Most commuters relying on public transport from South Auckland to the central city will have to catch trains rather than long-distance buses under a sweeping network redesign.
A new scheme, which Mayor Len Brown will help Auckland Transport put out for public consultation in Mangere Town Centre today, will focus largely on buses delivering passengers to railway stations or to other connecting bus routes.
It will be introduced to Auckland's southern sector by 2015 before being rolled out to the rest of the region over the following year, with the aim of moving more people on fewer but more frequent services.
Although South Auckland will be covered by just four high-frequency bus routes feeding passengers to railway stations, those will be supplemented by 32 connecting, local or peak-period services.
That compares with 49 existing South Auckland bus routes, a number of which now duplicate the work of trains by running to the central city via Great South Rd or the Southern Motorway.