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Appendix 1

Appendix 1: Road policing supporting information

As noted in Road policing, the Road Policing Programme (RPP) is included in this NLTP to integrate the planning, funding and delivery of road policing activities with other NLTP activities that also contribute to improving land transport particularly with regard to safety. More information about the programme can be found at www.police.govt.nz/resources(external link).

Figure 9: Road crash casualties and vehicle fleet compared to 1990

figure-9

The RPP for 2009-2012 has been approved by the Minister of Transport in consultation with the Minister of Police and in accordance with the LTMA. However, as a baseline programme it is likely to develop between 2009/10 and 2011/12 in response to the emerging strategic context and in particular Safer journeys, the road safety to 2020 strategy.

Table 20 summarises the funding approval for 2009-2012. Table 22 provides details of the funding for 2009/10.

Table 20: Funding for New Zealand Police activities, 2009-12

  2009/10
($000)
2010/11
($000)
2011/12
($000)
2009-2012 Road Policing Programme 282,071 284,581 284,925

The RPP context

The RPP comprises four parts:

  1. Strategic context and road safety progress.
  2. New Zealand Police road policing delivery arrangements.
  3. The detailed 2009/10 work programme for New Zealand Police, including:
    • descriptions of New Zealand Police road policing delivery units, such as the highway patrol, strategic traffic units, the commercial vehicle investigation unit, traffic alcohol groups, crash analysis and reconstruction teams and road policing analysts
    • activity descriptions
    • associated performance measures
    • levels of activity to be delivered to local authority areas throughout New Zealand.
  4. A glossary of terms and additional information such as the geographic relationship table between NZTA regions, police districts, police areas, local authorities and regional councils.

In preparing the RPP, the NZTA has taken into account the Road Safety to 2010 Strategy and the New Zealand Police Road Policing to 2010 Strategy. In addition, and in accordance with the LTMA, it has considered RLTSs and how road policing activities:

  • contribute to economic development
  • help to deliver safety and personal security
  • improve access and mobility
  • protect and promote public health
  • ensure environmental sustainability
  • align with the National Energy Efficiency and Conservation Strategy.

Safer journeys will, in addition to evaluation and monitoring considerations, underpin any variations to the 2009-2012 programme, which will be for the purpose of maximising road policing's contribution to a safe land transport system in alignment with the strategic context.

Road policing activities

Table 21 summarises the road policing activities funded through the RPP. Detailed descriptions, results sought, performance criteria and other information about the activities can be viewed at www.police.govt.nz/resources(external link).

Table 21: New Zealand Police road policing activities

Group Activity name Brief description of activity
Strategic road policing Speed control Detecting and deterring speed offending, including using speed cameras, in accordance with risk.
Drinking or drugged driver control Detecting and deterring drink/drug-drive
offending and targeting recidivist drink/
drug-driver risk groups.
Restraint device control Enforcing breaches of front and rear restraint laws, including child restraints.
Visible road safety and general
enforcement
Enforcement addressing dangerous/careless
driving, high-risk drivers and other traffic law (including overtaking, following distances, driver licensing, unauthorised street and illegal drag races, smoky and noisy vehicles).
Commercial vehicle investigation and road user charges enforcement Risk-targeted enforcement of commercial
operators, drivers and vehicles for safety, road user charges, speed, load security, etc.
Road policing incident and emergency
management
Crash attendance and investigation Managing road crashes and investigating cause factors.
Traffic management Maintaining traffic flows, both regular and post crash.
Road policing resolutions Resolutions Managing road policing sanctions, prosecutions and court orders.
Community engagement on road
policing
Police community services Road safety action planning with partners,
community liaison, consultation and activities.
School road safety education Classroom delivery of approved road safety
programmes.

New Zealand Police funding

Table 22 summarises, by activity, the funding and full-time equivalent (FTE) New Zealand Police staff for 2009/10. The regional section of the NLTP also shows FTEs by regional area allocations, where they are sub-grouped by local authority or local authority cluster.

