The Canterbury Regional Council currently is developing a Regional Land Transport Strategy. One of the draft objectives is to minimise travel times, an objective which has widespread support nationally. For example, it is also an objective of the draft Update to the NZ Transport Strategy. Axel Wilke challenged this objective in 1999, quoting international research that suggests people often seek constant travel time budgets for the trip to work (as opposed to quicker commutes), and sparked an interesting debate. The issue also has funding implications and Axel therefore extended the debate into the forum of the Traffic Management Workshop (now the IPENZ Transportation Conference).
The remit is available through this website.
1999 Traffic Management Workshop, Palmerston North