!).
Nah, the other suggestion baout putting guards on sounds a lot more sensible, though it would mean tons of extra staff.
Also, it seems that it wasn’t our train system failing, but simply trying to do too much with it, plus some organisation issues. Not Steven Joyce’s fault (I’ll rarely say that, but it really isn’t in this case
.
Great fireworks from my apartment window, not too sad to have missed the mosh pit downtown…
Would like to hear what Mayor Brown, MIke Lee, Martin Sneddon, Murray McCully, and Mr Joyce have to say about this. Their comments should be interesting.
@Andu Tune in about midday Satuiday and I will tell you. Am chasing
“Needed spare locos sitting at strategic points (as per towies on motorways)”
Eh? Until we get any indication that it was *train* failure (as opposed to crowd management failure), what would that have helped?
This was little more than a repeat of when the Lions played a Friday night game at Eden Park. Auckland struggles through rush hour at the best of times, but adding a major event into the mix is bound to bring chaos. Communication is also something that needs to be addressed - urgently. There is no excuse for passengers on a train no knowing what is going on. Each train has a guard, or whatever they call them these days. Communication with passengers should be their job. If they can’t do it, get rid of them and find someone who can.
Auckland should put in a bid for the Olympics.
the response to overcrowding seems to have been to shut down services, which surely just makes things far worse by stranding people. fumbling panic by officials on so many levels
By the way, for any station or train customer service staff out there, you guys have worked really hard tonight and deserve praise for what I saw anyway - keeping your chins up in impossible circumstances - cheers. The outcome seems to’ve been pretty awful but individuals I encountered were courteous and getting on with it.
“Each train has a guard, or whatever they call them these days. Communication with passengers should be their job. If they can’t do it, get rid of them and find someone who can.”
Don’t reflexively blame the staff on the ground - THEY probably don’t know what to tell the people around them, or they would. They aren’t stupid - but they are caught in the same fix as the fans, and if the coms system isn’t set up right to give them the information, they can’t really do anything.
“Needed spare locos sitting at strategic points (as per towies on motorways)”
How do you propose getting relief locos to the 4th train in a line of 10 trains? Fly them in with the world’s biggest heavy-lift helicopter?
The best way to clear disabled trains is to use the other trains that are already close to it.
Relief locos just means more movements on an already full network, and therefore more delays and more frustrations.
Meanwhile, Train Control has just sent a freight train into the mix, through Ranui citybound at 11:51pm.
“the response to overcrowding seems to have been to shut down services,”
Could have been that people go off the trains too slow too (or got backed up at Kingsland and Morningside, with the streets around stations too full?) - in that case, the services weren’s suspended, they simply had to stop because the stations could receive more. But I am just speculating.
Some people will have a busy Saturday trying to fix up things for the next games tomorrow night (though Saturday won’t be so bad, no opening ceremony etc…)
My bus experience from Orewa to Auckland CBD.
12:50pm: Second stop at Orewa bus packed. Silverdale left around 100 people behind (angry)
Albany left 300-400 people behind (even angrier)
Takapuna: people running after our bus swearing and throwing their flags….
2:30pm FINALLY reach Auckland
My opinion: We could have done A LOT better. Such a shame we could have shown off our country but we get this transport problems with the train and buses.
“The best way to clear disabled trains is to use the other trains that are already close to it.”
Could a full train even push another full train, from a standing stop, assuming the first train has totally no power? What about pulling another train out? Can they couple automatically, or do you have to get staff to get out and sort it on the tracks? Curious, not an expert on the details…
i meant shutting down services in general not individual trains, i.e. ferries, trains back from kingsland.
“Could a full train even push another full train, from a standing stop, assuming the first train has totally no power?”
Yes, easily. If a DC can move 30 container wagons up the Parnell grade, a couple of SA sets is lightweight work.
I blame Steven Joyce, he cancelled the regional fuel tax which would have funded auckland transport better.
Delayed the electrification, the western line could have been finished by now.
There were too many people coming to downtown auckland, 140,000 people, the system couldn’t cope with those numbers.