Each FTE delivers 1500 productive hours of police time. The New Zealand Police 2009/10 hourly rate for FTEs, calculated by dividing the total funding ($282.071 million) by the total hours (2,647,080), is $106.56, which is a fully 'over-headed' FTE hourly rate in that all costs involved with road policing are built into the cost of an hour, including the costs of personnel, vehicles, equipment, communications and accommodation, and other costs such as the information systems and technology required for road policing.

In summary, the RPP funds, through the hourly rate, all corporate overheads as well as the direct costs of road policing. These include the Traffic Camera Office and Police Infringement Bureau, equipment, eg 'stop buses' and breath-testing devices, vehicle-weighing devices, speed equipment and its calibration, and depreciation, which funds capital items such as New Zealand Police vehicles.

Table 22: New Zealand Police component of the 2009-12 NLTP for 2009/10: RPP by road type activity category and activity

Activity category and activity 2009/10
New Zealand Police
funding ($000)
2009/10 FTE
Activity category: State highways
Speed control¹ 31,650.2 198.0
Drinking or drugged driver control 11,261.2 70.5
Restraint device control 2,405.1 15.0
Visible road safety and general enforcement 14,858.6 93.0
Total state highway 60,175.1 376.5
Activity category: Rural local roads
Speed control¹ 6,064.3 37.9
Drinking or drugged driver control 7,382.4 46.2
Restraint device control 1,628.8 10.2
Visible road safety and general enforcement 4,270.3 26.7
Total rural local roads 19,345.8 121.0
Activity category: Urban roads
Speed control¹ 29,315.5 183.4
Drinking or drugged driver control 53,155.0 332.6
Restraint device control 10,114.1 63.3
Visible road safety and general enforcement 26,348.4 164.8
Total urban roads 118,933.0 744.1
Activity category: Network-wide road policing
Commercial vehicle investigation and road user
charges enforcement
17,281.8 106.0
Crash attendance and investigation 34,696.8 217.1
Traffic management 11,935.7 74.7
Total network-wide road policing 63,914.3 397.8
Activity category: General road policing support
Resolutions 7,976.0 49.9
Police community services 5,008.3 31.3
School road safety education 6,718.5 42.0
Total general road policing support 19,702.8 123.2
Funding and FTE totals 282,071.0 1,762.6

Notes:

Highway patrol delivery, speed camera person hours (119,000) and enhanced alcohol compulsory breath testing (CBT) project delivery are, along with delivery by other New Zealand Police units, included in the above activities. Revenue, offsetting other costs, that applies to New Zealand Police activities in this programme for 2009/10 and is to be received by the Commissioner from sources other than the NLTF, is forecast to total $2.402 million.

¹ This activity incorporates 119,000 programmed traffic camera person hours. A minimum of 98,770 traffic camera hours has also been programmed.

Road type categories

A simple road type hierarchy is used to plan the delivery of 'strategic' road policing activities. These activities directly and proactively target reductions in death and injuries through addressing the fatal five road safety issues: speed, alcohol, restraints, dangerous and careless driving, and high-risk drivers.

The road network in New Zealand is made up of roads designed for different purposes and to cope with widely varying traffic flows. The roads are consequently engineered to different standards. The total length of the road type, traffic volumes, the social cost[1] of crashes, risk and crash density are all factors that may influence how much effort should be put into improving safety on particular types of roads and the sorts of interventions that may be useful.

For these reasons, road type is linked to risk and to the type of road policing deployed. For example, nearly 60 percent of the social cost of road crashes occurs on rural roads which are over 80 percent of the length of the network.

Conversely, 37 percent of the social cost of crashes occurs on open road state highways which make up only 11 percent of the New Zealand roading network. This is because traffic on them is much more concentrated than on other open roads which make up 71 percent of the network and incur 21 percent of the nation's social cost of crashes. However it is the social cost on the latter road types that has been increasing during recent years.

The road type hierarchy is consistent with the detailed road type and crash data categories in the Ministry of Transport's Crash Analysis System:

  • H - State highways includes any state highway where the speed limit is greater than 70 kilometres per hour (km/h) - normally 80km/h or 100km/h.
  • R - Rural local roads includes any road or street that isn't an urban road or state highway, where the speed limit is greater than 70km/h - normally 80km/h or 100km/h.
  • U - Urban roads includes any road or street where the speed limit is 70km/h or less and includes a state highway where the speed limit is 70km/h or less.

