The draft position statement contains a set of principles helping
professionals, decision-makers and the public to recognise good
practice. This supports our objectives:
- advance transport knowledge
- develop good practice
- improve outcomes
- and support members
Why we are developing this
Members have asked us for support in applying professional standards to transportation, such as the Engineering NZ Code of Ethical Conduct. Professional recognition pathways to take this further are described on our Qualifications page.
We hope that developing this clarity at an institutional level will
help individual members to explain best practice, and that it will
empower the community and decision-makers to engage in transport
challenges constructively.
Draft Professional Transport Principles
Professionalism encompasses ethics and competence – in transport as
in all professional fields like law, medicine, and structural
engineering.
Ethical transport work considers:
1. Honesty and preservation of health, safety, and the environment: In accordance with ENZ’s code of ethical conduct,
ethical transport advice must be fair, honest, and comprehensive,
putting people’s health, safety, and the environment first. It should
inform people of the consequences of not following the advice.
2. Transport inclusion and engagement: Ethical
advice ensures that the transport system is fair and accessible to
everyone, including women, children, older people, and people with
diverse backgrounds and abilities. This includes engaging with
communities to understand deep underlying values and needs beyond
superficial reactions, and ensuring under-represented perspectives are
fairly included.
Competent transport work considers:
3. Treaty of Waitangi: Competent transport advice for Crown and local government helps them understand and fulfil their responsibility to take appropriate account of the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi – including partnership, active protection, and consultation.
4. Climate change: Competent transport advice
understands how transport contributes to climate change, and how
transport is exposed to its effects. In line with ENZ’s climate position, transport professionals have a key role in leading climate mitigation and adaptation.
5. Induce demand for efficient modes that use less space, resources and energy:
Competent transport advice understands that although a quality driving
experience is desirable, an efficient transport system makes walking,
biking, scooting and using public transport more attractive for most
trips, because these consume less space, resources and energy. Induced
demand means transport investment and policy decisions shape the way
people want to get around.
6. Induce demand for efficient land use: Competent
transport advice understands that an effective and efficient transport
system makes dense and mixed land use attractive and convenient, because
this enhances people’s ability to access essential services and
destinations and improves transport efficiency. Evidence shows
prioritising vehicular mobility has the long-term systemic effect of
spreading destinations further apart, gradually worsening access. This
is important for transport planning – especially in the long run – and
should be a key part of all decisions.
7. Value of public space: Competent transport advice
understands that public space is valuable, considers what transport
options are compatible with other community functions of public space,
and prioritises these appropriately in different contexts.
8. Intervention hierarchy: Competent transport
advice considers improving efficiency before increasing capacity,
because this is more effective and cost-efficient. The intervention
hierarchy starts with reducing the need to travel by changing how land
is used, improving the attractiveness of sustainable transport, and
managing demand through pricing. Increasing capacity for vehicles should
be our last choice after more effective and efficient options have been
exhausted.
9. Risk management hierarchy: Like in industrial
safety, competent transport safety advice prioritises the most effective
actions: getting rid of risks, swapping risky things for safer ones,
and using engineering to make unavoidable risks safer. In a risk
management hierarchy, it’s a last resort to rely on rule compliance and
safety equipment. This means focusing on reducing the need to drive;
reducing exposure to traffic; improving public transport, walking and
cycling; engineering roads and streets to reduce speeds and conflict
points; reducing speed limits; and finally improving crash protection
for people and vehicles.
10. Resilience takes a long-term system view:
Competent transport advice considers how the transport system can
proactively and reactively adapt to serve people’s needs through a wide
range of probable and possible changes. This includes slow and rapid
shocks that are social, economic, environmental and geopolitical in
nature. Resilience should be improved in ways that are consistent with
the other principles, and which increase resilience beyond transport,
such as supporting transport modes and land use patterns that reduce
dependence on energy and complex supply chains.
