Free buses and parking restrictions for Rugby World Cup games at North Harbour Stadium will be tested on 22,000 football fans expected for an All Whites clash there in eight days.
A transport plan aims to encourage at least half of the 30,000 spectators expected at each of three pool
matches at the stadium next September to travel there not using private cars.
There will be no parking at the stadium for anyone but approved officials, and a large area between Civic Cres and Oteha Valley Rd will also be off-limits to people not customers of shops within the zone.
Anyone parking on grass verges or median strips will risk being towed.
Instead, World Cup transport organisers are offering free bus travel from as far as Manukau, Orewa and Henderson, both for the rugby matches and a football international next weekend between the All Whites and Honduras.
The rugby cup plan will include free bus shuttles from four park-and-ride areas - at Takapuna, Smales Farm, Westgate and the Bush Rd industrial estate south of Albany. Buses from all those areas apart from Bush Rd will also be available to the football fans on October 9.
The North Harbour plan follows the release of a larger transport scheme to cope with crowds of 60,000 spectators expected at rugby cup finals at Eden Park, much of which was tested successfully at the All Blacks-South Africa Tri-Nations match in July.
Rugby cup transport director Bruce Barnard said he was pleased both plans had been completed in plenty of time to be tested before the big event.
The plan for North Harbour Stadium is complicated by a need to minimise effects on the nearby Westfield Albany shopping centre.
Roads to the east and south of the centre will be kept open but Mr Barnard, an Auckland Regional Transport Authority official, said rugby spectators should try to keep clear to allow "business as usual".
ON THE WEB
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