About the Project

The short stretch of motorway between the Auckland Harbour Bridge and the Central Motorway Junction (Spaghetti Junction) is currently NZs worst traffic bottleneck.

The project involves the construction of a 4540m cut and cover tunnel adjacent to the existing viaduct over Victoria Park to provide three new northbound lanes. The existing viaduct will remain carrying four southbound lanes. There will also be widening of the motorway through St Marys By to provide five traffic lanes each way and a shoulder bus lane.

The project is being delivered by the Victoria Park Tunnel Alliance comprising the New Zealand Transport Authority (NZTA), Fletcher Construction, Beca Infrastructure, Higgins Contractors and Parsons Brinkerhoff.

The project was started in October 2009 and the NZTA aims to have the entire project completed by mid 2012, with the tunnel structures completed by September 2011, in time for the 2011 Rugby World Cup.


Hirepool’s Involvement
Hirepool is involved in the Victoria Park Tunnel project as one of the key suppliers of hire equipment to the Alliance.

Hire equipment has been supplied across many Hirepool product groups – General Hire, Access, Energy, Barricading and Port-A-Loo. Rental equipment has included road plates, temporary road traffic signals, steel tracked excavators, compressor, portable toilets, diesel tank, 2 ton tip truck, road barriers, lighting towers, strapping machine, pumps, delivery and suction hoses, compactors, generators, points and chisels, vacuum cleaner, vibrator, hydraulic breaker, leads, water blasters, ladders, and plate compactors


The Challenge
The biggest challenges for Hirepool with the Victoria Park Tunnel project are around its location. As well as covering a large area, meeting the response times and working in with the client’s traffic management system to ensure operational and equipment safety on site, requires great skill and flexibility.

The Solution

A quick response and delivery time for rental equipment needed to be established, because of the location of the opposition base and the ongoing nature of the project.

An on-site rental branch was not practical due to limited amount of space so the existing Hirepool City Branch in Grey Lynn was the main call centre to provide all rental equipment and services across the Hirepool business units.

“A good relationship with the team at the Alliance was established early on. They could ring us and we would do everything we could to have the equipment to the site within half an hour”
Derek de Thierry - Hirepool City Centre Branch Manager

A 24/7 after hours call centre was also made available, to ensure the project keeps on ticking all hours of the day.
The Hirepool Urban Mobile Depot; a dedicated, fully kitted out mobile hire branch also calls on site every few days or when requested to make sure all hire equipment is available. In addition equipment is serviced regularly onsite or at the branch, to ensure it kept running smoothly.

Hirepool also provides real-time reporting to key members of the Alliance. This allows the construction crew to manage rental equipment from all divisions across the entire site.

Hirepool have also appointed a dedicated Account Manager to this project who is a single point of contact for the Alliance. He maintains an overview of the account and resolves any issues that may arise.

 “We rely on Hirepool to keep a commitment to us and constantly improve the service they provide”
John Burden – Alliance Project Manager


Results
Less than 12 months into the Victoria Park Tunnel Project, enabling work is almost complete and tunnel construction has started on schedule. All of Hirepool’s divisions have been involved with this progress to date. We have established trust and further developed business relationships with many members of the Alliance.

With a completion date of 2012, Hirepool will continue to work with the Alliance to meet project deadlines providing service and support to ensure customer satisfaction and appropriate management of expectations.

“We enjoy a great relationship with Hirepool. They understand our business and our requirements.”
John Burden – Alliance Project Manager