Fantastic night though,
PEOPLE WILL USE THE TRAINS. WE JUST NEED MORE!!! JOYCE!!!
geoff, I was referring to one diesel EMU pushing another. Of course a big locomotive can…
Patrick - if we had electric EMU’s all that would have created with the same management was a slightly bigger disaster (i.e. even more people caught in more and/or larger trains - this has JACK ALL today with electrification).
Electrification doesn’t add more train stations to Eden Park, nor more tracks to the Western Line, nor the magical ability to pull a malfunctioning train out of line (and that didn’t seem to be an issue here anyway, until/unless we hear more). It has nothing to do with this.
Joyce is fair game, he’s our go to guy on public transport frustrations. So when it screws up so badly its fair enough to blame him. If we knew he was trying his best to make an efficient PT network for Auckland then it might be unwarranted.
“I blame Steven Joyce, he cancelled the regional fuel tax which would have funded auckland transport better.”
What did AT seek for the RWC, that was denied?
“Delayed the electrification, the western line could have been finished by now.”
The AEP was NOT delayed. It was scheduled back in 2007, before National even came to power, to be finished in 2013, and it’s still scheduled to be finished in 2013. The reason we don’t have electric trains running in 2011 is because Labour waited until 2007 to authorise the project, after years of saying we didn’t need it. Still, let’s blame Joyce for the decisions made by Dr Cullen all those years ago!
I’m curious-I wonder what happened to using the old Beach Rd railway station in the event of a Britomart failure? Perhaps it was too late in the day to divert people to board trains elsewhere. I wonder what the back-up plans were and whether they were activated-or whether there were simply too many people around for the authorities to anticipate?
Why wasn’t Queen St closed? Cars + drunken revellers was always going to be a mess from the start.
As for the public transport - oh wait, what public transport??! You poor things!
I drove and parked easily in the CBD, no sweat!
I guess they couldn’t get them off at Kingsland quick enough. So they backed up, and backed up some more, and backed up until nothing moved anymore, because why even start a train at Britomart if you have four trains that already can’t offload at the end of a very short run…
Maybe tomorrow we’ll know better. And if my above thought is right, then they should have told people to walk. As painful as that decision would have been for some, it probably would have ended up better than just waiting for more than an hour!
“The AEP was NOT delayed. It was scheduled back in 2007, before National even came to power, to be finished in 2013, and it’s still scheduled to be finished in 2013.”
No, it isn’t - trains are now officially only to come in 2014. And since electrified lines without electric trains are useless, electrification will not be finished in 2013. Joyce can be blamed for that 1 year shift, due to him faffing about on the fuel tax and discussing whether we should buy the trains as a PPP - but those who now try to blame THIS trouble with the RWC crowds on him should realise that 2013 is not 2011 either.
Joyce has a lot to answer for - but don’t try to pin things on him that he can wash off easily, that only makes the real criticism look like political oppositionfor politics sake, rather than rightly blaming him for horribly deficient policy and funding decisions.
Think of today’s experience as fast-forwarding Auckland 20 years.
We should hold this government accountable for not having any decent answers to the sheer lack of capacity to move people.
Do we want a real city or some hick 1950s village? Expensive new highways won’t help. Doubling the capacity of the whole rail network by building that central loop will.
I think the most frustrating thing is just that it should have all been done not years but even decades ago. I know we are lucky to have what we have (We’ve all had that discussion).
Let us not forget that things could have been a lot better today if it weren’t for some incidents like emergency button, fire extinguisher and other things the Geoff mentioned above.
I will be interested to see how things pan out over the next 6 weeks and what is done to improve things. I reckon (and HOPE) that this will help Auckland improve.
Or what might happen, if in 20 years, we don’t build a rail loop, and we need to move those kinds of numbers on a frequent basis, if not daily?
Hopefully, SJ’s embarrasment at having to respond to questions about this situation in the coming days will force him to rethink-can we really afford to cut PT funding any further if we expect growth and capacity on this scale?
“Hopefully, SJ’s embarrasment at having to respond to questions about this situation in the coming days will force him to rethink”
Sorry, that made me chuckle, Cheryl.
SJ is not even going to BLINK at this minor mishap. If he cares at all, he’s grinning, not feeling embarrassed. He’ll turn this to his favour with the ease of the political pro that he is. Watch him spout the “events like this show that we will always need a good road network, because PT can’t do everything” line for the forseeable future.
