National Land Transport Programme funding sources policy

This page relates to the 2021-24 National Land Transport Programme.

Introduction

Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency's policy on the funding sources of the National Land Transport Programme.

Date of issue: August 2021 │ Investment policies will be reviewed every three years or when a new Government Policy Statement on land transport is released.

Purpose

This section describes the sources of funding available for investment in land transport activities under the National Land Transport Programme (NLTP).

Policy statement

National Land Transport Fund (NLTF)

Revenue collected from fuel excise duty, road user charges, vehicle and driver registration and licensing, state highway property disposal and leasing, and road tolling is credited to the NLTF. These funds are used to pay for investment in land transport activities under the NLTP, in accordance with the funding assistance rates (FAR) policy.

Funding assistance rates (FAR) policy

For more about our (Waka Kotahi as investor) policy on raising revenue from road tolling, read the tolling policy.

Tolling policy

NLTF funds are invested in land transport activities which must be included in the NLTP.

Local share

Land transport activities proposed and delivered by approved organisations, eg local road maintenance, local road improvements, public transport, are eligible for funding assistance from the NLTF. The amount we co-invest from the NLTF in local activities is largely determined by the FAR applicable to approved organisations. The FAR policy provides more information on this.

Funding assistance rates (FAR) policy

Approved organisations raise their local share from a range of sources that may include rates revenue, debt, developer contributions or other financial contributions and revenue.

Crown funds and loans

Crown funding may also be applied to transport activities in the NLTP.

Crown funding outside the NLTF comprises:

• funding packages for specific projects, such as rebuilding a transport corridor after an earthquake or delivering projects that would otherwise not be prioritised in a NLTP, eg projects in the NZ Upgrade Programme

NZ Upgrade Programme(external link)

• acting as the Crown's agent in allocating and managing funding as directed by the government, eg the SuperGold Card Concessions Package, to fund free off-peak public transport for superannuitants who hold SuperGold cards.

The government may also provide us with Crown loans to assist NLTF cash-flow management in delivering specific transport investments that the government considers a priority.

These loans must be repaid from future NLTFs. When a loan-funded activity is set up in Transport Investment Online, repayments must be set up at the same time.

Transport Investment Online(external link)

Supplementary funds

Supplementary funds refer to contributions that are additional to the NLTF and local share funding.

Where a third party benefits from a land transport investment, we expect the third party to contribute to the level of that benefit.

The main examples of supplementary funds are:

• financial contributions towards the costs of improving network infrastructure (to the benefit of the development)
• betterment from landowners receiving value from road improvements
• additional contributions from local authorities or other parties that reduce the proportion of our contribution to the cost of an activity below the normal FAR
• contributions from community groups or other government agencies to community programmes
• borrowing and payments from concession agreements
• the value of land and buildings of redundant public transport facilities owned by local authorities
• funds from the sale of future development rights of a new or redeveloped public transport facility owned and operated by a local authority.

The multi-party funding policy provides more information about supplementary funds and how they must be shared.

Multi-party funding policy