News 2018 - 2020

This month 25 school leavers join WSP Opus as cadets through a regional scheme that channel emerging talent into engineering careers. The new recruits will work on transformational infrastructure projects that will reshape and benefit their communities.

The challenge to design a safe transport system that reduces death and injury, is suitable for a variety of modes of transport and encompasses future modes of transport is almost overwhelming in scale.

Over 150 years ago, when European settlement of New Zealand began, we had around 670,000 hectares (ha) of freshwater wetlands. By the 20^th Century, this number had significantly reduced to 100,000 ha. Now, the Minister of Conservation is urging that we protect what we have left for our declining kūkūwai (wetlands) as New Zealand clings on to the remaining 10% of wetland area.

Just over 30 years ago, the Swedish parliament had an extraordinary debate as politicians tried to decide how many deaths each year were acceptable on their roads. The consensus? None.
 
This is the principle of the Vision Zero policy that was introduced in Sweden in 1997; that the acceptable number of deaths or serious injuries on the roads is precisely zero.

Kristian Jensen his thoughts about the Smart Cities of the future. Smart cities don’t happen by accident, they are crafted and built. We have a choice.

A school, an office, an entire town: a perspective of New Zealand’s rising road fatalities.  

The total amount of road-related deaths in 2018 amounts to more deaths than the Pike River (29), Kaikōura Earthquakes (2), Cave Creek (14), Mt Erebus Air Crash (237) and Wahine disaster (51) combined. In September this year, the Ministry of Transport (MoT) will lead new road safety strategy, Vision Zero, where acceptance of even one road injury is not an option.

Last year 382 people died on New Zealand’s roads making on road accidents the biggest contributor towards non-health related deaths in 2018. MoT spokesman Brent Johnston calculated that, on average, one  person is injured every hour of every day.

WSP Opus has several exciting projects on the go, everything from developing roading materials using waste streams such as tyre rubber and plastics with bitumen, modifying chip seals and other road surfaces with non-bituminous materials that are less prone to water damage, to creating roads that will last for 40 years before needing replacing.

Is it possible to design a future where car is no longer king?

A future city is determining trends in data, technology and behaviours and utilising such findings to shape the way we live, work and transport ourselves. 

The Future Cities Podcast delves into the behind-the-scenes stories of New Zealand's engineers. As we touch base to see how this information is gathered, analysed and encompassed to build better, more liveable cities. Touching on technologies and trends that have shaped their careers, disruptors in the industry and technologies that are transforming the world we live in. 

In this episode, Expert in Smart Mobility, Louise Baker talks about a vision of our transport future where the car is no longer king, and all forms of transport are easily accessible.

It’s clear from the way users have embraced initiatives such as bike and e-scooter sharing schemes that there is a considerable appetite for a future that is built on shared and active mobility.

We are thrilled to announce that we will be working alongside our Australian WSP colleagues & ICD Property to deliver the structural and geotechnical design for the building that will redefine Auckland’s skyline,65 Federal Street.