So does anyone know if the trains sucessfully returned to Britomart after the game?
“No, it isn’t – trains are now officially only to come in 2014. And since electrified lines without electric trains are useless, electrification will not be finished in 2013″
Yes I know that, but you said 2011 without the EMU procurement hold up. Now you’re saying 2013.
My point is that nobody can claim SJ prevented EMU’s from being in service in 2011, because that was never the plan.
The argument that tonight’s problems wouldn’t have happened if we had EMU’s in 2013 instead of 2014 is nonsensical, I’m sure you’ll agree.
“So does anyone know if the trains sucessfully returned to Britomart after the game?”
I wonder which direction had the most demand during the evening? The 40,000 people leaving Eden Park, or the 100,000 leaving the city after the fireworks?
A shame the transport planning was only thinking of the 40,000, and not the bigger crowd. Heck for the bigger crowd, Britomart was largely shutdown.
Love it, what has happened is exactly what I said would happen.
brit media will have a field day, hopefully they rip it to pieces and the nut jobs who think they “run” the country will wake up and see more money is required.
good luck bidding for another major sporting events in the next 10-15 years.
Under planned and under organised.
The bottom of Queen street and the water front should have been ticketed right from the word go.
yes the waterfront is a free event, keep it that way, but you should need a ticket to get in. keep idiots away and open the station up early and keep people moving.
People clearly aren’t use to catching trains to the game so everybody probably left it to the last minute.
they’ll learn pretty quickly im sure.
its a joke, we’ll be the laughing stock, but its also a learning curve. but its really kinda stupid to be learning now on opening night.
should have tried and tested more games during the year, during the npc, during the league.
have fun with the rest of the tourny.
I had to pick my friends up from britomart just before 1am. They were going to have to wait ages still before they could even get into britomart.
I don’t think the party central revelers were considered in the planning of this event at all and that even more people than those that were at the game were trying to home at exactly the same time as the people at the game
@San Luca True words there!
Watching it from London and reading these comments one has to ask why didn’t NZ invest indecent public transport 4+ years ago when we started on the the abismal rebuild of Eden Park.
Yes there was the Dart project but all that was really was remedial work on a delapidated system.
New Zealand/Auckland should have invested in trasport ala London for Olmypics, SA for football World Cup and even Wales for the Ryder Cup last year.
Hasn’t been given a mention here though (UK).
In fact, apart form my friends and I from NZ, no one even knows the World Cup has just kicked off although I’m sure this will be the last major sporting event outside of the America’s Cup that NZ gets to host.
They sorted out the trains eventually tonight. The western Line, Southern line and Onehunga line seemed fine from 8pm when I started looking (queues of less than 100 people, but due to some incident on the eastern line the queue was well over 1000 people long all night. Apparently the people who stopped the train were in a tunnel, and about 30 of them got out… took some time for the police to sort, and hours for trains to run properly again.
All at once at about 12:45 the queue disappeared into two trains. it went from covering the entire square, to about 20 people in 10 minutes. there were still lots of people coming in, but they managed to clear them just as quick.
AS FOR THE FERRY SERVICES, I read before coming into town at 7 that they had closed the downtown terminal, because ‘ferries were unable to unload passengers’. What muppet organied that! get several thousand people into a small space, give them a massive tv, tell them to make as much noise as possible, and then try and move them out of the way of the major transport hub you chose to put them in front of. good luck.
How many were left in the CBD after the trains stopped at 0130?
However the motorways were empty and fast flowing.
Could not believe my luck.
the thread starter is an unacknowledged quote from inaccurate news reporting…major issue was not a breakdown, but the emergency buttons
But anyway, I agree with whoever said that planners just forgot the downtown crowd.
Martin - not just 4+ but donkeys years ago.
I agree that we can’t really pin this on Joyce, although if he threw the money he threw at roading in the last few years at PT it may have solved part of it.
However we can blame the National party for 60 years of weak, small town thinking which has got us to this point - then again the goons in red aren’t much better.
