New Zealand has scored a notable victory against Australia - a victory won this time, not on the sports field, but in an engineering and transport "arena" of asphalt and concrete.
The Auckland Motorway Alliance, which is responsible for looking after 240 kilometres of motorways and state highways in Auckland on behalf of the NZ Transport Agency, has beaten off all challengers from Australia to win a top trans-Tasman award reflecting the excellence of its work and the service its provides to drivers.
“It’s an industry equivalent of a Bledisloe Cup, and the win for the Auckland Motorway Alliance reflects the AMA’s teamwork and ability to deliver great customer service in an environment where high quality outcomes are expected within tight budgets.” says the NZTA’s acting State Highways Manager for Auckland and Northland, Steve Mutton.
The Greenlane-based AMA was one of four finalists contesting the Alliance Team of Excellence Award at the Australasian Alliance Awards in Melbourne – the other three finalists were project and maintenance alliances based in Australia. The AAA Excellence Awards programme celebrates outstanding teams who exemplify the spirit of collaboration in critical infrastructure projects.
The AMA was established in 2008 and is the Transport Agency’s first long-term maintenance alliance.
“The AMA’s success in Melbourne is a great reward for some outstanding goals over the past four years,” says Mr Mutton. ““It has continually challenged itself to improve its performance and delivery, and has produced savings of $23.3m.”
Through its pavements and surfacing work, the AMA has extended the average paving age by 20% and improved the rate of pavement surface defects by 33%. The team has also won recognition for its work to transform a 50-year old, manually generated, paper-based highway management system to an electronic, GIS based system for website access, including a smartphone application.
Background:
On 1 October 2008, the Auckland Motorway Alliance (AMA) took over responsibility for the maintenance and operation of Auckland’s motorway network until 2018. The AMA includes the NZ Transport Agency, Fulton Hogan Ltd, Opus International Consultants Ltd, Beca Infrastructure Ltd, Resolve Group Ltd, and Armitage Systems Ltd.
The AMA’s primary objective is to maintain a connected network for all stakeholders where customers feel informed and are confident that they will get to their destinations comfortably, safely and reliably at all times by:-
More than 140 staff are employed to manage and maintain 240 centreline kilometres of motorways and State Highways in the Auckland region, on the four main motorways - Northern & Southern ( SH1, Northwestern (SH16), Southwestern (SH20) - and the mainly rural highway, SH22.
