On 26 July Auckland Council's Finance Committee approved the purchase of 17 battery powered trains, or Independently Powered Electric Multiple Units, IPEMUs. This was urgent as a deposit needed to be made last month to ensure delivery in 2019, which is when capacity constraints will become very apparent. Network patronage has been growing much faster than expected. For example, it was initially forecast that in 2017 there would be about 17.8m trips, rising to 20.8m in 2023 when the CRL opens. The figure has already reached about 20m, with growth remaining high at almost 17% annually. As such, even AT's newer projections of 22.8m trips in mid-2020 seems extremely light. While there is still a lot that can be done to improve off-peak services, the main thing causing those low projections is a lack of capacity at peak times.
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