NZTA wins PMI award

NZTA was asked to address the cause of rear-end crashes and morning/evening crashes due to traffic congestion. The main objectives of the project were to improve traffic flow and safety on the motorway and the result was the introduction of traffic signals on ramps.

“One of the biggest challenges we faced was the number of approvals needed from a wide variety of stakeholders,” said David Bentham, a Project Manager for BECA and a PMI Project Management Professional. “For example, we had to get local council approval before construction started and we had to have the designs reviewed by independent experts employed by NZTA.

“The PMI standards helped us organise all the information so we could communicate what had to be done, and where our priorities lay. Our approach is to carefully manage the ad-hoc matters that arise within a project so we can keep our main focus on executing the project on time and within budget.”

2000 traffic detectors were embedded into the road surface to monitor traffic volume and 100 CCTVs were implemented to monitor the ramp signals. The outcome was a 15 improvement in travel speed and a five to 15% increase in vehicles using the motorway.