Auckland Eastern Busway Alliance porter hire

Porter Hire is helping a large project in one of Auckland’s fastest-growing regions to stay on track and deliver more efficient, safer transportation outcomes for residents

A lot of large infrastructure projects these days are delivered by consortiums and Auckland’s Eastern Busway Alliance is one such job, where the collection of shared skills and knowledge is transforming the land between Pakuranga and Botany to safely and efficiently transport the growing population.

Once completed in 2028, it will make East Auckland trips both locally and towards the central city easier and more efficient, but for now, there’s a lot of equipment at work, with a portion supplied to alliance partner Fletcher Construction by New Zealand’s largest industry heavy hire business, Porter Hire.

Front and centre for Fletcher Construction is logistics supervisor Liam Colmer, who ensures the 10km of deep drainage currently underway is being well-supplied with aggregate and other bulk materials from a nearby transit depot.

Also acting as a transfer station and making the best of Auckland’s traffic congestion issues, the site temporarily houses excavated spoil, which is then regularly removed to cleanfills by truck and trailers.

Porter Hire’s equipment is busy ensuring the materials transit through the yard efficiently

Just around the corner is where work is about to start on the Reeves Road bridge (flyover), so the busy depot will soon kick into a higher gear, but until then, Porter Hire’s equipment is busy ensuring the materials transit through the yard efficiently and, importantly, within consent requirements.

A tractor broom ensures the yard is kept clean and debri-free

“Currently, we’re using wheel loaders, excavators, dumpers, water carts, and tractor brooms onsite,” says Liam.

“The plant hire aspect of the job went to market and one of the main reasons Porter Hire was selected was due to their good competitive rates,” says Liam.

The Hyundai wheel loaders move hundreds of tonnes of material each day

Tasked with ensuring the depot is operating at peak efficiency by moving hundreds of tonnes (if not more) of material each day are two Porter Hire wheel loaders: a Hyundai HL960 and its smaller HL757-9 sibling.

Their work underpins the yard operation by keeping the arrival of bulk materials in order and loading out the numerous trucks that arrive for materials every few minutes.

Payload scales fitted to the wheel loaders give the loader operators peace of mind that they
are filling each truck to maximum legal capacity. It’s a busy operation.

In a yard environment, dust can be an issue, so a Porter Hire-supplied water cart and tractor broom are regularly in use, ensuring the yard and surrounding environment are kept trouble-free despite the significant amount of construction traffic transiting through the depot each hour.

Like numerous other time-critical projects, Porter Hire’s extensive range of equipment across the country allows them to have machinery and service technicians on hand quickly, especially at times when additional plant is required urgently or in the case of an unscheduled stoppage.

From left: Porter rep Travis Nicholls with Liam Colmer (Fletcher Construction logistics supervisor) and Tajim Khan (equipment operator)

“Our Porter rep Travis Nicholls is easy to deal with and issues are resolved relatively quickly,” says Liam.

“They have a wide variety of equipment to choose from and a large fleet, meaning there’s good availability and choice when it comes to work that requires a particular machine or breakdown cover.”

The completed project

The Panmure to Pakūranga section of the Eastern busway opened in 2021 and the Pakūranga to Botany section will complete the project. Some of its benefits include:

Better connections and sustainable travel options for walkers, cyclists, motorists, bus and train customers
A reliable bus and train trip between Botany Town Centre and Britomart
12km of safe and separated walking and cycling routes
Five kilometres of busway between Pakūranga and Botany fully separated from other traffic
Five new bus stations with quality facilities
A flyover above Reeves Road providing a direct connection between Pakūranga Road and the South-Eastern Highway to reduce vehicle congestion around Pakūranga Town Centre
By 2028, the Busway will carry 18,000 passengers per day, more than four times the 3700 bus passengers per day before March 2020, and by 2048, it’s expected to increase to 24,000 passengers per day.

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Photography: Suppiled