State highway operations, maintenance and renewal
Operation and maintenance activities for state highways include:
- pavement and drainage maintenance
- road markings
- road corridor maintenance, including vegetation control and grass mowing, and the maintenance of roadside 'furniture' such as signs and guard rails
- the operation of traffic management centres, traffic signals and other access control and information systems
- responding to unplanned events.
As the roading infrastructure deteriorates over time, we undertake renewal activities to help minimise the long-term costs of retaining it. They include:
- resurfacing roads
- replacing culverts, traffic signs and signals, street-lighting, and other infrastructure
- major structural repairs and strengthening of structures
- pavement strengthening.
We spent about $500 million in 2008/09 on maintaining and operating the network. Of this:
- about $260 million was spent on day-to-day operations and maintenance
- $180 million was spent on renewal activities such as resurfacing, pavement strengthening, and smaller replacements
- just over $60 million was spent responding to unplanned events, such as bad weather.
Addressing congestion
Initiatives are already in place to address congestion issues. These aim to enable road users to make informed choices on when and how to travel, and remove bottlenecks. Others planned for 2009-2012 include:
- in Auckland, traffic management technologies such as ramp signalling, closed-circuit television and variable message signing
- in Wellington, lane-control signals and variable mandatory speed management signs
- in Christchurch, improved traffic management through completion of the Traffic Management Unit, similar to those operating in Auckland and Wellington
- nationally, an expanded variable message sign network, a national operations centre, a comprehensive weather prediction model that will improve safety management processes, and further improvement in the responses to unplanned events, particularly road crashes.
Learn how we monitor for congestion across the state highway network.
State highway improvements
About $1 billion went into improving the state highway network during 2008/09. About $30 million of this was part of the government's 'Jobs and Growth Plan' announced in February 2009, to accelerate five large construction projects and many smaller projects around the country. This was for a total of $142.5 million over three years.
In the next three years, $3.075 billion will go into funding state highway improvements. The diagram illustrates the spending breakdown among large improvements, group improvements (smaller activities that cost less than $4.5 million per project are managed as group projects in each region) and minor improvements.
