The Auckland Motorway Alliance (AMA), responsible for looking after 240 kilometres of motorway and state highway in Auckland on behalf of the NZTA, has taken out a top trans-Tasman honour at the Australasian Alliance Awards.
The Greenlane-based AMA was one of four finalists contesting the Alliance Team of Excellence Award – an “industry equivalent of the Bledisloe Cup” says Steve Mutton, NZTA’s acting state highways manager for Auckland and Northland.
“The Excellence Awards programme celebrates outstanding teams who exemplify the spirit of collaboration in critical infrastructure projects,” says Mutton. “It reflects the AMA’s teamwork and ability to deliver great customer service in an environment where high quality outcomes are expected within tight budgets.”
Established in 2008, the AMA is the NZTA’s first long-term maintenance alliance and responsible for the maintenance and operation of Auckland’s motorway network until 2018. Members include the NZ Transport Agency, Fulton Hogan Ltd, Opus International Consultants Ltd, Beca Infrastructure Ltd, Resolve Group Ltd, and Armitage Systems Ltd.
“The AMA’s success in Melbourne is a great reward for some outstanding goals over the past four years,” says Mutton. ““It has continually challenged itself to improve its performance and delivery, and has produced savings of $23.3m.”
Through its pavements and surfacing work, the AMA has extended the average paving age by 20% and improved the rate of pavement surface defects by 33%. The team has also won recognition for its work to transform a 50-year old, manually generated, paper-based highway management system to an electronic, GIS based system for website access, including a smartphone application.
More than 140 staff are employed to manage and maintain 240 centreline kilometres of motorways and State Highways in the Auckland region, on the four main motorways – Northern & Southern (SH1, Northwestern (SH16), Southwestern (SH20) – and the mainly rural highway, SH22.
