Auckland Transport (AT) is the council-controlled organisation (CCO) of Auckland Council responsible for most of Auckland's transport infrastructure, projects and services, including roads, walkways, cycleways, ferry facilities, parking and public transport services. AT began operating on 1 November 2010, the day Auckland Council was formed. It absorbed the Auckland Regional Transport Authority and the transport departments of the seven territorial authorities that the new council replaced.
AT is responsible for most transport infrastructure and services in the Auckland region. It designs, builds and maintains roads, footpaths, cycleways, ferry wharves and walkways; and coordinates road safety programmes; and plans, funds and coordinates bus, train and ferry services. It also employs the region's harbourmaster. AT does not control state highways, which fall under the NZ Transport Agency, or rail tracks and platforms, which are owned by KiwiRail.
The Local Government (Auckland Council) (Transport Governance) Amendment Act 2026 took effect on 7 May 2026. It transferred most roading and transport planning functions to Auckland Council and established the Auckland Regional Transport Committee. AT was reconstituted as a transport CCO focused on public transport and infrastructure delivery, with a six-month transition period ending 1 October 2026. AT's headquarters are in the Viaduct Harbour, Auckland.
History
Establishment Before 2010, responsibility for transport in the Auckland region was split between the Auckland Regional Council, seven territorial authorities, Transit New Zealand (later the NZ Transport Agency) and ONTRACK. The Auckland Regional Transport Authority (ARTA) was established on 1 July 2004 under the Local Government (Auckland) Amendment Act 2004 as a subsidiary of the Auckland Regional Council. ARTA planned and funded bus, train and ferry services and prepared the Regional Land Transport Programme, but did not own or control local roads.
In 2009 the Royal Commission on Auckland Governance recommended a single unitary council for the region. The Fifth National Government adopted a modified version of the recommendation. The Local Government (Auckland Council) Act 2009 established Auckland Council and, at section 38, created Auckland Transport as a council-controlled organisation.
Auckland Transport began operating on 1 November 2010, the day Auckland Council came into existence. It absorbed ARTA and the transport departments of the Auckland Regional Council and the seven territorial authorities: Auckland City, Manukau City, North Shore City, Waitakere City, Rodney District, Papakura District and Franklin District. Around 846 staff transferred to the new organisation on its first day.
Mark Ford, who had led the Auckland Transition Agency, was the inaugural chair. In August 2010 the agency named David Warburton interim chief executive on a fixed term to 30 June 2012. Warburton was then chief executive for Australia and New Zealand of CPG, an infrastructure and consulting company owned by Downer EDI, and had earlier been chief executive of Wanganui District Council. AT operated under the Local Government (Auckland Council) Act 2009, the Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Act 2010 and the Land Transport Management Act 2003.
Early years Three inherited projects were finished in 2011, including the East Coast Road upgrade, Lake Road widening in Devonport, and a package of road works at New Lynn, including the Clark Street extension. AT additionally inherited rail electrification, the City Rail Link, Auckland Manukau Eastern Transport Initiative (AMETI), Penlink and the Mill Road corridor large-scale projects. AT also took on a contract with Thales for an integrated ticketing smartcard system. Before it was ready, NZ Bus introduced a Snapper-based version of a HOP card, and a dispute followed over integration. AT terminated the Snapper arrangement in 2012 and launched the Thales system as the AT HOP card.
That year, AT began to retire the MAXX public transport brand, later rebranding it as AT Metro. The government funded rail electrification, and AT ordered 57 three-car AM class units from CAF of Spain. Manukau railway station and the 2km Manukau rail branch opened in April 2012. Veolia's rail operating contract was renewed and the operator was renamed Transdev Auckland in 2013. The first electric services ran on the Onehunga Line on 28 April 2014; diesels were withdrawn from the electrified network in July 2015.
Lester Levy replaced Ford as chair in 2012. In 2013 the government and Auckland Council reached agreement in principle to fund the City Rail Link, a 3.45-kilometre underground rail line between Britomart and Mount Eden. Enabling works began in Lower Queen Street in December 2015. The project was transferred to City Rail Link Limited, jointly owned by the Crown and the council, in 2017.
AMETI was then AT's largest construction project. Work began in October 2011 with the Mountain Road bridge and a busway bridge over the Ellerslie-Panmure Highway. The rebuilt Panmure station and interchange, costing $17.5 million, opened in January 2014. Te Horeta Road, a 1.5 km link with a 220-metre tunnel, opened on 2 November 2014.
Other road projects of the period included the Glenfield Road upgrade and the Taharoto and Wairau Road upgrade, both completed in 2013; and the Tiverton and Wolverton four-laning, completed in March 2014. Construction of the Albany Highway North upgrade began in November 2014.
AT's walking and cycling programme expanded under the government's Urban Cycleways Programme, which co-funded routes including the Northwestern cycleway extensions, Quay Street and the Waterview shared path. The Beach Road cycleway, the first separated on-road cycleway in New Zealand, opened in June 2015, and the Nelson Street cycleway and Lightpath opened in December 2015.
