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).
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.
| 2009/10 ($000) |
2010/11 ($000) |
2011/12 ($000) |
|
|---|---|---|---|
| 2009-2012 Road Policing Programme | 282,071 | 284,581 | 284,925 |
The RPP comprises four parts:
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:
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.
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).
| 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. |
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.
| 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.
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:
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).
| 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.
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 (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 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.
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
