Small number of highways carry bulk of traffic - report
A new State Highway classification system shows that a small number of highways carry a disproportionate amount of New Zealand’s traffic, says Transport Minister Steven Joyce.
The classification system puts all state highways into one of four categories based on the volume of traffic they carry and the function they perform within the network:
- National strategic
- Regional strategic
- Regional connector
- Regional distributor
A subset of the national strategic highways are recorded as high volume highways. These high volume highways are just 714 kilometres of road that make up 6.5% of the state highway network and less than 1% of the total road network but carry 35% of total vehicle kilometres on state highways, and 17% of total kilometres travelled on the whole roading network.
Mr Joyce says the state highway classification project shows the critical social and economic importance of ensuring the key parts of the network in highest demand are upgraded to provide reliable journey times and safe travel.
“The seven Roads of National Significance are designed to tackle the biggest issues on these high volume highways for the benefit of the whole country.”
The NZ Transport Agency developed the classification system with input from the Ministry of Transport and stakeholders earlier in the year.
Mr Joyce says the state highway classification system will help develop appropriate future plans for highways right across the network.
The next step is to draft service and access levels for each category of the network – this will consider things like congestion levels, journey times, whether to expect driveways opening onto the highway, the need for passing opportunities and the type of safety improvements needed.
Public engagement on draft service levels will take place later this year as part of the NZTA’s development of the State Highway Network Strategy.
“The state highway classification project won’t directly impact funding or planning but it is another important tool to help us all strategically develop the network over time,” says Mr Joyce.
For more information, please visit:
http://www.nzta.govt.nz/planning/process/state-highway.html#planning
http://www.nzta.govt.nz/consultation/classification-system/docs/q-and-a.pdf