If stop buttons were known to be a problem after U2, then at least one very clear announcement over the PA would address the issue, along with a threat to anyone who did touch them.
Everyone blaming a weak system is right - and the reasons for this can be blamed on anyone and everyone involved in the last 5 -10years.
Also, the fact that 3 people are seriously injured is appalling, and can be directly attributed to whoever (I’d actually question whether the police should have made the call) was deciding to keep particular roads open.
Just for the record, we had a no problems journey last night to and from Eden Park via western line (from west).
Can’t an emergency stop button be quickly reset?
Geoff 184. The tender for the electric trains etc was due to be signed about mid 2009 by Auckland Regional Transport Authority.
The intention was to have at least half the lines electrified by 2011 including at least to Kingsland and electric trains running on them to supplement the diesels.
But along came Joyce and Key who played politics and scrapped the funding and it took them another two years to come up with an alternative.
Its September 2011 and still no tender is signed to provide electric trains.
So in short plenty of blame can be attributed to Joyce and Key.
For the RWC we have tried to use less than 40 train sets, many small, that at times barely cope with peak commuters and someone somehow hoped that it would work.
And running them down the double track into Kingsland with nowhere to park all of them or manoeuvre them back again with ease just didn’t work either.
I just feel sorry for everyone who believed that Auckland had a proper PT infrastructure and left their cars behind.
@geoff
“Yes I know that, but you said 2011 without the EMU procurement hold up. Now you’re saying 2013.”
Please reread the comments. I never said that. Other people in this thread claimed that. I was aware that after, say 2007-2008, it was a ridiculous claim anway. One does not tender, build and get running a electrified system in 3 years, not unless you are talking about a model train set in the basement. Maybe some politicians claimed that could be done in 2007 or 2008, but everyone barely knowledgeable knows that it was rubbish claims.
“I don’t think the party central revelers were considered in the planning of this event at all”
Actually they were. Large parts of Quay Street and some nearby streets were closed for car traffic as planned. However, that obviously wasn’t enough.
“[Quees Wharf ] What muppet organied that! get several thousand people into a small space, give them a massive tv, tell them to make as much noise as possible, and then try and move them out of the way of the major transport hub you chose to put them in front of. good luck.”
Lol, I remember a certain Rugby Minister and a certain PRIME MINISTER insisting on Party Central! How short memories are…
“Also, the fact that 3 people are seriously injured is appalling, ”
Rubbish. 3 people for an event with over a 100,000 people? That’s nothing. Tell all those 100,000 people to do an afternoon of cleaning and chores at home, and you get more serious injuries.
“and the reasons for this can be blamed on anyone and everyone involved in the last 5-10years.”
Lol. So everyone is to blame, then nobody is to blame. According to this weird logic, both the people fighting for better PT and the people fighting against PT investment are to be blamed? This thread is just a list of weird stuff.
I’m surprised that Stuff and The DomPost seem to have little to say on the train hiccup that happened
“Can’t an emergency stop button be quickly reset?”
Only if you ASSUME that it was a fake. What if someone ACTUALLY is in emergency. You got to check, or one day you will crush someone for whom the button was pushed in earnest.
“And running them down the double track into Kingsland with nowhere to park all of them or manoeuvre them back again with ease just didn’t work either.”
And electrification would have helped the fact that the Western line is not a quadruple track…. how?
“I’m surprised that Stuff and The DomPost seem to have little to say on the train hiccup that happened”
Maybe because it was a storm in a teacup, all things considered? A large teacup, and thus a larger storm when you stand close by - but still a storm in a teacup.
“Also, the fact that 3 people are seriously injured is appalling, ”
Rubbish. 3 people for an event with over a 100,000 people? That’s nothing. Tell all those 100,000 people to do an afternoon of cleaning and chores at home, and you get more serious injuries.
Wow. You think like this?
After all that they couldn’t even get the train there in time for the Rugby World Cup…
Yes George D. I think like this. I’m not thinking that reality can be shut out of reality - or that one then needs to scream and shout and hype when reality happens.
