Traffic expert Abley is true to its name

Abley Transportation Consultants (Abley) designs, develops and implements plans and infrastructure that assists with the movement of traffic, while minimising risk for those travelling from one point to another.

Since company founder and managing director Steve Abley started the business in 2003, it has serviced local and central New Zealand governments and private clients and more recently, has launched projects in Australia.

The Auckland and Christchurch-based company comprises a group of 30 professional engineers, geographers, transport planners and skilled support staff.

“Our team members have varied roles, but the common theme is that we’re passionate about what we do, we’re all problem solvers and very technically oriented,” Steve said.

Steve’s first project was to develop a street review for a community advocacy group that focused on the walkability of the street environment as a shared space for pedestrians and cyclists and minimised vehicle traffic under the internationally recognised Living Streets banner.

As the Abley group has evolved, it has accepted a diversity of challenges from an array of clients and has utilised its technical expertise and leading edge tools to achieve successful outcomes.

Among these projects was one for New Zealand Police (NZP), which had received funding for approximately 65 new speed cameras and sought Abley’s expert analysis regarding the best locations to position the devices.

Using its Geographic Information Systems (GIS), a common tool among geographers, but an evolving area for transportation professionals and one where Abley excels, it analysed the entire NZ road network, including crash data from the past decade and other high-risk factors and isolated 1200 prioritised sites, from which NZP then worked online to identify 150 preferred locations.

Steve, who in 2011 became one of the youngest people to be recognised as a Fellow of the Institute of Professional Engineers NZ, is proud of his team’s many achievements.

Among these was the NZ Transport Agency’s proposed flyover, adjacent to Wellington’s Basin Reserve, which attracted significant opposition from a number of groups. This was a very high profile Government-identified “road of national significance”. A board of inquiry appointed by the Environmental Protection Authority requested independent transport advice to study evidence from both sides and Abley was approached for that role.

For around four months, two members of the Abley team worked tirelessly to review volumes of material, to summarise opinions and form their own views and to meet with other transport advisors to help resolve as many issues as possible ahead of the inquiry starting.

Subsequently, Abley attended the threemonth long hearing along with other impartial experts from urban design to visual effects and heritage specialists.

“Our ability to distil very complex transport issues into an understandable format and to identify the key aspects of each side’s arguments played a vital role in informing the board’s decision,” Steve said.

“It was the first time a board of inquiry in New Zealand had sought independent transport advice, and they were quick to compliment us on the extensive and detailed work we produced.”

Another project with different scope was that for the Canterbury Cricket Association, which was seeking to have a new pavilion approved at Hagley Oval ahead of the recent World Cup, but with traffic management and parking being key factors in its application due to increased spectator attendance.

Abley produced forecasts relating to anticipated traffic flow and parking during major games and identified alternative transport strategies, such as bus services. Its technical evidence to the Environment Court helped the association to gain resource consent and its pavilion officially opened last September and hosted three World Cup matches in February, 2015.

For the past 18 months, Abley has also worked with Austroads, which is an association of Australian and New Zealand road transport and traffic agencies. Its purpose is to improve transport outcomes through expert technical input and improve the practices, capabilities and operational consistency of road agencies.

“We are doing some research for Austroads and developing an interactive online tool so that engineers and planners can access a website and undertake a detailed analysis of a solution, such as where they could install another road crossing or facility for pedestrians,” Steve said.

“Primarily, our overall work involves everything from how people can get access to their property, to engagement by supermarkets and how they should design their car parks, standard-setting projects such as for Austroads, regional work such as planning cycle networks, through to advising clients on how they can get funding for their infrastructure projects.

‘Our niche is that we have got a core value of innovation and that differentiates us in what would otherwise be a crowded market. We always strive to be ‘thought leaders’.

“It’s about our team being able to grow, the quality of the team and their support and being true to our values. It’s not always about the bottom line, but about building for growth and re-investing in our people, processes and systems,” Steve said.