Rail services in New Zealand’s most populous city commenced under a new operator – Singapore’s very own ComfortDelGro Corp and its Australian partner UGL Rail Services (UGL). This marks the first overseas heavy rail venture by a Singapore company and ComfortDelGro’s first in New Zealand. Services on the Eastern, Southern and Onehunga Lines of the Auckland Rail Franchise (ARF) kicked off to a smooth start at 5.48 am today (January 17) after a four-week-long annual shutdown for uninterrupted railway works. The start of revenue service today marks the start of a new travel experience for passengers with Auckland One Rail (AOR) as the new operator of the Auckland Rail Franchise (ARF).
AOR is a 50:50 joint venture company between ComfortDelGro and UGL, an Australian rail operations and maintenance company and a member of the CIMIC Group. It was awarded the S$1.13 billion ARF contract in August 2021 after a keenly-contested tender. The contract, which is for an initial term of eight years with an opportunity for further extensions, is for all passenger train operations across the ARF network, including the operation and maintenance of stations, the management and maintenance of rolling stock, customer services, safety and security management, as well as industrial relations management. The commencement of rail operations in Auckland marks “a new chapter in the ComfortDelGro growth story,” said ComfortDelGro Chairman Lim Jit Poh. “It signals our move into the international rail scene – 18 years after we began rail operations in Singapore through the North-East Line, which was the world’s first fully automated underground line. In the close to two decades that we have been running train services, we have amassed a wealth of knowledge and experience, in the key areas of technical, customer service and disaster recovery.
Notably, we have been achieving world-class reliability of 2 million MKBF1 across the fleet for two years running now. This track record is important as we look at further growing our rail business. In fact, we have already been shortlisted in two other rail tenders – one in Paris with French transport giant RATP Group to operate Lines 15, 16 and 17 of the Grand Paris Express, and the other with UGL and Australian rail infrastructure specialist Coleman Rail to operate the Sydney Metro Western Sydney Airport line in Sydney,” he said.
AOR’s Chief Executive Officer, Mr Paul D’Alessio added: “AOR is excited and committed to delivering a modern metropolitan rail service where customers are at the heart. Working closely with Auckland Transport, we plan to drive a step-change particularly in the areas of service performance and customer experience, leveraging the resources, expertise and extensive experience of both ComfortDelGro and UGL, which are established and experienced rail franchise operators. “We anticipate an increase in rail patronage, partly already driven by rapid population growth. And as we work hard to deliver continuous improvements in rail service punctuality, reliability, customer satisfaction, service planning and incident recovery, we expect even more Aucklanders to switch to taking rail services as a travel mode choice,” he added. As part of the mobilisation activities, the two partners had earlier entered into a sale and purchase agreement to take over the entire issued share capital of the then incumbent operator, Transdev Auckland Limited. The transaction has been completed following the written approval of Auckland Transport and with both partners holding an equal share of 50% of the issued capital. Each partner has a shareholding of S$4.62 million (NZD$5.0 million), as required by the local transport authority, Auckland Transport, in the entity which has since been renamed Auckland One Rail Limited.
To ensure a smooth and seamless transition for passengers, a 44-strong team comprising specialists and employees from both companies have been working diligently since September 2021 in preparation for today’s launch. The mobilisation team included Mr Kayden Chew, a manager from SBS Transit Ltd, which is a 75%-owned subsidiary of ComfortDelGro. He was based in Auckland for 13 weeks as the Mobilisation Manager to oversee the transition on the ground while his colleague, Mr Vincent Seow, was there to assess and ensure appropriate security measures were effectively put in place to prevent security breaches along with the network. Mr Chew said: “We took the COVID-19 restrictions in our stride and were able to conduct site visits to strategise and operationalise our plans that had been mapped out on paper. It was important to see what was actually happening on the ground before we went into implementation mode to ensure a smooth cut-over. It also provided us with opportunities to establish good working relationships with the Authorities as well as familiarizing ourselves with the people who will be transiting to AOR as our new and valued employees.”