The event was peaceful overall, and considering the press and crush of it all, there was very little incident. There seem to be more than 3 people seriously injured in drunken fights or drunken accidents in the CBD every normal weekend, so why should I be shocked at this? Similarly for the constant background violence of traffic crashes. Sure we should be working against both types of people being hurt. But I see no need to suddenly shout and scream as if this was unusual, either in NZ or worldwide.
Don’t believe there BS about people pushing the emergency buttons, the problems were far worse than that and they are just a bunch of total &^%$ useless *&^%##.
Their special timetable consisted of a grand total of 3 extra trains on the southern line to Eden park. The Muppets didn’t seem to have any extra trains going into the city centre. At Ellerslie you had a 6 carriage train and a little 2 carriage train going past every half and an hour(all bursting with people by that stage). I waited 2 hours trying to get on from 430 before I decided to just go home. Those *&^%$ *&^%$ wrecked a good night for probably thousands who have been looking forwards to this for a long time solely because of their complete incompetence. The trains are getting over a billion dollars in investment and the geniuses who have been trusted with running them are a bunch of simpletons.
Said it once, said it a million times. This is what decades of under investment gets you. To all the people who were inconvienienced last night, it’s a real sh*tter but at the end of the day it’s down to years of poor political decisions by sucessive governments that gets us to this point.
You can’t just whack a rail system in, it takes years of planning, investment (the real kicker) and sustained funding over a long period of time.
It’s actually pretty incredible what’s been done over the last few years practically from nothing to the eve of electrification (Amazing I know) and new EMUs - a completly new fleet (Amazing I know) Anyway hopefully by next week most of the issues will have been sorted. And next time the RWC comes here we might have a world class public transport system - fingers crossed.
Having Party Central on Queen’s Wharf was a mistake. It’s too close to AK’s main PT interchange. It’s too small - only 1000 people can see the stage FFS. Better to move it to the Tank Farm, Victoria Park or the Domain. Imagine the chaos if they had built the stadium on Queen’s wharf!
Yip, just like many times before (Harbour Bidge, Britomart etc etc), the local authorities underestimated what was required. How they didn`t think that so many people would want to come to the CBD I don`t know.
The game v Australia showed that the transport of fans could be moved relatively smoothly but the added pressure of the people on the waterfront was obviously too much.
People are arguing about electrification. It`s a red herring and wouldn`t have made a difference. The real reason as someone wrote above was that the waterfront was over promoted. There was no way that small area was going to be big enough for the amount of people wanting and expecting to go there. The organisers needed to spread the fan viewing over different parts of Auckland.
I was working in the Wynyard area till 6pm and I knew the party central area would be too packed so I thought I would go to North Wharf instead. I was absolutely stunned when the night before I talked to a security officer down there and he said there were no big screens being erected for that area. in the end I walked the 5mins to home and watched on TV as I knew I had no chance of seeing anything down at the waterfront.
Also there were fan zones in Albany, Henderson (Waitakere Trust Stadium) and Manukau. How many people on here knew about those? i bet almost none of you. How many people in Auckland knew about those? I bet very few. I also bet those fan zones were probably under capacity. They should have been more heavily promoted and the message should have been if you`re from those parts, go there to watch the opening ceremony and game, don`t go into town. I hope that is the lesson learnt for the finals.
I am still looking forward to going to the cloud for other games when there are slightly fewer people so I hope the party central won`t be demonised by people saying “I`m never going to the party central again” as I heard on Newstalk ZB last night. There`s nothing wrong with the place, you`ve just gotta choose the time to go to there and that`s where some people might have weighed up the options knowing how busy it was going to be and made better personal choices.
For once I agree with Carl. Maybe downtown should`ve been ticketed in a free lottery some weeks before (could`ve been a great way to promote the run in to the RWC) and then the organisers would`ve known the crowd wouldn`t be at a size bigger than they could cope with.
Also for families, they could have set up for example, North Wharf as a family-only viewing area that would`ve assured parents of a safe area. Whether that practicable or not I`m not sure but it`s an idea.
Ingolfson, you’re being ridiculous.
Those injuries were the result of a bus ploughing into pedestrians. Because both were sharing the same spaces. That is categorically different from fights, alcohol poisoning, people falling over, or heatstroke, mild hypothermia, and exhaustion - the usual events that are completely out of control of the organisers.
