A commuter train trial between Hamilton and Auckland is expected to lead to a high speed service in the future.

The five year trial is due to begin in March 2020 at a cost of $78 million

Waikato District Mayor Allan Sanson told Mike Yardley the start-up service will try to establish what demand there is.

"When we look at the evidence I think there is demand for it, we have had an increasing number of people asking for the service for a number of years now.

We would be putting in modern technology with WiFi into the carriages and providing all of the benefits passengers require in today's' modern age to make it as appealing as possible."

With people wanting to commute in the quickest amount of time possible, there are concerns the rail service may be to slow compared to driving the car along the motorway. Sanson said they will be looking at all possibilities when finalising a decision.

"The trains currently travel at 80 to 90 kilometres an hour, and the journey time will be 1 hour and 30 mins to Papakura.

What the startup service is trying to do is establish the demand, if we can do some more benefits to the rail network between the tracks we are confident we can make the trains go faster and increase the speed."

He says if improvements can be made to the tracks between Hamilton and Auckland, the council is confident it can get far in excess of those speeds for a passenger rail service."

LISTEN ABOVE AS ALLAN SANSON SPEAKS TO MIKE YARDLEY