City Rail Link (CRL) is the largest and most complex transport infrastructure project ever undertaken in Aotearoa New Zealand. As part of Link Alliance, WSP has worked with City Rail Link Ltd and Link Alliance members to help deliver a twin-tunnel underground rail link through central Auckland, including new stations at Te Waihorotiu and Karanga-a-Hape and a redeveloped Maungawhau station. The project will transform how people move through Tāmaki Makaurau, increasing rail capacity, improving access to the city centre and wider region, and enabling faster, more frequent and better-connected journeys.

Location

  • Tāmaki Makaurau, Aotearoa / Auckland, New Zealand

Client

  • City Rail Link Ltd 

Project Status

  • In delivery 2026

Meet the people behind the project

Hear from some of the WSP experts behind CRL as they share the complexity, collaboration and problem-solving involved in helping shape and deliver one of Aotearoa New Zealand’s most significant infrastructure projects.

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WSP's Project Footprint:

WSP people behind the project
676
WSP disciplines and services represented
40
Global WSP locations contributing expertise
9 

Image credit: City Rail Link ltd

Building City Rail Link beneath central Auckland

City Rail Link runs through one of the most constrained and intensively used parts of Auckland, requiring major underground works, new stations, complex rail systems and integration with an existing live network. Delivering it has meant balancing buildability, urban design, public safety and long-term network operations within a dense city environment.

As a member of the Link Alliance, WSP worked closely with partners to help build the many systems, structures and environments that make up a full operational underground railway. WSP contributed expertise across multiple engineering disciplines, digital, rail systems, architecture, urban design, planning and human factors. This has supported the integration of underground structures, station environments, operator interfaces and network systems within a highly constrained setting.

WSP also drew on specialist expertise from its global network, combining local knowledge with input from our colleagues in Australia, Hong Kong, China, Canada, India, the Philippines and the UK.

Bringing global expertise to a local landmark

WSP also drew on specialist expertise from its global network, combining local knowledge with input from our colleagues in Australia, Hong Kong, China, Canada, India, the Philippines and the UK.

WSP Australia played an important role in design delivery, bringing specialist rail systems expertise across signalling, overhead line equipment, and traction power. They also supported installation, commissioning, testing and trial running, with additional input into tunnel design and building services.

On tunnel ventilation, WSP Hong Kong supported the New Zealand team with specialist input into analysis, design and modelling, helping test system performance across normal, congested and emergency operations, as well as future tunnel temperature conditions.

For vertical transportation, the team was also supported by WSP China during escalator factory acceptance testing in Shanghai. With New Zealand based designers, procurement and construction, client representatives and maintenance teams observing remotely, the approach reduced travel impacts, enabled wider participation and helped identify potential issues before equipment was shipped to New Zealand.

On electrical and communications systems, WSP India provided BIM modelling capability and capacity to produce installation shop drawings, covering hundreds of kilometres of cable trays fully coordinated within the 3D BIM environment.

A railway that keeps the city moving

City Rail Link is more than a collection of tunnels, stations and rail assets. To move people safely and reliably through the city, station systems and rail systems need to work together as a single operational network, from track work, signalling and overhead power to ventilation, communications and station environments.

Delivering that has required design, installation, integration, testing and commissioning across thousands of requirements. As part of Link Alliance, WSP has contributed to this through spatial planning and building design in highly constrained underground environments, and with close collaboration across disciplines to solve complex delivery challenges.

img_CRL_Body_2 tunnel Krd

Using digital engineering to manage complexity at scale

Digital engineering helped teams coordinate the scale and complexity of City Rail Link more effectively. 

More than 500 BIM models were brought together into a federated model to give teams a shared view across disciplines and make it easier to identify issues earlier. This supported design coordination, quality assurance, construction planning, tunnel modelling and simulations for customer and operator experience. By improving visibility across systems, digital engineering helped reduce rework, optimise materials and support more efficient delivery across the programme.

Digital engineering helped make complexity visible, giving the team a clearer way to coordinate, solve problems earlier, optimise materials and drive meaningful, sustainable outcomes.

Creating long term value through sustainability and performance

Sustainability and carbon reduction measures have been integrated into CRL’s design and delivery, supported by the Infrastructure Sustainability Council’s rating framework. In 2020, the project became the first in New Zealand to receive the council’s Excellence in Design certification. In 2025, the CRL project achieved two ISC As-Built Leading ratings; one recognising the design and construction of the Link Alliance-delivered tunnels and stations contract, and one for the overall CRL project. The overall rating recognised the entire project, from Waitematā to Maungawhau, as meeting the highest sustainability standards ever awarded in New Zealand.

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Improving safety, access, and operator usability

Behavioural science and human-centred design informed decisions about passenger movement, access, safety in public areas, as well as usability in operational spaces including the control room.

 
A human-centred approach helped us move beyond conventional design assumptions and create spaces that better support how people work, move, communicate and make critical decisions.

Using a mixed methods approach including VR simulations, scenario testing and workshops, the team tested normal operations, degraded conditions and emergency evacuation scenarios with independent participants. This informed clearer wayfinding at emergency exits, supported design decisions for people with a range of access needs, and helped shape control-room layouts better suited to day-to-day communication and critical decision-making.

img_CRL_Body_4 building Krd
img_CRL_Body_5 Shells Krd

Shaping a project that responds to place, people and culture

In 2012, iwi from across Tāmaki Makaurau formed the City Rail Link Mana Whenua Forum, bringing together representatives across eight iwi to guide how Māori histories, values and knowledge would be expressed throughout the stations. As Link Alliance architects, Grimshaw & WSP partnered with City Rail Link Limited and mana whenua to help embed Māori principles into the spatial, material and urban design of the stations. Iwi artists worked alongside the CRL project team, architects and engineers to inform station design, naming and cultural expression, helping ensure the project reflects place, culture and community.

The result is visible in the station environments, where cultural narratives come through in naming, materials, art and form. Together, these elements strengthen connection to place while supporting identity and wayfinding, and help create a more immersive customer experience.

At Te Waihorotiu and Karanga-a-Hape stations, precast panels reference Waitematā sandstone, expressing the earth element. At Maungawhau Station, the same element is expressed through basalt, volcanic forms and water.  At Te Waihorotiu Station’s Wellesley Street entrance, artwork recalls the Waihorotiu Stream, now buried below Queen Street, connecting the station to the layered history of place.

Great public infrastructure should feel connected to the place it serves. Working alongside Mana Whenua helped shape stations’ expressive form, materials and art, reflecting the stories, landscapes and identity of Tāmaki Makaurau, and creating spaces that are both functional and deeply rooted in their surroundings.

Creating public places around a new rail network

WSP’s landscape architecture and urban design work helped integrate City Rail Link’s station precincts into the streets, public spaces and communities around them. Rather than treating the public realm as a finishing layer, the team helped shape station forecourts, plazas, streetscapes, pedestrian-priority spaces, planting and green infrastructure as part of the project’s wider design response.

This work required close coordination across landscape, architecture, civil infrastructure, rail systems and construction teams, with design outcomes developed around complex underground assets, utilities, station structures and future development interfaces. It also brought together sustainability, accessibility, safety-by-design and long-term asset performance considerations, helping create public spaces that support movement through the city while contributing to a more resilient and people-centred urban environment.

Link Alliance Members

WSP New Zealand Ltd, VINCI Construction Grands Projets S.A.S, Downer NZ Ltd, Soletanche Bachy International NZ Ltd, AECOM New Zealand Ltd, Tonkin + Taylor Ltd, City Rail Link Limited. 

 

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