Maintaining level crossings
KiwiRail maintains barriers, lights, bells and signage at public level crossings. We also maintain road surfaces within five metres of the railway and ensure adequate ‘view lines’ (for example, by cutting vegetation) so that people can see approaching trains.
Road controlling authorities (usually the local city or district council) are responsible for road markings at level crossings and for maintaining the road surface leading to a crossing. They must also maintain paths and fencing at standalone pedestrian level crossings and advance warning signs like the yellow and black train pictograms.
There are also private level crossings in New Zealand. Private owners (e.g. farmers) are responsible for maintaining and upgrading these crossings.
KiwiRail works with all parties to ensure public level crossings and public pedestrian level crossings are safe for all users.
If there is an urgent issue with a public level crossing, please call our Emergency line - 0800 808 400.
If you would like to report a non-urgent maintenance issue, please let us know on our online form. We will carry out the work or ask the relevant party follow it up.
Improving level crossings
We are constantly working with our transport partners like the New Zealand Transport Agency and local and district councils to understand where we need to improve level crossings. We use the Australian Level Crossing Assessment Model (ALCAM) to evaluate risk and identify safety improvements.
Level crossing faults
Level crossings with barrier arms, flashing lights and bells have an inbuilt safety system. When a fault occurs, the barrier arms, lights and bells are automatically set to ‘safe mode’ to ensure the safety of motorists and pedestrians. This means the arms are lowered and will not rise until the fault is fixed.
We know that faults like this disrupt road traffic and apologise for any inconvenience caused. Our team takes faults of our signalling system and level crossing alarms very seriously, working 24 hours a day, seven days a week to fix them as soon as possible.
If there is an urgent issue with a public level crossing, please call our Emergency line - 0800 808 400.