Rapid transit and public transport improvements From 2013 AT consulted on the New Network, a bus redesign replacing direct routes with frequent routes and feeders. It was rolled out in South Auckland in October 2016, the west in June 2017, the east in December 2017, the isthmus in July 2018, and the North Shore in September 2018. Zone-based fares replaced stage fares in August 2016. New bus interchanges opened at Ōtāhuhu and Manukau to cater for more transfers. The New Network was procured under the Public Transport Operating Model (PTOM), introduced by the Land Transport Management Amendment Act 2013. Between 2015 and 2018 AT re-tendered all bus units.
In 2015 AT proposed light rail on central isthmus corridors to relieve bus congestion in the city centre, later focussing mainly on a Dominion Road line. The Sixth Labour Government took over the project as Auckland Light Rail in 2017. It was converted to a metro project, never reached construction and the National-led government cancelled it in January 2024.
Patronage rose from about 70 million boardings in the year to June 2013 to 100 million in the year to June 2019. AT ordered a further 15 AM class units in 2017 to meet rail demand, bringing the fleet to 72 by 2019.
The Auckland Transport Alignment Project, published in 2016 and revised in 2018, set out $28 billion of spending over ten years. To fund the council's share, a regional fuel tax of 11.5 cents a litre took effect on 1 July 2018. AT created the role of Transport Officer in 2017 to enforce fares. Proposals for cycleways in Grey Lynn and Westmere drew organised local opposition in 2017 and 2018 and AT paused the Grey Lynn works.
Warburton retired in 2017. Shane Ellison became chief executive in December 2017. Levy stepped down in 2019 and Adrienne Young-Cooper replaced him as chair. Road deaths on Auckland roads peaked at 64 in 2017. AT adopted a Vision Zero strategy in 2019 and its Speed Limits Bylaw 2019 lowered limits on about 700 roads from 30 June 2020, including 30 km/h in the city centre.
COVID-19 and recovery (2020–2022) In January 2020 the government took over the Penlink and Mill Road projects under the New Zealand Upgrade Programme, with NZTA as delivery agent.
Public transport patronage then fell sharply during the national lockdown of March and April 2020 and the Auckland lockdown of August to December 2021.
In 2020 a council review of its CCOs, chaired by Miriam Dean, found a lack of trust between AT and the council and recommended changes to accountability and communication. In August 2022 the council adopted the Transport Emissions Reduction Pathway, which set a target of a 64 per cent cut in transport emissions by 2030.
A shortage of bus drivers led to widespread public transport cancellations from 2021. At its peak in late 2022 AT was short about 500 drivers and had suspended more than 1,000 trips a day. The government's half-price fare scheme ran from April 2022 to July 2023. Auckland One Rail, a joint venture of ComfortDelGro and UGL, replaced Transdev as rail operator in January 2022. AT ordered a further 23 AM class units in 2020 for the extension of electric services to Pukekohe. The line south of Papakura closed in August 2022 for electrification and reopened in February 2025 with new stations under construction at Drury, Paerātā and Ngākōroa.
The $69 million Puhinui Station interchange opened on 26 July 2021 and connected the rail network to the AirportLink bus. Stage 1 of the Eastern Busway, from Panmure to Pakūranga, opened in December 2021. AT and the council completed the $350 million Downtown programme on Quay Street in 2021, including the seawall strengthening, the Lower Albert Street bus interchange, six new ferry berths at Queens Wharf and the Te Wānanga public space. The Karangahape Road upgrade was completed the same year and the Tāmaki Drive cycleway in 2022.
Ellison announced his resignation in 2021 and left in mid-2022. Mark Lambert acted as chief executive until Dean Kimpton, a former chief operating officer of Auckland Council, took up the role in 2023.
Relations with Auckland Council (2022–2024) Wayne Brown was elected mayor in October 2022 on a promise to "take back control" of the council's CCOs including AT in particular. He criticised the board, executive salaries, raised pedestrian crossings and the cycleway programme, and sought the resignation of several directors. Young-Cooper resigned as chair in 2023 shortly after his election and Richard Leggat replaced her. The Point Chevalier to Westmere upgrade, paused in October 2022 partly at the direction of Brown, resumed in December 2023 and was completed in 2025.
KiwiRail's Rail Network Rebuild, a programme of track and formation renewal ahead of the City Rail Link opening, closed sections of the network for extended periods between 2023 and 2025 and replaced trains with buses. Rail patronage recovered more slowly than bus patronage.
The government repealed the regional fuel tax from 30 June 2024. In 2024 AT introduced a $50 weekly fare cap, and launched contactless payments, allowing bus, train and ferry passengers to 'tag on and off' with debit/credit cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay in addition to AT HOP cards. About 4000 payment validators were replaced for the launch which are expected to work with the Motu Move card.
Construction of stage 2 of the Eastern Busway, from Pakūranga to Botany, began in April 2023. The Matakana Link Road opened in June 2023 with the Pūhoi to Warkworth motorway, and AT took over the former State Highway 1 through Warkworth. The AT board approved a $28.1 million upgrade of Great North Road in Grey Lynn in June 2023, scaled back from a 2015 design; main works ran from January 2025 into 2026. Restructuring