The National Land Transport Programme (NLTP) is developed within a framework of legislation, statutory documents and non-statutory strategies and programmes. A summary is provided here.
In developing the NLTP there are specific legislative requirements the Transport Agency and our investment partners must meet. These requirements are designed to ensure that investment of central government funds gives effect to the direction set by government.
The key documents are the Land Transport Management Act 2003(external link) and the Government Policy Statement on land transport (GPS)(external link).
Under the Act, the Transport Agency must give effect to the GPS in developing the NLTP and take account of the GPS when approving funding for activities. The GPS covers the priorities, objectives and results the government wants from its investment in land transport, how it will achieve these through activity classes and funding ranges, results areas for reporting, expenditure target for the NLTP, and how revenue will be raised.
This Act(external link) is the governing legislation for development of the NLTP. An amendment of the act was completed in 2013, which amongst other variations, has increased the period of an RLTP to six years.
The 2018 GPS sets out the government's national policy priorities, and its national strategic direction for land transport, being to improve the performance of the land transport system by focussing on:
GPS 2018 further expands on these priorities by identifying a set of national objectives for a land transport system that:
The GPS(external link) includes information on levels of investment and funding allocation, as well as activity class definitions.
The 2018-21 NLTP gives effect to the priorities and objectives (and associated long term results) within the GPS, with the intention that short- to medium-term results will be achieved through the allocation of funding from the National Land Transport Fund.
The Transport Agency gives effect to the GPS through its Investment Assessment Framework (IAF), which sets out clear criteria for prioritisation of investment, drawn from the GPS and other government policies such as the Safer Journeys strategy.
Specific requirements that need to be met by the Transport Agency when adopting the NLTP are:
In terms of process, the Transport Agency must be satisfied that:
The Land Transport Management Act(external link) requires that the Transport Agency must give the same level of scrutiny to its own activities as it would give to those of approved organisations. This is called the 'scrutiny principle'.
This ensures the Transport Agency acts transparently in all its decision making, and that, when making decisions about land transport planning and funding, we separate the role of funder (when making funding decisions) and provider (when seeking funding for state highway and other national activities).
The Transport Agency applies the scrutiny principle to all decisions required for its own activities. Therefore it applies the same level of scrutiny to its own activities as it would to the activities of an approved organisation.
In making decisions, the Transport Agency has: