Publications & presentations

Traditionally aimed at roading engineers and contractors, the conference this year focused more attention on the new era under the NZ Transport Agency, which aims "to provide an integrated approach to transport planning, funding and delivery". Active transport (principally walking and cycling) is an increasingly important part of New Zealand's transport future.

The Cycling Advocates' Network (CAN) has presented the 6^th annual Cycle-Friendly Awards, celebrating initiatives to promote cycling and create a cycle-friendly environment at both a national and local level in New Zealand. One of the award categories, the Cycle-Friendly Commitment by a Public Organisation, was sponsored by ViaStrada.

At the Trafinz Conference in Christchurch (8-10 September 2008) ViaStrada presented the preliminary results of an inductive loop, continuous cycle counting trial undertaken for the New Zealand Transport Agency.

The document looks at ways of optimising New Zealand's road transport network. It is assumed that we will not be attempting to build our way out of congestion - instead we are moving towards smarter ways of managing land use (to reduce the need for travel) and more sustainable modes of transport. Better integration of land use and transport planning is recognised as a key requirement through to 2040 and beyond.

The remit is a progress report on research on the safety performance of roundabouts, with particular interest in cycle safety at different types of roundabouts (i.e. single lane versus multi lane roundabouts). The presentation is available for download from this website.

At the New Zealand Cycling Conference in September 2001, Andrew Macbeth gave a presentation on traffic calming on arterial roads, using examples from his work in Toronto.

ViaStrada took a leading role in research to develop a technique for estimating cycle traffic on new cycle facilities. The research has been published as Research Report No. 340 Estimating Demand for New Cycling Facilities in New Zealand.

Andrew presented information on how to count bicycle traffic by a variety of methods. The presentation also discusses current research on field-testing two commercially-available models of continuous cycle traffic counters at five locations in Christchurch for Land Transport NZ.

This paper presents some of the technical information on the process and design of the "Papanui Railway Cycleway" and in particular "dedicated cycle signals".

The paper is available online on this website.

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.