Not so long ago an investor decided some roads were costing more than they should. Roads were a mile outside 'maintenance to vehicles travelled' benchmarks and still getting road user complaints, especially from the transport sector itself.
With the district's network becoming more expensive to maintain and other projects needing funding, the investor questioned an ad-hoc approach to decision-making. Budgets had to be slashed in half to bring roads in line with national benchmarks and let other projects get funded.
For months, staff, consultants and contractors worked to understand the problem and find cost savings. At the core they discovered the data was not current as traffic counts had not been properly updated. Updating the data gave clear evidence of needs and the budget was actually raised.
And this is why great data matters.
