Waikato Business News April/May 2023

WAIKATO BUSINESS NEWS, APRIL/MAY 2023 3
Traffic count estimation made easy
Enhanced software boosts productivity.
Company-X has
enhanced the world’s
first national transport
quality assurance tool to
help improve evidence-based
decision making across the
sector.
The Waikato software
specialist has added a Traffic
Count Estimation (TCE)
module to Transport Insights.
Company-X designed and
developed the TCE module
for use by Waka Kotahi NZ
Transport Agency, city, and
district councils on behalf
of client Te Ringa Maimoa
Transport Excellence
Partnership.
“The Transport Insights
TCE module provides a more
consistent way for councils to
estimate the traffic volumes on
their roads,” said Company-X
business analyst Bryan Miles.
The 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.
Miles shared details of
These estimates
are extremely
important for
planning what
road work
needs to be
done where and
when.
the module with the sector at
the Roading Infrastructure
Management Support (RIMS)
Forum in Christchurch in
March.
Traffic estimation feeds
into various aspects of roading
network management and
planning. Estimating the
traffic count across a roading
network was challenging.
Road Controlling Authorities
(RCAs) used various manual,
and thus labour intensive,
error prone processes to
estimate traffic counts.
Handling thousands of rows of
data in one spreadsheet means
there is a much higher chance
Insightful - Waipa District Council Asset Information Officer Kim Wright uses Transport Insights.
of putting the wrong value in
a cell or copying the wrong
formula to a cell.
The TCE module removes
manual analysis, resulting in
a more consistent result across
the network.
“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,” said Waka Kotahi NZ
Transport Agency Road Asset
Information Specialist Simon
Chu.
“Taking the process away
from a manual to a more
automated process means
there’s a much lower chance of
errors.”
Te Ringa Maimoa, formerly
the Road Efficiency Group, is a
joint initiative between Local
Government New Zealand and
Waka Kotahi. It has partnered
with Company-X since 2015.
Waipa District Council
Asset Information Officer -
Transport Kim Wright said:
“Transport Insights helps us
make better asset management
decisions.”
Company-X helps councils
migrate to new data
standard
Company-X is also
working closely with
Waka Kotahi NZ
Transport Agency to help
councils migrate to the new
Asset Management Data
Standard (AMDS).
Without a national data
standard Waka Kotahi and 68
Road Controlling Authorities
including the Department
of Conservation, have an
inconsistent approach to data
capture and definition across
the transport sector.
AMDS enforces a tighter
level of control on data that is
loosely defined. The tightening
of constraints means those
datasets need updating to
comply with the standard,
leading to more consistent use
across the roading sector.
Company-X worked with
the AMDS Programme at
Waka Kotahi to help define
the standard, providing
critical advice ensuring the
standard was implementable
at Waka Kotahi and the
68 RCAs. Company-X was
also intimately involved in
prototype migrations and
resolved many issues which
fed back into changes to the
standard.
Data standards are
documented agreements
on representation, format,
definition, structuring, tagging,
transmission, manipulation,
use, and management of data.
Waka Kotahi consulted
with Company-X’s transport
sector subject matter experts
Jeremy Hughes and Nigel
Lynton as AMDS was defined.
Between 1992 and 2014
Company-X co-founder and
director Hughes worked
with Lynton on the business
analysis, data design and
modelling of Thinkproject’s
Road Assessment and
Maintenance Management
(RAMM) database. Their
combined quarter century of
experience not only gave them
an unparalleled knowledge of
RAMM’s data design but an
essential grasp of the purpose
and goal of that design.
Te Ringa Maimoa Transport
Excellence Partnership also
consulted with Company-X
on how to include minor
structures in the standard.
Company-X also assisted
with the AMDS prototype
migration. The project tested
migration of real-world data to
the standard. It also validated
the ability to implement
the standard across the NZ
roading sector including RCAs,
maintenance contractors
and professional engineering
services.
Hughes’ team at Company-X
developed toolsets to enable
automated rapid migration to
AMDS and testing.
Company-X’s automated
toolsets interrogate the data in
RAMM and, in the migration
process, ensures it has the right
structure and is migrated to the
right location.
“AMDS is starting to have
real impact on how we are
thinking and working,” said
Wellington City Council’s
Pamela Brown.
“We are preparing for
the implementation into our
database and already planning
how it will enable us into digital
engineering.
“AMDS is just in time for
us as we support the data
and information needs of the
large, complex, and ambitious
Let’s Get Wellington Moving
projects. The interest and
support from across the sector
is fantastic as we make the
changes we need for a new way
of working.”