Wellington Cable Car - Deregulation

Deregulation

In 1991, when passenger transport was deregulated, there was speculation about the future of the Cable Car. Councils could no longer provide transport services directly, having to either privatise or corporatise their operations. The City Council sold its bus operation, but due to public pressure it retained ownership of the Cable Car and the trolleybus overhead wiring, with operations and maintenance contracted out separately.

Initially both contracts were won by Harbour City Cable Car Ltd, a joint venture between the Stagecoach Group, which had purchased the buses, and East by West, a Wellington ferry operator. In 1994 the City Council decided to carry out its own maintenance, and Wellington Cable Car Ltd established its own maintenance capacity. In 1997 the operations contract was won by Serco, which was later purchased by Transfield Services. Wellington Cable Car Ltd took the operation in-house in early 2007.

Cracks were discovered in the tunnel below Talavera station during the 1999 Annual survey. These were fixed with metal anchoring and by coating the tunnel with reinforced concrete.

In July 2006 renovation of Lambton station began, to improve its looks and accessibility. The works were budgeted at $1.3 million, scheduled to be completed in early November. On 18 December the renovated station came into use, with automated turnstiles (and a substantial price rise). Lingering problems with the ticketing system upgrade were fixed during the October 2007 annual survey. A new computer was also added to the winding mechanism during the survey which has caused a few temporary issues with how smoothly the cars run.