LGOIMA: Metlink daily rail patronage from 2018 to August 2025

The government agency: Greater Wellington Regional Council
Requested: 16 September 2025

The question

Please supply me with daily rail patronage data going back to 2018. If that data cannot be supplied, please provide any trends in rail patronage based on days and times going back to 2018.

The LGOIMA response

Attached is a copy of the information you have requested broken down by individual rail trips.

Note that the information in the spreadsheets for each individual trip records the highest headcount recorded by Transdev Train Managers per trip. Transdev Train Managers perform multiple headcounts of passengers per service. The highest recorded headcount per service is referred to as the high-count, and it is this figure that is reported to Greater Wellington and is used to identify patronage of rail services.

Please refer to Attachments 1 - 8 for copies of the high-count statistics for each financial year from 2017/2018 to 2024/2025 separated out by train line and special services. Please note that a financial year starts on the first day of July and finishes on the last day of June of the following year.

Please refer to Attachment 9 for the high-count statistics for the period 1 July 2025 to 31 August 2025. At this time, the high-count statistics for the period following 31 August 2025 are not yet available.

Please note that where a headcount reports as zero, or is blank, this service was most likely a cancelled service that did not receive a bus replacement, however it may have instead been due to a forgotten or unreported count.

See the rail data

This is a shit tonne of rail data. I am working on something with it but it'll take some time. Hopefully it's of use to you.

a lil description so people can find it

This Official Information Act response from Greater Wellington Regional Council provides comprehensive daily rail patronage data for Wellington's rail network from financial year 2017/2018 through to August 2025. The data consists of high-count statistics – the highest headcount recorded by Transdev Train Managers per individual rail trip – broken down by train line and special services across nine attachments. The response covers eight complete financial years (2017/2018 to 2024/2025) plus July-August 2025 data. This dataset includes methodology notes explaining that Train Managers perform multiple headcounts per service with the highest figure reported, and that zero or blank counts typically indicate cancelled services without bus replacement (though may occasionally reflect unreported counts). This granular trip-level data is valuable for transport planning, patronage trend analysis, service performance evaluation, and understanding Wellington rail network usage patterns over time.