Dave Tilton: Temporary Traffic Management Chair on NZ Transport's $800 million spend

There's little doubt there's unnecessary spend at the Transport Agency. 

The Transport Minister's called NZTA's costs eye-watering and excessive, after revealing a near $800 million spend over the past three years. 

That went to road cones, traffic management, state highway maintenance, and capital works. 

Temporary Traffic Management Chair Dave Tilton told Ryan Bridge he believes it's a systemic issue around how much temporary traffic management is deployed. 

He says it's a prescriptive system, which doesn't give room for site-specific considerations. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
NDTA spent an eyewater and get this, three quarters of
a billion bucks of taxpayers money on road cones and
temporary traffic management in the past three years. And that
doesn't include spending on local councils and contractors. The Minister
of Transport, simm Brown, says the cost is eyewatering and excessive.
Dave Tilton is the former chair of the Temporary Traffic

(00:23):
Management Industry Steering Group. He's with me this morning. Dave,
Good morning, morning yew. Unfortunately, I think there is a
direct correlation between the length of somebody's job title and
their productivity. So I'm not holding out hope for this. Dave,
tell me, is he right? Does he have a point?
Are we spending too much?

Speaker 2 (00:43):
I think generally the answer would be yes. Is the
waste in the system? Without question?

Speaker 1 (00:47):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (00:48):
I suppose how much? Is it wasteful? That's there isn't
a direct answer to that question yet.

Speaker 1 (00:54):
I don't think whose fault is the waste? Is it
the industry that you're representing, or is that the government
regulation or both?

Speaker 2 (01:02):
I think historically it would be the system that's constructed
around it. How the decisions get made as to how
much TTM gets deployed. So historically it's been a very
prescriptive system and that hasn't given a lot of room
for more pragmatic or site specific considerations. So systemically it
hasn't isn't designed to generate the right amount if you like.

Speaker 1 (01:26):
Okay, so the system because the government has just changed
the system, so it's less Intense's.

Speaker 2 (01:32):
Probably changed about twenty twenty one was where that spun up,
so that certainly predates the current government.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
Yeah, right, so is that where they made it more
intense or less intense?

Speaker 2 (01:41):
I wouldn't say probably intensity is probably the word I used,
isn't quite right, but more flexible call it that. And
that's where that risk based system started to get designed,
and it just this year it started to implement. But
of course it predates in terms of its design and set,
and now it's starting to hit the ground.

Speaker 1 (02:03):
Okay, so the risk based system is cheaper.

Speaker 2 (02:08):
It can be, Yes, I mean, there is a percentage
of waste in the system, and this method should engineer
out that waste better than the old method. But it's
very dependent on how people do it and how people
use it, and certainly the capability in the system to
do that, which is probably the piece that's lacking. We've
got twenty five plus years of prescriptive thinking that's going

(02:28):
to take it wild to get out. There's a lot
of inertia that comes with that.

Speaker 1 (02:32):
Right, So what percentage of a big voting project should
be on traffic management? Typically?

Speaker 2 (02:38):
Well, that sevenar in a six million is nine point
three percent of their total spend out of almost eight
and a half billion, So it's actually pretty small when
you think of it. That's a very big number, not
diminishing that, but certainly as a percentage, it's actually quite small.
I've been involved in projects that are more than that,
and if it was half that, that'd be amazing. But

(02:59):
I know there is a limit on how how low
that can be in terms of getting worked. One.

Speaker 1 (03:03):
How does that compare to overseas?

Speaker 2 (03:07):
There isn't a huge amount of data on that, but
it's not double. Put it that way, it would be
within five percent either way, certainly.

Speaker 1 (03:15):
Okay, which is still significant. What about for local councils.
There was a traffic light that has been installed in
the crossing in Auckland, and they reckon that the TTM
was twenty five to thirty five percent of the cost.
I mean, you've got a small suburban street. I've seen
it happen, and you've got not only these temporary traffic
light things, but you've got someone with a stop ghost

(03:37):
sign standing next to the traffic light. I mean, what
the hell's going on there?

Speaker 2 (03:42):
And like, I don't know specific examples, but those are
the kind of situations where that flexible approach might lead
to a much more pragmatic outcome. So there isn't you
know when you when you look, I.

Speaker 1 (03:56):
Mean, it's clearly lots of prescription that's happening now, you know.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
Yeah, correct, So when you load something that was you
know a certain about a prescription where someone goes a lot.
These are the rules I have to follow, and you know,
I've got no other way to do it, and that's
how the system is constructed around them. Then yeah, you're
going to need that. With some mismatches of environment versus
risk versus treatments.

Speaker 1 (04:18):
Okay, is someone is someone? Have we saved lives with
the more prescriptive method? Was there fewer deaths than there
are now?

Speaker 2 (04:25):
No? Actually the opposite. So death and serious injuries from TTM,
you know, has climbed pretty considerably over the last twenty years, which,
to be honest, was the original trigger for the rest
based approach being explored. So you know, ultimately the method
hasn't really worked, although it's not to say that, you know,

(04:46):
it was a bad idea. That's that's how the world works.
That's that's how every other country does it. This rest
based approach from New Zealand is world first. Really, no
one else is really doing it this.

Speaker 1 (04:55):
Way, all right, Dave, thanks very much for your time.
Appreciate it. Dave Tilton, who's the former chair of the
tem Impory Traffic Management Industry Steering Group, saying that basically
we tried to do it in a prescriptive way. It
cost us a hell of a lot of money and
it didn't even work.

Speaker 2 (05:10):
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