Early Edition with Ryan BridgeDave Tilton: Temporary Traffic Management Chair on NZ Transport's $800 million spend
There's little doubt there's unnecessary spend at the Transport Agency.
The Transport Minister's called NZTA's costs eye-watering and excessive, after revealing a near $800 million spend over the past three years.
That went to road cones, traffic management, state highway maintenance, and capital works.
Temporary Traffic Management Chair Dave Tilton told Ryan Bridge he believes it's a systemic issue around how much temporary traffic management is deployed.
He says it's a prescriptive system, which doesn't give room for site-specific considerations.
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NDTA spent an eyewater and get this, three quarters of a billion bucks of taxpayers money on road cones and temporary traffic management in the past three years. And that doesn't include spending on local councils and contractors. The Minister of Transport, simm Brown, says the cost is eyewatering and excessive. Dave Tilton is the former chair of the Temporary Traffic Management Industry Steering Group. He's with me this morning. Dave, Good morning, morning yew. Unfortunately, I think there is a direct correlation between the length of somebody's job title and their productivity. So I'm not holding out hope for this. Dave, tell me, is he right? Does he have a point? Are we spending too much?
I think generally the answer would be yes. Is the waste in the system? Without question?
Yeah?
I suppose how much? Is it wasteful? That's there isn't a direct answer to that question yet.
I don't think whose fault is the waste? Is it the industry that you're representing, or is that the government regulation or both?
I think historically it would be the system that's constructed around it. How the decisions get made as to how much TTM gets deployed. So historically it's been a very prescriptive system and that hasn't given a lot of room for more pragmatic or site specific considerations. So systemically it hasn't isn't designed to generate the right amount if you like.
Okay, so the system because the government has just changed the system, so it's less Intense's.
Probably changed about twenty twenty one was where that spun up, so that certainly predates the current government.
Yeah, right, so is that where they made it more intense or less intense?
I wouldn't say probably intensity is probably the word I used, isn't quite right, but more flexible call it that. And that's where that risk based system started to get designed, and it just this year it started to implement. But of course it predates in terms of its design and set, and now it's starting to hit the ground.
Okay, so the risk based system is cheaper.
It can be, Yes, I mean, there is a percentage of waste in the system, and this method should engineer out that waste better than the old method. But it's very dependent on how people do it and how people use it, and certainly the capability in the system to do that, which is probably the piece that's lacking. We've got twenty five plus years of prescriptive thinking that's going to take it wild to get out. There's a lot of inertia that comes with that.
Right, So what percentage of a big voting project should be on traffic management? Typically?
Well, that sevenar in a six million is nine point three percent of their total spend out of almost eight and a half billion, So it's actually pretty small when you think of it. That's a very big number, not diminishing that, but certainly as a percentage, it's actually quite small. I've been involved in projects that are more than that, and if it was half that, that'd be amazing. But I know there is a limit on how how low that can be in terms of getting worked. One.
How does that compare to overseas?
There isn't a huge amount of data on that, but it's not double. Put it that way, it would be within five percent either way, certainly.
Okay, which is still significant. What about for local councils. There was a traffic light that has been installed in the crossing in Auckland, and they reckon that the TTM was twenty five to thirty five percent of the cost. I mean, you've got a small suburban street. I've seen it happen, and you've got not only these temporary traffic light things, but you've got someone with a stop ghost sign standing next to the traffic light. I mean, what the hell's going on there?
And like, I don't know specific examples, but those are the kind of situations where that flexible approach might lead to a much more pragmatic outcome. So there isn't you know when you when you look, I.
Mean, it's clearly lots of prescription that's happening now, you know.
Yeah, correct, So when you load something that was you know a certain about a prescription where someone goes a lot. These are the rules I have to follow, and you know, I've got no other way to do it, and that's how the system is constructed around them. Then yeah, you're going to need that. With some mismatches of environment versus risk versus treatments.
Okay, is someone is someone? Have we saved lives with the more prescriptive method? Was there fewer deaths than there are now?
No? Actually the opposite. So death and serious injuries from TTM, you know, has climbed pretty considerably over the last twenty years, which, to be honest, was the original trigger for the rest based approach being explored. So you know, ultimately the method hasn't really worked, although it's not to say that, you know, it was a bad idea. That's that's how the world works. That's that's how every other country does it. This rest based approach from New Zealand is world first. Really, no one else is really doing it this.
Way, all right, Dave, thanks very much for your time. Appreciate it. Dave Tilton, who's the former chair of the tem Impory Traffic Management Industry Steering Group, saying that basically we tried to do it in a prescriptive way. It cost us a hell of a lot of money and it didn't even work.
For more from early edition with Ryan Bridge. Listen live to News Talk Set B from five am weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