In this case roads needed to be shut to keep pedestrians and traffic from mixing. This should have been planned for before the night, but at the very least the organisers and the police waited far too long to sort things out, with awful consequences.
So, completely preventable, completely tragic.
Everyone will try and drive to the next AB game. That will be interesting.
Quay St was not only a shambles for people leaving after the fireworks’ it was extremely dangerous. Due to a lack of crowd control I along with thousands including small children were caught in a crush by crowds being pushed from behind trying to get out, crowds trying to get into Quay St and crowds watching the big screen refusing to make a way clear. It was very frightening, people began to panic and scream and I felt if this carried on lives could be lost. It reminded me of the tragedy in Britian a few years ago. Ok the train system is flawed and there has to be a major rethink but information from roving rail officials would be a great start (whatever happened to bullhorn speakers) We were shuffled from Brit to custom st back to Brit told there were no services west, told there were rail buses coming, told there were no buses coming told we would we would be got home in taxis and finally with great relief got a regular train to Waitakere at 11pm. Even with vomit on the carriage floor it was a welcome end to our great day out. BTW Thanks to all who plumped for the development of Eden Park and it’s ‘hallowed ground’, what a load of horse feathers! Eden Park’s site is at the centre of this shambles. In my humble opinion the only way to run the western line is fully in each direction with extra capacity. Good luck authorities.
I went to the Remuera Station around 1430 yesterday. There was already a crowd of people there. Over the next 50 minutes or so I saw four of the two car units (ex-Perth WA) and two longer units (of four cars pulled by a diesel) go by. The four two car units were completely full, and although they stopped nobody from Remuera was able to get on. One of the four car units stopped, but same story, no room with space totally full of squashed up people. The other four car unit did not stop, just went straight through. Luckily I had a friend in the area who came and picked me up after I txted him. We thought that it may be better to try to get on at Onehunga. We thought at least trains there should start off empty. It was by this time after 1530. We found the Onehunga platform full with hundreds of people standing in a squashed up huddle (no semblance of a queue anywhere). When the train did arrive at 1550 it was a four card unit, two sets of the old Perth WA cars. The driver managed to align three of the cars with the platform and the crowd surged on and inside. There was an attempot by the staff to keep the front car (not drawn up by by the platform) empty for the next stations but the force of the crowd pushing in made them open the front car for entry via the nternal connection with the second car. When the all doors were closed just after 1600 and the train pulled out there was still a crowd of some 40 or so people standing on the platform. I will not take your time with the tale of my later adventures from the time we arrived at Britomart (confusion,anger, feeling disconnected and unbelieving) but at every staion after Onehunga the train stopped and opened doors only to have staff say to the crowds of people standing on the platforms, “Sooorreeee! We are fuuullll!” So, why were the two car units that came along the southern line while I was standing at Remuera not four car or even bigger units? Surely somebody must have have wondered if traffic to the city may be heavier than normal. And congratulations to whoever showed some initiative and arranged for a four unit to do the 1600 service from Onehunga to Britomart. It did not help anybody waiting on stations after Onehunga but at least it cleared most of the backlog waiting at Onehunga.
And Auckland is supposed to be the world’s 10th most liveable city?? AS IF! You only have to look at Auckland’s useless public transport infrastructure to see that. I reckon even with Wellington’s 70 year bucket trains we could have done a better job! I shouldn’t be so sad against Auckland, but the truth is until you get Half way decent PT sorted out, this situation is what you are going to get. I am not that surprised really.
Melbourne with a good public transport system can shift huge crowds so smoothly that it doesn’t get reported. The New Year’s Eve fireworks attract about 500,000, virtually all of whom come by public transport. After the midnight fireworks nearly everyone’s gone by 1am and the area looks deserted. The 500,000 is 12.5% of Melbourne’s population, whereas last night’s 140,000 was 10.8% of Auckland’s population, so per capita the transport task is similar. There is no way crowds of this size can be shited by car. There is little off-street parking around the Eden Park stadium, and CBD parking stations are not much use if the streets are invaded by pedestriians. Even if there were sufficient parking, it would need a lot of motorway lanes to disperse the crowd quickly, because one motorway lane can only handle 2000 vehcicles per hour.
