Infrastructure for a Better Future

The future is uncertain. While we can do our best to predict what will happen next month, next year, or fifty years from now, we can’t be sure what will actually happen.  

In this episode, Te Waihanga Senior Economist Nadine Dodge catch up with Brad Singh, to learn about how the transport team at Wellington City Council is dealing with uncertainty in their business. Brad talked about many sources of uncertainty – from climate change to labour supply to aggregate availability – and what we can do in the face of uncertainty to plan for future generations.

While the future is uncertain, when done well, corridor protection – designating or acquiring land for infrastructure in advance of when it’s needed – can have benefits for day and tomorrow. In this episode of ‘Infrastructure for a better future’, Nadine Dodge, Senior Economist – Strategy at Te Waihanga talks with KiwiRail representatives David Gordon, Capital Planning and Asset Development Officer, and Marija Batistich, Senior Corporate Counsel, about how corridor protection works in practice for KiwiRail.

Corridor protection is discussed in one of our recent reports, ‘Protecting land for infrastructure: How to make good decisions when we aren’t certain about the future’. Our report findings suggest that designating or acquiring land for infrastructure in advance can make it cheaper and easier to build the infrastructure we need, from neighbourhood schools to major public transport routes.

Large-scale and complex infrastructure projects, often take longer and cost more than expected, but some places seem to get better results than others. In our latest podcast, we take a global view of infrastructure project costs and why certain places are better at delivering infrastructure on time and in budget.

Peter Nunns Director - Economics at Te Waihanga speaks to Dr. Eric Goldwyn from New York University and the Transit Costs Project, and Liz Innes, Director - Investment and Reviews at Te Waihanga, to take a deeper look into global infrastructure costs.

This sits alongside our report, The lay of the land: Benchmarking New Zealand’s infrastructure delivery costs

Te Waihanga Principal Advisor - Strategy, Nik Green recently spoke to Senior Advisor - Delivery Christian Gamst about stormwater and resilience. This is part of our work to understand the severity of the January 2023 Auckland Anniversary weekend storm resulting in stormwater flooding in Auckland, the impact of the storm on Auckland’s infrastructure and the issues or weaknesses this event has raised about stormwater management and our infrastructure system.

This sits alongside our report, The 2023 Auckland Anniversary weekend storm: An initial assessment and implications for the infrastructure system.

We need our cities to be attractive and inclusive places to live. An important aspect of achieving this is by ensuring our infrastructure services are accessible to everyone. Two Auckland Transport advisory groups – the Public Transport Advisory Group (PTAG) and the Capital Project Advisory Group (CTAG) have been true catalysts for change and have been at the forefront of making Auckland's transport network work for all. Jane Godfrey, Senior Advisor - Strategy at Te Waihanga spoke to Alison McLellan, former representative for Headway, the Brain Injury Association Auckland, and Chris Orr, former representative for Blind Low Vision New Zealand about their work on the advisory groups.

A recent report commissioned by Te Waihanga looks at how and why the consenting system needs to change for Aotearoa to deliver on it's net-zero targets. Sapere Research Group completed the research.

A changing macro-economic and geopolitical environment can act as either a headwind or tailwind to better infrastructure. In this complex world how does Aotearoa New Zealand make sure it can deliver successful infrastructure projects? How, and to what, do we shift our priorities as a small country at the bottom of the pacific? How do we compete for the talent we need to produce world-class infrastructure?

To solve New Zealand's infrastructure challenges we need to deliver quality infrastructure at an affordable price. So, how much does it cost to build infrastructure in New Zealand? And how do we compare with other high-income countries? That's the subject of a report that we published last month, entitled ‘The lay of the land: Benchmarking New Zealand's infrastructure delivery costs’. In our report, we draw on research from Oxford Global Projects, who provide expert advice on infrastructure project management and benchmarking around the world. In this episode we're joined by Andreas Leed and Dirk Pöker from Oxford Global Projects, who will discuss their findings and share some of their broader insights. Andreas is head of data science at Oxford Global Projects and Dirk is a research analyst and PhD candidate at the University of Alicante in Spain.

Earlier in 2022, a culvert replacement project won the award for Excellence in Environment and Sustainability, Best Public Works Project ($2–5 million) and Supreme Asset Management Excellence at the 2022 IPWEA (Institute of Public Works Engineering Australasia) New Zealand Asset Management Excellence Awards. At first glance, it might be hard to understand how a culvert replacement project could attract so much interest, but this project highlights the important connection our infrastructure has with our people and places, how important it can be to get infrastructure right for its place, the environment surrounding it, and the people who use that environment. Blake Lepper, General Manager - Infrastructure Delivery at Te Waihanga spoke to Kathryn O’Reilly, Senior Project Manager at Waka Kotahi and Kat McMullen, Civil Engineer at WSP about how they managed this award winning project.

A recent report by Te Waihanga highlights the importance of productivity growth in reducing construction costs and addressing workforce demands. In this episode, the authors of the report, Hannah Ouellet Economist (secondment) and Peter Nunns Director of Economics, discuss their findings.

Read the report