Transit National Office Media Release

22 May 2007

Transit project wins road safety award

Transit New Zealand’s efforts to improve safety on State Highway 1 in South Waikato have been recognised by a road safety award, announced today.

Transit’s South Waikato and Taupo Target 2010 (or SWATT 2010) project has won top prize in the road engineering section of the 2007 New Zealand Road Safety Innovation and Achievement Awards.

Transit chief executive Rick van Barneveld congratulated the Transit staff who were involved in the project, particularly Alan Burkett and John Grummit, and their colleagues at Police, Land Transport NZ, ACC, Environment Waikato, Opus International Consultants, the University of Waikato, and the South Waikato and Taupo District Councils.

“We are proud of the success of the SWATT 2010 initiative, much of which stems from the collaborative approach to identifying the problems and coming up with solutions.”

Mr van Barneveld said the engineering improvements recognised by the award were only part of the story and sat alongside increased enforcement and education activities.

“The success of SWATT 2010 is due to more than just the road improvements. An education campaign was targeted at driver behaviour issues thought to contribute to the crash rate and Police increased enforcement and fatigue awareness activities.”

The Road Safety Innovation and Achievement Awards programme is funded by the Road Safety Trust and administered by Land Transport New Zealand. It aims to recognise excellence and encourage innovation in road safety. The road engineering section is one of six categories and a Premier award is also given. SWATT 2010 project – background info

The SWATT 2010 projects covers a 200 kilometre stretch of State Highway 1 between Piarere (between Cambridge and Tirau) and the Desert Road Summit. Of the 803 crashes reported between 1998 and 2002, 118 were fatal or serious.

Transit lead a team that investigated possible ways of reducing the crashes. The other parties involved in the project were:

Police, Land Transport NZ, ACC, Environment Waikato, Opus International Consultants, the University of Waikato, and the South Waikato and Taupo District Councils.

This work indicated a major factor in many of the crashes was drivers crossing the centre line or leaving the road. The following engineering improvements were aimed at keeping motorists in their correct lanes:

114km of ‘audio tactile’ (AT) edgelines and centrelines (also know as ‘rumble strips’) Widening road-marking edgelines Improving advisory signage for curves Improving skid resistance on the road surface, particularly on curves.

In addition to the engineering improvements recognised by the award, targeted education and enforcement activities are also key parts of the programme. Examples include 27 roadside billboards that challenged drivers’ over-confidence and complacency and Police handing out refreshment vouchers during holiday weekends to encourage motorists to break their journeys.

Since work on stage one of SWATT 2010 finished in March 2006 the number of fatal and serious crashes on this stretch of SH1 has dropped markedly. The social costs of crashes have gone down, from $34 million a year (2002-2006) to $12 million for the 2006/07 year. Work on stage 2 of the programme is underway.

ENDS

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