Auckland

Come and join your fellow Auckland based Transportation Group colleagues and regale in stories of isolation, along with phrases and words you may not have heard prior to 2020 like “COVID-19”, “Rapid Antigen Testing”, “Team of 5 million”, “super-spreader” and the “new normal” along with phrases you all thought meant something else like “Traffic Light System”, “Room Capacity” and “Household Contacts”. This event has been organised to encourage you to come out from under your duvet blanket and socialise in a very socially responsible and socially distanced way with real live three-dimensional people.

What is the future of transport in Auckland, and how will it meet its carbon neutral obligations by 2050? Join Engineering New Zealand and Transportation Group Auckland Branches to discuss the initiatives and challenges the engineering profession face to keep Auckland moving.

Future of Transport | Engineering NZ

Our panel of experts include Darek Koper (Auckland Transport), Doris Stroh (Aurecon), Simon Court (ACT party) and George Leidig (Downer) to hear their thoughts on what they are doing in order to achieve this goal.

Darek Koper
Group Manager Metro Services, Auckland Transport, Auckland
Darek is leading the public transport, on demand and total mobility service delivery and decarbonisation of Auckland’s public transport bus and ferry fleets and infrastructure specifications to improve air quality and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. He has 15 years’ experience in various roles in the transportation industry. Darek collaborates with private bus operators to facilitate greater understanding of the benefits of moving to zero emission fleets and plays a key role in the development of supply chain to support the transition from diesel to electric and hydrogen fuel cell buses and ferries, their management, operations and charging infrastructure. He is also chairing the New Zealand Low Emission Bus Working Group tasked with overcoming challenges and removing barriers to earlier adoption of zero emission buses in New Zealand.

Simon Court 
ACT List Member of Parliament based in Auckland
Simon is a Civil and Environmental Engineer with 23-years’ experience in roles for the private sector and local government. This includes 10-years leading engineering, planning, tendering, and construction teams primarily in Auckland, Wellington, and Fiji.  Simon is the ACT spokesperson for Environment , climate Change, Infrastructure, Transport, Local Government, Energy and Resources

George Leidig
GM Transport Products and Fleet, Downer New Zealand
George has spent many years in the Transport industry. During that time he has worked for many of the main Asphalt companies such as ARC, Holcim, Aggregate Industries, Lafarge, and now, Downer New Zealand.   Now as General Manager of Transport Products and the Downer Fleet his remit extends to the products businesses such as Road Science, National Asphalt Production, and Green Vision Recycling which operate across New Zealand.  As well as the national product businesses George is responsible for the Downer NZ vehicle fleet including light and heavy vehicles plus specialist construction plant such as excavators, graders and mobile cranes used to maintain roads and build public Infrastructure Projects.

Eagerly anticipated and deferred for more than a year it’s now time to test those COVID-19 depleted brain cells. This year we will be limiting numbers to 100 participants. So, if you are keen to participate get in quick to register your team to battle it out against your fellow Transportation Group members to determine Auckland’s smartest transport team.  Team size should be between 4 – 8 people. If you are an independent then please let us know and we will team you up with others.

When: Wednesday 12 October, 5.30–9.30PM (Quiz will kick off at 6pm)
Where: The Paddington, 117 St George’s Bay Road, Parnell, Auckland
Cost:  Free

The winning team will be awarded a $100 bar tab plus the honour of winning and all the associated bragging rights entailed therein.

The committee will sponsor nibbles, and a free drink for the first 20 people through the door. The Paddington will be running the quiz for us and it will be in the normal format.

Unless we hit the 100-person ceiling beforehand, team registrations will close on Tuesday 4 October, 5:00pm.
Please provide details of Team Name, Organisation, and the number of team members to allow us to finalise catering