People

• Grant Smith, Director
• John Winter, Senior Transportation Engineer
• Dave Hunter, Senior Transportation Engineer
• Dave Smith, Senior Transport Planner
• Roger Ward, Senior Traffic Engineer
• Emir Roseley, Transport Planner
• Matt Ellery, Transportation Analyst
• Huayue Ai, Transportation Planner/ Modeller
• Robyn Hyde, Transportation Modeller/ Modeller
• Pip Masters, Transportation Planner/ Modeller
• John Kinghorn, Transportation Engineer

• Jim Cox, Software Engineer
• Pam Harrison, Draughtsperson, Administration Manager

Grant has been with the Company in its various forms since September 1975 following three years working in the UK with Scott Wilson Kirkpatrick & Partners. He worked on motorway feasibility studies within the UK and also spent time analysing Survey data from Bangladesh. He was responsible for the development and maintenance of the SWKP transport planning software.

Since 1975, he has practiced as a consultant in New Zealand, Australia and Malaysia, advising Local, Regional and Central Government, as well as private clients. He has been responsible for a large number of transportation studies, ranging from full multi-modal analysis to specialist studies of the impacts of a specific development. His latest work has been the building of a multi-modal model from Home interview data on Auckland's North Shore. He is also very experienced as an expert witness in Council and Environment Court hearings and has recently project managed a multi million dollar case that spread over five years and involved over 40 expert witnesses.

His areas of expertise are in the modeling of urban and rural systems, economic and financial evaluation, public and private transport demand forecasting, computer software design and applications.

Grant has been a partner, or director since 1981. He has worked for almost every Local Authority in New Zealand and has established the company's activities in New South Wales, more recently in Queensland and also in Malaysia through a partly owned subsidiary company.

John joined the company in 1982 following thirteen years with the Hamilton City Council. During that time he was involved in the formation of a traffic engineering and roading design section of Council. His final position was as Assistant Street Engineer where he had technical and financial control of street construction and maintenance programs and an ongoing involvement in transportation planning.

After two years in Christchurch, John established the Hamilton office of Gabites Porter. From there he has provided a wide range of advice and services to clients in the top half of the North Island. In this regard he has been involved in the development and use of transportation models for a number of urban areas, including Hamilton, Rotorua, Papakura and Taupo.

He also works for private clients and local authorities in preparing traffic assessment reports of projects for resource consent applications. He is very experienced as an expert witness for resource consent hearings before Councils and at Environment Court Hearings.

John has also had considerable experience on other transportation/traffic matters on such matters as environmental impact studies, central area studies, road and intersection designs and economic analyses. Under his control the Hamilton office provides a wide range of roading / traffic services including contract preparation and administration.

Dave Hunter is a transportation engineer with Gabites Porter Consultants. He has been involved with transportation modeling, roading scheme designs, benefit cost analysis and traffic signal design since graduation in 1985. He began his career with the Christchurch City Council in 1985 where he was involved in the design, analysis, economic analysis and implementation of traffic signals as Assistant Signals Engineer. In 1988 he took up the position of Traffic Design Engineer where he was responsible for the economic and transportation analysis of major roading projects in Christchurch using TRACKS. He was awarded the IPENZ Fulton-Downer Silver Medal in 1992.

In 1993 Dave moved to Bahrain to take up the position of Strategic Planning Engineer for the Ministry of Works. There he was responsible for transportation and economic analysis of strategic roading projects within Bahrain. He managed the development of the SATURN computer based transportation analysis system and had responsibility for the development and ongoing monitoring of the Bahrain Master Transportation Plan. This required working with and acting as liaison between consultants, ministry staff, politicians and the public to coordinate outputs. He was also responsible for the design and investigation of a number of large roading and junction design projects.

Jim's specialty is GeoSpatial Information Systems. Jim has worked for a number of engineering firms, software houses and research institutions.

