Auckland commuters are in for a horror end to the working week with rail staff planning strike action.
Tens of thousands of people will need to find alternative transport, when trains grind to a halt early on Friday morning.
Auckland Transport says it did not have enough warning for the strike to put on extra busses so it is advising commuters to avoid travelling at rush hour or work from home if possible.
The strike will begin at 2:00am on Friday and end at 2:00am on Saturday - around 30,000 train users are expected to be disrupted.
The Rail and Maritime Transport Union says it doesn't like to hold strikes but it's concerned about plans to introduce driver only trains in Auckland.
The union says these trains would be unsafe for both drivers and passengers.
"Given that passenger trains can have up to 1000 people on board if there's a safety incident or medical emergency, antisocial behaviour, you can imagine the consequences," said union advocate John Kerr.
The Public Transport Users Association says they support the strike due to concerns about safety on driver only trains.
However the operator Transdev says safety won't be impacted due to new roving transport officers.
According to the Transdev's managing director the strike isn't about safety at all, rather job security.
"Based on the evidence I see and based on the fact that we're still in this process of actually working through the safety case issue I think the ulterior motive is preserving jobs," said Transdev managing director Michel Ladrak.
Newshub.
