Te Ringa Maimoa Transport Excellence Partnership CASE STUDY: Traffic Count Estimation Module

Te Ringa Maimoa Transport Excellence Partnership and software specialist Company-X built the world’s first national roading quality assurance web portal and added a Traffic Count Estimation (TCE) module. The Transport Insights TCE module will lead to improved evidence-based decision making across the transport sector.

Te Ringa Maimoa is a collaborative initiative between Local Government NZ, Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency, and all Road Controlling Authorities (RCAs), targeting business excellence across the transport sector.

The success of the programme has been the combined partnership of local government and Waka Kotahi promoting a ‘for the sector, by the sector’ philosophy.

Formerly the Road Efficiency Group, this partnership was formed in 2012 as the authority to implement the recommendations of the Road Maintenance Task Force.

Traffic estimation feeds into various aspects of roading network management and planning. Estimating the traffic count across a roading network was challenging. RCAs used various manual, and thus labour intensive, errorprone processes to estimate traffic counts. Handling thousands of rows of data in one spreadsheet means there is a much higher chance of putting the wrong value in a cell or copying the wrong formula to a cell.

Te Ringa Maimoa and Company-X designed and developed the Transport Insights TCE module for use by RCAs.

The TCE module is based on the Traffic Monitoring Estimation Best Practice Guidelines published by the Institute of Public Works Engineers Australia NZ (IPWEA NZ) Roading Infrastructure Management Support (RIMS) special interest group.

RCAs import processed traffic count data into Transport Insights from Road Asset Maintenance and Management (RAMM). Invalid traffic counts and mixes can be corrected in Transport Insights. Missing Annual Average Daily Traffic (AADT) and Traffic Groups estimates are assigned.

The Traffic Count Estimation is run in Transport Insights, exported, and reviewed, before being imported back into RAMM.

The TCE module removes manual analysis, resulting in a more consistent result across the network.

The traffic count estimate is more fit for purpose than ever before.

“If I had to put an amount of time saved by using the tool, I would say it was in the two-to-three-month realm. Taking the process away from a manual to a more automated process means there’s a much lower chance of errors.”

Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency Road Asset Information Specialist Simon Chu