Delivering road policing

New Zealand Police delivery units

Table 23 lists, by delivery unit, the 1762.6 New Zealand Police FTEs who will deliver the 2009/10 RPP. More detail on delivery units can be found in the full RPP at www.police.govt.nz/resources(external link).

Table 23: Road policing resources by New Zealand Police delivery unit

Delivery unit
Total FTE
Highway patrol
234.0
Strategic traffic units²
368.9
General Duties Branch - strategic road policing
368.9
Auckland Motorways unit (excl TAG)
60.8
Targeted Alcohol Groups (TAG)
145.3
Traffic camera operations
79.3
Rural arterial units
30.0
Urban arterial units³
7.0
Strategic road policing – National Road Safety Committee test area
5.0
Commercial Vehicle Investigation Unit
106.0
Prosecution services
41.3
Youth Education Service
42.0
General Duties Branch - reactive road policing4
274.1
Total
1,762.6

Notes:

² Guiding rule: Strategic traffic units deliver 50 percent of strategic road policing ie speed control, drinking or drugged driver control, restraint device control and visible road safety and general enforcement, which includes addressing dangerous/careless driving, high-risk drivers and other traffic law.

³ Urban arterial units deliver strategic road policing activities and police community services activities.

4 Reactive road policing includes crash attendance and investigation, traffic management, court orders and police community services activities.

Allocating resources by road policing categories provides New Zealand Police with the flexibility to address road safety issues at the local level in accordance with analysed risk, inter-agency road safety action planning and risk-targeted patrol plans.

Coordinating interagency road safety delivery

Road safety action planning

Planning road policing by road type enables enforcement activities to be integrated with the planning that road-controlling authorities undertake in managing their land transport networks.

Likewise, interagency road safety action planning synchronises the delivery of engineering, education and enforcement activities to deliver joint results for the land transport sector and achieve value for money. It is one of the essential platforms for delivering road safety - a world best-practice process used by road safety partners in regions throughout New Zealand for planning and implementing road safety interventions.

Effective road safety action planning requires a collaborative approach from participating partners to address and mitigate road safety risks, especially in terms of the fatal five road safety issues for their local areas.

Participating partners in New Zealand include regional and local authorities, the NZTA, New Zealand Police, ACC and other road safety stakeholders relevant to each area. Together, the partners agree on regional and/or local road safety risks, identify objectives, set targets, undertake road safety actions and monitor and, on a quarterly basis, review progress in achieving the road safety targets.

Risk-targeted patrol plans and crash books

Risk-targeted patrol plans (RTPPs) are critical to the success of the risk-targeted road policing model.

Operational tasking documents, their primary aim is to allocate enforcement to known safety risks by location and time. RTPPs are issued to both dedicated road policing and general duties staff. They are analysed and used by frontline supervisors to direct enforcement work tactically to support RSAP objectives.

'Crash books'5 are a major basis for the RTPP process, and analysis required to support the RTPP process is carried out by road policing analysts. RTPPs incorporate a complete feedback loop for analysts, supervisors and patrol officers to ensure that enforcement actions taken are reported promptly and that the progress of those actions is measured.

5 Crash books are analytical documents that provide long-term risk profiles of stretches of roads, groups of intersections and geographical areas within police districts or areas.

Road policing flexibility

Road policing resources are allocated by road type for activities including speed control, drinking or drugged driver control, restraint device control and visible road safety and general enforcement (addressing dangerous/careless driving, high-risk drivers and other traffic law).

The delivery of these activities can be fine-tuned at the local level to address risk, in accordance with RSAPs, including network safety coordination projects, RTPPs and crash books.

RPP monitoring and reporting

The New Zealand Police RPP at www.police.govt.nz/resources(external link) provides details of road policing allocations at local authority and local authority cluster levels by activity (ie speed, drink-driving, restraint use etc).

The results of these activities are monitored and reported on by delivery, intermediate outcomes (eg speed, drink-driving and restraint wearing rates) and final outcomes (deaths and injuries). The tracking of both delivery and outcomes is vital in planning, funding and programming road policing resources.

Last updated: 6 October 2009