I heard of the problems with the trains and thankfully skipped them for the bus and was there in 15 mins from the CBD. Great. Caught the train home out West. No problem either. Even entertainment provided for us for the short wait. So I guess some parts worked well.
The loop of course would help all this by not creating a stupid bottleneck at Britomart. To me is just further illustrates how National and Joyce are clowns by not moving it forward.
I’m sorry, has anyone here tried to take the train on a normal day? It breaks down EVERY DAY. Seriously, every morning I get a text message (normally half an hour late so it’s useless) informing of delayed or cancelled trains because of breakdowns. Every evening there’s late or cancelled trains. And their “system” of managing it seems to be people standing around with clipboards and walkie talkies looking confused, while an unintelligible voice says something over the loudspeaker.
Veolia has never done a good job of managing the train system. If they can’t handle everyday operations, I don’t know why anyone is surprised it all goes to hell when there’s an event on.
I’m not sure if I would be blaming Mr Joyce for this mess (I can’t believe I am defending him). But isn’t part of the problem alot older. Doesn’t John Banks have something to answer for downsizing Birtomart. It seems that Birtomart is just too small to handle this many people.
I wonder if they could have use the strand more effectively. Like using it as a platform for some communter services? Perhaps Eastern line. Then it would remove some people away from birtomart. Perhaps they could have then only run southern line services to Otahuhu and made people change at Otahuhu to an eastern line service. It would be an inconvent for people like me travelling from newmarket to manurewa but at least I would get home.
New Zealand’s Rail System, and Auckland’s in particular, I am afraid is “The Little Engine that Couldn’t” It needs a bigger engine with another driver at the throttle to help push it over the proverbial hill that confronts it otherwise people will continue to miss the “circus show”!
Reading all this makes you wonder who will be held accountable…
But when we were at Britomart at half time there were thousands of people lining up to closed doors and some were starting fights(!) just to get further up in the queue and NO cops seen anywhere! One thing that could have helped with the amount of people was crowd control get people to line up and wait and then you dont get the rush. Another thing was transport information. No information at all on the buses going north. No people from Auckland Transport there to tell people about buses. And then the us came and stopped at the back of the queue…people rushing from the front to get on the bus crushing little kids into the bus…
In my opinion the people who drew up the transport plans and the transport companies need to be held accountable!
, has anyone here tried to take the train on a normal day? It breaks down EVERY DAY. Seriously, every morning I get a text message (normally half an hour late so it’s useless) informing of delayed or cancelled trains because of breakdowns. Every evening there’s late or cancelled trains. And their “system” of managing it seems to be people standing around with clipboards and walkie talkies looking confused, while an unintelligible voice says something over the loudspeaker.
They (not just Veolia, there are multiple actors here) really don’t seem to know how to run a reliable train service at the best of times, so yes, your comments are entirely reasonable.
The loop of course would help all this by not creating a stupid bottleneck at Britomart. To me is just further illustrates how National and Joyce are clowns by not moving it forward.
Indeed. This is not ever going to get any better. This might be the greatest number we see in a while, but having 100,000 wanting to use the trains (for a number of reasons) in an evening isn’t inconceivable. At the very least we should have a system with more than the incredibly limited capacity we have…
Perhaps Auckland City just shot itself in the foot by hosting one event in a transport critical area for the main event ie Eden Park opening ceremony. Auckland’s welcome while well intentioned was poorly timed and located
Typcial Aucklanders, want to be an ‘international’ city, but everyone thinks they’ll get to the game if they leave just before kickoff.
And no - taking public transport overseas to events does NOT involve pushing, shoving, impatient queueing and antisocial behaviour.
Will we see any of these ‘emergency button’ pushers prosecuted.
I doubt it we are far too soft!
Someplaces overseas for improper use of these buttons is a $3000 fine +
Why wasn’t the domain used for party central? That’s a proven venue for 100,000′s of people via Christmas in the Park etc.
First mistake - letting old rugby farts win the Eden Park vs CBD - imagine the simple train trip in, and then the crowd spreadign out through the cbd.
