After a successful trial of marshals moving passengers to empty areas on afternoon peak trains, a minor upgrade is under way to make more room on some platforms. The renovations will fall well short of the extra capacity required at the ageing station, however.
Work is being done on platforms five and six to remove storage and cleaners' supply rooms to create 40 to 45 square metres of extra space.
Town Hall's platforms are 158 metres long, however, and the work will not create a huge amount of breathing space for commuters. But with the station straining at its capacity, RailCorp's management is trying to remove all non-essential items to free up room.
It is all the organisation can do until the State Government signs a hugely expensive, and disruptive, station upgrade plan that continues to gather dust.
A 2007 RailCorp plan exists for a $600 million overhaul to bring Town Hall up to fire safety standards and provide capacity for growth. It has failed to meet these standards since 2001.
Consultants have warned that "Town Hall cannot currently be fully evacuated in the morning and evening peaks within times stipulated by the Standards for Fixed Guideway Transit and Passenger Rail Systems". It still has no fire-escape stairs.
About 150,000 passengers use the station every day and the Government estimates this to rise to more than 168,000 within eight years. The actual figure is likely to be even higher.
With mounting household debt and strong CBD jobs growth in past years, railway patronage is rising by more than 8 per cent a year on some lines.
Overall, the growth rate was more than 4.7 per cent for the 12 months to February this year, which is more than 200,000 extra passengers using the network a week.
In June the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal said an urgent increase in capacity was needed in the CBD railway network to prevent Town Hall and Wynyard stations becoming swamped by passengers.
In 2005 the then Premier, Bob Carr, announced a plan to install a $5 billion rail line through the city, with new stations that would alleviate the crush at Town Hall and bring relief to every part of the rail network for decades.
This was plan scrapped in March with the announcement of the North West Metro. "The likely growth in peak-period demand means that meeting the Government's objective of reducing the cost of CityRail services while also improving the quality and reliability of these services will be a major challenge," the tribunal's report says.
A review of station operations by Boston Consulting Group has led to some changes in the way Town Hall operates. One of the most successful reforms has been the introduction of marshals on busy city platforms to move people to either end of the train, where there are fewer people.
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