MEDIA STATEMENT
20 May 2004

Connecting People To Travel Together

Statement made by John Robertson, Chairman, Infrastructure Auckland

IA has awarded a grant of $300,000 to the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority (EECA) to develop software and a website to promote car-pooling in the Auckland region.

The project, named the “Auckland Rideshare Scheme”, is also supported by the Auckland Regional Council (ARC) and is expected to contribute to a raft of Travel Demand Management (TDM) initiatives such as tertiary, employer and community travel plans, which all aim to increase the efficiency of travel in innovative ways.

The main point of the Rideshare Scheme is to connect people in the region to find car-pooling partners via a website. This would in turn increase the number of people per car on Auckland roads and contribute to improving traffic flow, reducing congestion and make for a more social trip to work, school and university.

It’s estimated that an additional 365,000 trips per year will be taken as a result of the Rideshare scheme.

A pilot programme which saw some very positive results in increasing the occupancy rates of private vehicles was run and tested at Lincoln University by EECA.

This was one of many ideas discussed at a workshop held by IA on innovative transport solutions. IA is pleased to see progress being made on developing and implementing innovative transport solutions for the Auckland region.

This is a project with very achievable outcomes and positive economic, social and environmental benefits over a twenty year period.

There will be a number of supporting initiatives around the project such as advertising and promotion, and incentives for people using the system such as reserved parking spaces in the city.

Ends.

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