HOP rollout delayed … again

Seriously has anything gone right with this project? It seems that there has been issue after issue at every turn. If you didn’t get it, here is the email that people registered to receive HOP updates got today announcing the roll-out of AT HOP to both Northstar and Ricthies buses has been delayed (they had already been delayed once with Northstar meant to roll out earlier in August.…
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Why do road engineers wear short-sleeved shirts?

In NZ the regulations are know as Austroads. The video itself reminds me very much of this post (go and read the entire thing). After graduating from college with a civil engineering degree, I found myself working in my home town for a local engineering firm doing mostly municipal engineering (roads, sewer pipe, water pipe, stormwater).…
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AT corruption investigation

News about investigations into potential corruption at Auckland Transport is certainly not good. Auckland Transport has called on external investigators to guide its inquiry into serious allegations of corruption over roading contracts. The council organisation has stood down a senior manager on indefinite leave during the inquiry, which it was previously conducting in-house while promising to call in the Serious Fraud Office if it could find evidence of wrongdoing.…
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July 2013 patronage

Auckland Transport has released the patronage figures for July and there are some signs emerging that we are starting to exit the slump that has occurred over the last year or so. There was an extra working day in July 2013 compared to 2012 which is estimated to impact results by ~4% however even taking that into account there was growth on the trains, Northern Express and ferries.…
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Holiday Highway Benefits Disputed (by Northland)

Proponents of the Puhoi-Wellsford “holiday highway” have regularly tried to portray the project as being of critical importance to the future prosperity of Northland. I have even heard that before the last election at a “Backbenchers” special TV show in Auckland, Nikki Kaye even went so far as suggesting that the road would be a critical way of solving child poverty in Auckland.…
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Toll road manual kiosks to go coin only

The NZTA has announced that it is changing the machines that some people use to pay for the Orewa to Puhoi toll road to accept coins only citing reliability issues with the note and card options. The NZ Transport Agency says it is converting the Northern Gateway Toll Road manual kiosks at the Dairy Flats service centre to accept payment by coin-only in order to reduce the risk of kiosk breakdowns and shorten queuing times at busy periods.…
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What to do with Arterial Roads

I recently got back an OIA request from the Ministry of Transport and one of the documents in it was a report on Auckland’s arterial roads. The report is dated December 2012 and the intent was to consider whether significant investment in arterial roads should be the next transport priority after the completion of the Western Ring Route and rail electrification.…
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Learning from San Francisco

I was looking at the herald this morning and I came across this piece titled Troubled bridge over San Fran waters by the Herald on Sunday sports editor who is currently in San Francisco covering the America’s Cup. Take a look at the Auckland Harbour Bridge.…
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The Great Upgrade Timeline

Public transport patronage has been source of much concern for the last year and a half on the back of falling or flat numbers which followed about 6 years of almost constant growth. During that time the performance of the PT network has come under ever increasing scrutiny as public discussion and interest in transport has increased. …
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