Awards

Gabites Porter Consultants prides itself in ability to provide services that are timely, high quality and innovative. We have been in industry leader in the field of transport modelling since the late 1970's.

Public Transport Innovation

In 2005 Gabites Porter Consultants won the National Award for Public Transport Innovation The award, sponsored by Toll Tranz Rail, was presented to Gabites Porter Managing Director Grant Smith at the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (CILT) Annual Awards dinner in Auckland on the 2nd of November, 2005.

The award was for Gabites Porter's transport planning software programme 'Tracks' and its ability to model public transport services. Tracks is a comprehensive transport planning programme used by city planners and traffic engineers to plan transport networks and assess the effects of land development.

Mr Smith said "the award was a wonderful achievement" and he was "delighted to be receiving it on behalf of all those that contributed to the success of the software - it's really a thank you to them."

"Public transport planning is undergoing a resurgence in New Zealand and we're seeing strong demand for skilled public transport planners and modellers. Increased public transport investment, congestion, oil price spikes, and a desire to minimise the negative effects of vehicle emissions are all contributing to this resurgence."

However, Mr Smith says that most transport authorities recognise "that you can't just throw money at these problems - there needs to be careful consideration of alternatives and that's where this software comes in. It helps to ensure that public money is being put to the best use." Gabites Porter Consultants is one of the few companies that both develop and use public transport software to plan urban transportation systems worldwide.

The public transport module was first developed in Wellington although the first large-scale application was in 2001 for the Northern Busway Project. The Busway comprises a 6km dedicated two-way roadway for buses and High Occupancy Vehicles, between North Shore and Auckland. This was the first project to be evaluated under the Transfund 'Alternatives to Roads' funding criteria and later this year it will be one of the first major ATR projects to be completed.

Since 2001 the public transport module has been greatly improved and is now being used to plan NZ transport systems in North Shore, Hamilton, Dunedin, Nelson, Timaru and several overseas cities including Wollongong (Australia) and Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia).