ViaStrada has begun a programme of professional development with Christchurch City Council's graduate civil engineers. Under the programme, the engineers work for six weeks with ViaStrada, as part of their general experience preparing for IPENZ certification as chartered professional engineers. Within the council, they will work in a variety of fields including traffic engineering, transportation planning, civil engineering, roading, drainage and structural design. ViaStrada is the first consultancy to be used by CCC in this fashion.
The first graduate to work with ViaStrada under the programme was Chang Xi. Chang joined CCC in 2008 and completed his BE (Civil) at Canterbury University in the same year. He is currently working towards MET and aims to finish at the end of this year. Chang was seconded to ViaStrada in May and June 2010 with several projects including measuring traffic flow profiles on a selection of Christchurch streets with traffic calming, a survey of vehicle headways on Lichfield Street and a before and after analysis associated with platforms as traffic calming devices.
