page_title: Britomart Transport Centre
section_title: Increased services
hierarchical_section_title: Britomart Transport Centre / Capacity and rail connections / Increased services
caption_attribution_description: English: An ADL class DMU at Platform 4 at Britomart Train Station, Auckland, New Zealand.
context_page_description: Britomart Transport Centre is the public transport hub in the central business district of Auckland, New Zealand, and the northern terminus of the North Island Main Trunk railway line. It combines a railway station in a former Edwardian post office, extended with expansive post-modernist architectural elements, with a bus interchange. It is at the foot of Queen Street, the main commercial thoroughfare of Auckland city centre, with the main ferry terminal just across Quay Street.
  The centre was the result of many design iterations, some of them being substantially larger and including an underground bus terminal and a large underground car park. Political concerns and cost implications meant that those concepts did not proceed. However, at the time of its inception in the early 2000s the centre was still Auckland's largest transport project ever, built to move rail access closer to the city's CBD and help boost Auckland's low usage of public transport. It is one of the few underground railway stations in the world designed for use by diesel trains.
context_section_description: In its early days, Britomart was criticised because it was built on a scale and level of grandeur that was well in excess of the capacity and patronage of the rail network. Auckland Regional Council transport committee chairwoman Catherine Harland acknowledged that "Britomart opened ahead of its time", raising public expectations that could not be fulfilled at the time due to the state of the rail network.
  Patronage on Auckland's rail network increased from 2.5 million journeys in 2003 to just over 14.2 million in July 2015, and by April 2017 had reached 19 million journeys.
caption: Diesel-powered ADL class train at Britomart's Platform 4 in 2006.
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