Procuring new trains in New Zealand.
Halcrow has been providing technical and procurement advice from its offices in Australia to the Greater Wellington regional council since 2006 as new trains are built for the Wellington suburban rail network.
In July 2010 the first of 48 two-car EMUs being built by Hyundai-Rotem at its Changwon factory in South Korea arrived in Wellington, entering revenue service before the end of the year.
The train is called Matangi, meaning ‘wind’ in Maori, which was the winning entry in a naming competition held by the train owner, our client, Greater Wellington Regional Council.
The goal of the project was to deliver an affordable, integrated, safe and sustainable transport system for Wellington. Of prime importance were safety, reliability, predictable maintenance costs with a low obsolescence risk, low life-cycle costs and compatibility with existing infrastructure, accessibility from platform level across the full mobility range and a two-car electric multiple unit (EMU) configurable to a maximum eight-car train.
Halcrow has led the procurement process for the 96 vehicles, including developing the vehicle specification, implementing the procurement process and now project managing technical design development, manufacturing quality control and build compliance.
At the beginning of 2012, half the fleet has been delivered to Wellington and is now in service.