Transport Research with Nexus

Nexus' expertise in transport research in two main areas:

Road Pricing
Road pricing refers to the practice of charging tolls for road usage. This may be designed to recover part or all of the cost of constructing the road, or as a deterrent to road usage (helping to manage congestion) or both. Implementing road pricing needs to be carefully considered. Equity issues and other impacts need to be carefully evaluated. Nexus managed the research inputs for the preliminary evaluation of roading pricing alternatives in the Auckland Region (ARPES), looking at the potential impacts and evaluating the public acceptability of various alternative pricing strategies.

Nexus has also worked with Rodney District Council on a survey of  "affected communities" for the proposed Penlink toll road.

Stated Preference Research
Stated preference research is a highly specialised form of statistical analysis (conjoint analysis) used in transport research. It is widely used to identify the potential for "mode switching" (the transference from one mode to another e.g. from motor vehicles to public transport and/or other sustainable transport modes) and the identification of possible triggers for switching modes. It can also be used in the field of road pricing to identify the potential for these measures to change people's behaviour and collect revenue.

Nexus works closely with UK firm Accent in the application of these methods in New Zealand.