This page relates to the 2024–27 National Land Transport Programme.
This page provides the requirements for funding programmes and packages of improvement activities from the National Land Transport Fund (NLTF).
Note: the requirements for funding low-cost, low-risk activities and continuous programmes are detailed elsewhere in this knowledge base.
A programme is a group of transport activities designed to achieve agreed outcomes (agreed between us (NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA) as investor and our investment partners), that are undertaken by one or more approved organisations or NZTA (for its own activities), over one or more National Land Transport Programme (NLTP) period(s).
The activities in a programme may be grouped by:
A programme can be:
A collection of activities that have no obvious relationship to each other is not a programme.
A package is a group of transport activities that are interdependent, and that are undertaken by one or more approved organisations or NZTA (for its own activities) over one or more NLTP period(s).
For activities to be considered as a package (with a single investment priority profile) all of the following must be met:
Interdependent means that it is necessary for all the activities to be delivered to optimise the expected outcomes; that is, if an activity within the package is not delivered it could reduce the effectiveness of the remaining activities within the package.
The Land Transport Management Act 2003, section 20A, sets out that we may approve activities or combinations of activities and may apply different methods of assessment for the purpose of approving them.
Land Transport Management Act 2003, section 20A(external link)
The process for the development of a programme or package must follow the Business Case Approach (BCA), including the steps of:
A 3-year programme of standard interventions proposed for funding is expected to be supported by a programme business case, or an addendum to a programme business case.
If a programme of activities is proposed as one item for inclusion in the NLTP, the programme is assessed as a whole. The components within the programme are not required to have an individual priority assessment. The assessment of the programme may identify components that, if assessed separately, might have a low or very low rating under any of the 3 factors. That may not affect the rating of the programme but may be considered by us (NZTA as investor) in determining the rightsizing of the programme and the right mix of activities in the programme for inclusion in the NLTP or for investment approval. A package of activities is assessed as a whole because they are interdependent, and all activities and components of an activity are assigned the priority rating for the package.
2024–27 NLTP Investment Prioritisation Method
Funding approval of a programme of standard interventions:
A condition of funding approval is that if the organisation forecasts that the full approved amount of funding will need to be required due to non-delivery in the NLTP period, the organisation will declare a surplus of the amount expected to be unspent in the NLTP period.
Assessment of a programme of standard interventions for funding is at the programme level – it is not the sum of the assessments of each of the individual activities within a programme, rather it is an assessment of the whole programme.
Any activities in the total programme of activities that are considered to have a benefit-cost ratio (BCR) less than 1.0 can be included in the total programme provided the BCR for the programme is greater than 1.0 and the activity is necessary to complete and maintain the integrity of the programme as a whole.
Associated documents:
Funding approval requires NZTA endorsement that the package meets our requirements in terms of the definition, prioritisation and value for money.
The assessment of a package of activities is at the package level – it is not an assessment of each individual component within a package.
Any activities in a package that are considered to have a BCR less than 1.0 can be included provided the package BCR is greater than 1.0 and the activity is necessary to complete and maintain the integrity of the package.