His training in surveying and computing have led to practical experience in roading, engineering and geographic information systems. Jim has worked on a diverse range of projects from facilities management to motorway re-alignments to simulations of animal populations and movements. His personal interests include hazard assessment and mapping and software engineering. His IT experience is built on this firm engineering platform being conversant with Unix, Microsoft and Macintosh operating systems, C++ Fortran Pascal and basic languages, GIS and databases.

Jim is responsible for the development & maintenance of Gabites Porter's TRACKS Suite. This involves working with project engineering staff to design new TRACKS modules, extend & enhance existing modules and resolve performance issues within the TRACKS suite. In addition Jim also provides technical support for TRACKS Clients and administers our IT resources.

Dave first joined Gabites Porter as a Transport Planner in 2000 after gaining 5 years experience in mathematical and simulation modelling, and production planning in the manufacturing industry. After a brief foray working as a Planning Analyst for Ezibuy in 2003, Dave has returned to Gabites in 2004 as a Senior Transport Planner.

Dave holds both Bachelors and Masters degrees in Operations Research, having specialised in the deterministic side of this mathematical field. Dave's Masters degree in Philosophy focuses on the development, simulation and application of Tabu Search heuristics to industrial scheduling and planning models.

He has worked on a range of New Zealand and Australian models as maintained by Gabites Porter and his contributions are primarily in model development, model validation, impact studies, parking studies, benefit-cost studies, data analysis, accident analysis and traffic surveys.

Roger has particular expertise in management of budget preparation, road maintenance programmes and contracts, asset management plans and data systems, traffic services and systems, transportation planning, long-term financial strategy, public responses and Council reports.

Roger undertook contract supervision and community safety works. Council controller of all transport policy, network improvement, operations and maintenance, and travel safety issues.

As a Transport and Logistic student at Lincoln University, Emir displayed a keen interest in traffic planning. His enthusiasm was observed in an internal project that was assessed by the staffs of Gabites Porter.

Emir is inclined to evaluate transport networks with social costs and benefits as his primary criteria. While at Gabites Porter, he wishes to understand and incorporate the effects of traffic psychology in the design of efficient traffic networks.

Matt comes to Gabites Porter with 11 years of analytical experience gained while working for technology development companies in the textiles industry, specialising in commercial research of instrumentation technologies. He also has experience with quality systems management.

Matt’s skill in mathematics, statistical methods and computing have provided a sound base from which to develop his transportation modelling and analyst activities.

Huayue is a graduate student and joined the company in January 2007. She has eighteen months experience in transportation modelling and evaluation at Gabites Porter Consultants.

She has been responsible in the building and validation of numerous transport models and then using them for deficiency analysis and economic analysis of options.

She is currently studying for a Masters degree in Engineering (Transportation) at Centerbury.

Robyn joined the company in October 2008, following the completion of a Bachelor of Business Studies in Economics.

Robyn has strong analytical skills, and an appreciation of transportation networks both in New Zealand and overseas, having spent 12 years working in the travel industry. Robyn has an interest in the financial and economic analysis of transportation projects.

Cver the last nine months she has worked on a range of New Zealand and Australian models as maintained by Gabites Porter developing her transportation modelling and analyst skills.

Pip joined Gabites Porter in December 2008 having spent 2 ½ years practising as a barrister & solicitor in private practice. Prior to commencing her law degree Pip spent 15 years working in the Computing and Biometrics department at Lincoln University providing IT support with a focus on mathematical and statistical software support and survey design and analysis.

Pip brings sound mathematical, statistical and computing skills to her work in the transportation modelling and analysis field.

John joined Gabites Porter as a Transportation and Traffic Engineer in 2010. He began his career with Hamilton City Council in 2003, where he was involved in a wide range of civil engineering projects and developed as a traffic engineer.

His traffic engineering experience includes safety audits, traffic impact assessments, strategy studies, traffic modelling, crash reduction studies, and SCATS signal management and improvements.

He also has expertise in the design, tendering, construction, and project management of civil engineering works including roundabouts and signalised intersections.