The Project Charter defines the formal commitments of all organisations involved in the Area Based Safety project and describes how the project will be managed. The Charter documents the agreements among stakeholders on the scope of the project, key assumptions and constraints and the roles and responsibilities of project participants and stakeholders.
The objective of the Area Based Safety project is to reduce the current reported number of road crashes in Wellington by one-third by year 2010. Estimated expenditure for the area based methodology is $20.45m over the period 2003/04 to 2010/11.
The reduction in road accidents will be achieved by a combination of enforcement, education, and engineering interventions, and will involve the active participation and support of Wellington City Council’s key road safety partners i.e. Transfund NZ, Transit NZ, Land Transport Safety Authority (LTSA), Greater Wellington and Wellington Police.
This new and innovative approach to reducing road accidents is based on experience from the UK, Scandinavia and Australia, and was developed in conjunction with the (LTSA). It has been designed so that Wellington City Council can make a contribution to the Government’s National Safety Targets for 2010.
For the Area Based Safety project to be successful, the following critical elements must be met:
In April 2002 the Council confirmed its support in adopting an area based methodology for it’s future road safety programme and approved the draft implementation programme which outlined 15 areas and 5 routes in Wellington City to receive appropriate safety initiatives and treatments from 2003/04 through to 2010/11.
The objective of the road safety programme is to reduce accident levels on Wellington City roads by 33% by 2010.
Because this is an innovative approach for New Zealand, the methodology for assessing the safety benefits is not in accordance with Transfund’s current methodology. It therefore requires Transfund to confirm its willingness to provide financial assistance for this programme. Estimated expenditure for the area based methodology is $20.45m over the period 2003/04 to 2010/11.
This new approach to reducing road accidents is based on experience from the UK, Scandinavia and Australia, and was developed in conjunction with the Land Transport Safety Authority (LTSA). It has been designed so that Wellington City Council (WCC) can make a contribution to the Government’s National Safety Targets for 2010. This approach is supported by all the Council’s key road safety partners: Transit, Transfund, Greater Wellington, Police and LTSA.
Councils previous road accident reduction strategies concentrated on remedial works at identified black spots, defined routes, and mass action treatments. At present remedial works are now largely complete and analysis from LTSA confirms that there is still a number of ‘concentrated’ accident locations and a significant number of ‘scattered’ accident sites which are more difficult to eliminate.
While the accident reductions (between 1984 and 2001) have been evenly spread across all types of crashes, including pedestrians and cyclists, in-depth analysis of LTSA’s accident records for the past five years highlight that a less even reduction is now occurring.
A different strategy is now called for to achieve further accident reductions on Wellington roads. A specialist traffic safety consultant, Derek Bullen, was commissioned in 2001, to carry out a review of international best practice and to make recommendations on new methodologies to be used by WCC roading and traffic engineers. From this, the Proposed Road Safety Action Plan for Wellington City Discussion Paper was developed, which outlined current international research and recommendations.
Increasingly, overseas best practice concentrates on adopting a systematic approach for urban traffic safety problems. The conclusions of the overseas experience are that the most effective way to reduce both concentrated and scattered accidents is by:
· Managing traffic onto the right roads so that a safer distribution of traffic is achieved.
· Managing the speed of traffic so that it circulates more safely.
· Co-ordinating all work that influences road safety.
Extensive research overseas and in New Zealand shows that the following types of remedial works are most likely to achieve the road safety objectives:
· Reduced and controlled queuing on arterial routes
· Reduced, controlled, improved on-street parking citywide
· Creation of slow zones in suburban residential areas
· Improved street lighting in some areas
· Improved pedestrian crossings and facilities on arterial routes and around shopping areas
· Improved road markings and signage of a defined road hierarchy within local areas
· Complementary education and enforcement initiatives
International experience confirms that a successful action plan will require the following critical elements.
· Co-operative working arrangements between relevant agencies
· On-going political support
· Ongoing funding
· Acceptance of local communities
· Ability to introduce measures currently outside the legislative framework
The key objective of this project is to:
“Reduce the current number of road crashes in the Wellington by one-third by 2010.”
In real terms a drop of reported crashes from 1066 non-injury crashes and 253 injury crashes in 2001 to around 700 non-injury and 170 injury crashes by 2010, these figures are from LTSA’s crash analysis. However recognition will be given to other sources of accident data i.e. hospital admissions, police call outs, and the completeness of which the data is collected.
A wider objective is to improve the perception of safety and mobility for cyclists, pedestrians and the transport disadvantaged.
This section defines clearly the boundaries of the project. This should outline inclusions and exclusions.
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An indicative programme of the Area Based Safety Implementation Project is outlined below. Planning, consultation and design for each group area will be initiated before construction.
It is expected that each area and or route, will take 2 years from inception to completion. The first year's work will be to investigate, consult and design for the areas or routes to be implemented in year two.
From year two there will be a mix of investigation, consultation, design, and implementation, with the final year concentrating on implementation. Formal project reviews will be initiated during and after the seven year period.