Second mistake - going for the whole “party” thing. Council/govt think it enhances the event - probably thinking differently today! As people have said - party central clashes with transport hub, and also brings the NZ drinking culture to international attention. It will get seedier as the rwc progresses, families will have stopped going now, and it just become a hoons haunt.
maybe just watch and enjoy the rugby:)
rail was sold a hospital pass bigtime
all the planning was for eden park
nobody planned for the much larger crowd coming to akld CBD
person responible is idiot who allowed all this on weekday
but somehow its all the trains fault
Regarding the lack of Police at Britomart, should we be starting to think about creating a dedicated division in a similar vein as the British Transport Police?
We decided to follow instructions and leave early, leaving Papakura by train at 2pm. By Manurewa the trains were full & the conductor couldn’t get to everyone to collect money for their tickets (we had free transport because of match tickets). Once at Britomart (a little after 3pm) it took us about 10 minutes to disembark and make our way out of the station. So we decide once meeting family (who were working till 5pm) we will do the 4k walk to to stadium, that took us about 30 minutes. We were at the stadium before 6pm.
Yes we were told to use PT, but we were also told to leave early. To many people left it to late & I don’t feel sorry for them.
Its just a shame from a New Zealand perspective that our largest city is Auckland and that as a consequence it is the centre-piece of the tournament. Auckland has a history of ballsing up every event it ever hosts.
The public transport was just an embarassment to our country. Just demonstrated we should not be hosting an event of this magnitude.
Wasp wrote: “Geoff 184. The tender for the electric trains etc was due to be signed about mid 2009 by Auckland Regional Transport Authority. The intention was to have at least half the lines electrified by 2011″
No, that’s not true. While there were some in ARTA who wanted electric trains by 2011, they were told by both government and KiwiRail that it would not be possible. The official plan was always wires up by 2013. Under National, the wires will still be up by 2013, but the trains will start the following year, in 2014. That delay of 12 months from 2013 to 2014 is the only delay attributable to the current government. There was no delay to the infrastructure construction.
To have electric trains in 2011, the previous government would have had to give the nod to electrification back in 2005 when people were calling for it, instead of waiting until 2007.
All I can say is, Friday was a long day and a very long night. And you think it was “long” for the public and fans, heck it felt like multiple life times as a front line staffer down there in that powder keg.
Oh a thought on Crowd Control - military consisting of 1000 army troops?
Yeah i saw no crowd control at all at the ferry building…
This is an major event! Who ever thought about everything but crowd control should be sacked!
Has anyone thought to put this in perspective. They are saying 60,000 at Eden Park & 2000 spectators missed the start of the game. If my maths is correct 3.33% of the stadium missed the start. If over 96% of people got there on time isn’t that an excellent pass mark. If you aren’t happy with that rate of success, I’m glad I’n not your kid.
No one will be held accountable. The system was never going to cope. And nor should we expect it to from here on in.
When trains work it rules but the fact of the matter is that they are useless at coping with spikes in demand. It takes just one fault, somewhere on the network, to jam the whole thing up; when one stops they all stop.
I guess it’s nice to learn to drive a tram around the tank farm and all, but the reality is that heaps of busses and a little bit of traffic control would have done the job on Friday.
This is a normal sight at every holiday period in China. You get used to it…
We arrived at Britomart around 6 to get a train to the game. Our biggest frustration was lack of communication. At that point if there had been communication about the problems, we could have made an informed decision to walk, or get onto one of the empty buses and made it in time. Instead they directed us into the station in a queue that seemed to be moving smoothly, packed us on to the platform and then left us for half an hour. Then 4 trains arrived and we were shuffled on to those, only to stand trapped and suffocating in the carriage for 45 mins, on a train which never left. Again, no communication. It was lucky the crowd was well behaved. It certainly had the ingredients for a fatal crush situation if a few had started panicking. Eventually an uninformed fluro jacket suggested we get off and run to the game. We missed the entire opening ceremony. If only someone had told us as we entered that trains had already stopped, we could have made it. I’m completely gutted that we missed out.
Incompetence comes from the top. Fire the senior management of Veola and Auckland Transport. These guys are getting paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for crap service. You could appoint a monkey as the CEO and I doubt anyone would notice the difference.