News

The 2011 Transportation Conference was held in Auckland from 28 to 30 March. It was a well organised and attended conference, including interesting technical tours, a great conference dinner in a historic church, a good networking opportunity and excellent continuing professional development opportunities. ViaStrada contributed with the following papers, technical notes, posters and presentations:

Many thanks to the numerous well-wishers who have contacted us from all over New Zealand and abroad. Thanks too for enquiries about how "out-of-towners" can help - we have some thoughts on that! As noted in previous articles, we have survived with our lives intact, but we do not expect to gain access to our office soon (if ever), to recover project files, work tools, professional manuals and personal effects.

Following the 22 February 2011 earthquake, some parts of the central city are still inaccessible. ViaStrada began operating from new premises just north of the central city on 28 February. We occupy a two storey villa (wooden; no brick chimneys!). And it's not just the team from ViaStrada, but we took the team from Egressive with us who had lost their offices because of the Boxing Day earthquake. Our friends and colleagues from QTP are also with us in Bishop Street.

We've had a pretty bad earthquake in Christchurch, as you might have seen in the media already. The office looks rather messy, but we all got out fine. The city looks much worse than in September last year.

Thanks for all the good wishes. Our mail server was down until Thursday morning, but no incoming emails were lost. We are pleased to be able to say that all ViaStrada staff, their partners, spouses and families are unharmed.