Transport Minister Simeon Brown unveiled a fleet of pothole monitoring vans, which will patrol New Zealand’s roads with advanced digital equipment looking for signs of wear and tear. 

Brown said the fleet of five vans, formally known as “Consistent Condition Data Collection (CCDC) survey vans” will travel the country hoovering up data to monitor the state of our roads and work out when they need maintenance. 

Brown said the Government will now require automated pavement condition inspections of all sealed roads at least every second year, while surveys of high-class roads will be undertaken annually. 

One van will cover Auckland and Northland, another will cover the central North Island, while a third will cover the lower North Island and the top of the south, and a fourth will cover the rest of the South Island. There will also be a fifth van, whose remit is currently unclear. 

“These vans will provide consistent, high quality surface condition data at a scale never seen in New Zealand before, replacing the inefficient and manual on-the-ground inspections currently happening in many locations across the country,” Brown said. 

“CCDC survey vans are now undertaking surveys on local roads in Auckland, Christchurch, Tauranga, Western Bay of Plenty, Marlborough, Nelson, and Tasman. Over the next 10 months, around 80,000km of local roads will be surveyed, providing high-quality surface condition data to RCAs across the country to reduce the number of potholes on our roads,” he said. 

They will largely replace manual inspections, which Brown said “often lead to poorer data collection, variations as a result of human error, and increased risk to inspectors’ safety while working in traffic”. 

The automated surveys will monitor “roughness, rutting, texture, cracking, and geometry”. Brown said they must be undertaken by a certified supplier using accredited equipment which has satisfactorily applied an ongoing quality assurance programme. 

“Our Government is focused on delivering better outcomes for New Zealanders and enabling them to get where they want to go, quickly and safely,” Brown said. 

Thomas Coughlan is deputy political editor and covers politics from Parliament. He has worked for the Herald since 2021 and has worked in the Press Gallery since 2018.