Mayor of Wellington Michael Fowler, the line closed on 22 September 1978 for re-gauging and installation of new steel cars and equipment by Habegger AG of Switzerland, becoming a full funicular. The contract was managed by Wellington engineering firm Cory-Wright and Salmon. The line re-opened on 22 October 1979. Initially, the refurbished Cable Car suffered a number of problems. The service was frequently interrupted for technical reasons and for extensive safety checks. Largely as a result of these problems, patronage dropped to a low of 500,000 in 1982. After a serious accident in 1988, which put the cars out of service for months, the system underwent a major revamp. This solved most of the problems and patronage has steadily increased since then. A safety survey is conducted annually at the end of October and takes four days. Deregulation In 1991, when passenger transport was deregulated, there was speculation about the future of the Cable Car. Councils could no longer provide transport services directly, having to either privatise or corporatise their operations. The City Council sold its bus operation, but due to public pressure it retained ownership of the Cable Car and the trolleybus overhead wiring, with operations and maintenance contracted out separately. Initially both contracts were won by Harbour City Cable Car Ltd, a joint venture between the Stagecoach Group, which had purchased the buses, and East by West, a Wellington ferry operator. In 1994, the City Council decided to carry out its own maintenance, and Wellington Cable Car Ltd established its own maintenance capacity. In 1997, the operations contract was won by Serco, which was later purchased by Transfield Services. Wellington Cable Car Ltd took the operation in-house in early 2007. Cracks were discovered in the tunnel below Talavera station during the 1999 Annual survey. These were fixed with metal anchoring and by coating the tunnel with reinforced concrete. In July 2006, renovation of Lambton station began, to improve its looks and accessibility. The works were budgeted at $1.3 million, scheduled to be completed in early November. On 18 December the renovated station came into use, with automated turnstiles (and a substantial price rise). Lingering problems with the ticketing system upgrade were fixed during the October 2007 annual survey. A new computer was also added to the winding mechanism during the survey which has caused a few temporary issues with how smoothly the cars run. 2016 electric drive and