This page relates to the 2021-24 National Land Transport Programme.
The Investment Prioritisation Method (IPM) sets out several terms which have specific meanings in the context of the IPM and in the tables supporting the assessment of the three IPM factors (Government Policy Statement on land transport (GPS) alignment, scheduling and efficiency).
This page provides an overview of the definitions of these terms.
The GPS alignment factor indicates the alignment of a proposed activity or combination of activities (e.g. programme or package) with a GPS strategic priority and identifies the potential contribution to achieving the GPS strategic priority.
The GPS alignment criteria have been based on the Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency’s benefits framework and measures (particularly those with centralised data available) where possible. The Land Transport Benefits Framework measures manual provides a definition of the benefit, its measure(s) and identifies what data is available through the benefits storymap.
Land Transport Benefits Framework measures manual
Benefits storymap (login screen)(external link)
To get access to the benefits storymap, please email us at:
investment.benefits@nzta.govt.nz
The tables below show the measures grouped by GPS priority as used for the GPS alignment factor.
| Benefit name | Benefit measure # | Description | Comment on data availability |
| 1.1 Impact on social cost of deaths and serious injuries – collective risk | 1.1.1 | Average annual fatal and serious injury crashes per kilometre of road section. |
Collective risk data is available for corridors and intersections throughout New Zealand. |
| 1.1 Impact on social cost of deaths and serious injuries – deaths and serious injuries | 1.1.3 | From geospatial point ‘a’ to geospatial point ‘b’, the number of deaths and serious injuries resulting from land transport-related crashes in the last year. |
Deaths and serious injuries data available for corridors and intersections throughout New Zealand |
| Communities at risk | See below |
| Benefit name | Benefit measure # | Description | Comment on data availability | |
| 10.2 Impact on mode choice | 10.2.10 |
Percent of transport users by mode pedestrians, cyclists and motor vehicles by vehicle class. Definition of ‘other modes’ – see below. |
Mode share data available for car (driver), public transport, car (passenger), pedestrian, motorcyclist and cyclist by mesh block (Census 2013) or Ministry of Transport NZ Household Travel Survey by region or major urban area |
| Benefit name | Benefit measure # | Description | Comment on data availability |
| 5.2 Impact on network productivity and utilisation – access to key economic destinations – access to jobs | 5.2.6 | Number of jobs accessed within 45 minutes by a given mode or modes (public transport, walking, cycling, driving) in morning peak. | Data is available for all of New Zealand. Measure uses the centroid of each New Zealand meshblock (48,000) as its origin and jobs as the destination. |
| 10.3 Impact on access to opportunities – access to key social destinations | 10.3.1 | Proportion of population living within 15 minutes travel threshold of key social opportunities (including education, health care, supermarkets) by different modes (walking, cycling, public transport, private motor vehicle) in the morning peak. | |
| 10.2 Impact on mode choice – spatial coverage public transport | 10.2.6 | Access to public transport (within 500m of stop with transport that runs every 30 minutes). | |
| 10.2 Impact on mode choice – temporal availability of public transport | 10.2.7 | Access to high frequency public transport (within 500m of stop with transport that runs every 15 minutes) | Based on morning peak period – partial centralised data available. |
| New cycling links | Urban areas are defined below. | ||
| Tourism destinations | Local/regional/national defined below. |
| Benefit name | Benefit measure # | Description | Comment on data availability |
| 10.2 Impact on mode choice | – | Annual average daily traffic of freight road vehicles (heavy vehicles) for state highways and local roads. |
Data about other modes is not available. |
| Benefit name | Benefit measure # | Description | Comment on data availability |
| Impact on network productivity and utilisation – temporal availability of road | 5.1.4 | Number and duration of resolved road closures. |
Partial data (for state highways and urban arterials) available. |
| Benefit name | Benefit measure # | Description | Comment on data availability |
| 8.1 Impact on greenhouse gas emissions | – |
CO₂ vehicle emissions total grams per kilometre per day by carriageway id #. |
Data is modelled for each 0.2 square km – emissions rates calculated using vehicle emission prediction model (VEPM). |
| 3.2 Impact of air emissions on health |
– |
Annual concentration of NO₂ in µg/m³ and average annual vehicle emissions. |
Monitoring data available covers annual concentration of NO₂ in µg/m³ and average annual vehicle emissions by region. |
| 3.3 Impact of noise and vibration on health | – | Number of people exposed to noise levels (measured in dB Laeq(24h). |
Partial data available (noise contours) to use as basis for determining number of people exposed to noise levels (measured in dB Laeq(24h). |
The Communities at risk register has been developed by Waka Kotahi to identify communities of road users that are over‐represented in terms of road safety risk. The register highlights personal risk to road users by ranking communities by local authority area based on areas of concern.
The ratings are to be drawn from the ʽAll deaths and serious casualties’ table in the most recent version of the Communities at risk register. The definition of the levels of concerns is as follows:
Standard deviation is a descriptive statistic that is used to understand the distribution of a dataset. It is often reported in combination with the mean (or average), giving context to that statistic. Specifically, a standard deviation refers to how much scores in a dataset tend to spread out from the mean. If the distribution is normal then 68% of local authorities, in this case, will lie within 1 STDEV of the mean.
ʽOther modes’ in the context of better travel options supports mode shift for trips in urban centres from private vehicles to more energy-efficient, low-cost and healthier modes like walking, cycling, public transport and using micro-mobility devices such as e-scooters, e-skateboards and e-bikes. Other modes also include removing the need to make a trip at all, by providing a digital alternative (eg internet-based doctor’s appointments or e-learning) or working or studying from home.
Urban areas are classified by the size of their estimated resident population:
Urban boundaries are independent of local government and other administrative boundaries, that is, an urban area may be contained within one or more local government region or administrative areas. You can read more on Stats NZ website:
Statistical standard for geographic areas 2018(external link)
Local tourism destination – attracts primarily local (intraregional) day and/or overnight visitors
Regional tourism destination – attracts primarily inter-regional overnight (and some day) visitors, as well as local day and/or overnight visitors
National tourism destination – attracts primarily international overnight visitors, as well as some inter-regional overnight visitors
Viable alternative routes or modes to the corridor or section of the corridor should consider the length and travel time of the detour mode or route, whether it has capacity for the additional demand and whether all known users are able to use the route or mode.
This is particularly important for lifelines routes and/or routes for access to emergency services. As a general rule, we (Waka Kotahi as investor) accept detours as viable on alternative routes or modes that add less than two hours of travel compared with the original route or mode.
In applying either the scheduling or efficiency factor it is important to know what is meant by the terms programmes and packages which may be applicable in relation to the activity being advanced for National Land Transport Programme inclusion.
A ’programme’ means a defined group or collection of land transport activities that contains some form of criterial relationship to one another.
This is intended as a broad definition as there are different ways to group activities:
A programme may be delivered by multiple organisations, may extend across multiple activity classes and may span across different start dates.
A ’package’ means a group of activities that are inter-dependent.
’Inter-dependent’ means it is necessary for all the activities to be delivered to optimise the expected outcomes, ie if an activity within the package is not delivered, then it would reduce the effectiveness of the remaining activities within the package.
