Accessibility statement

We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. This means you should be able to:

  • change colours, contrast levels and fonts
  • zoom in up to 300% without the text spilling off the screen
  • use most of the website with a keyboard or speech recognition software
  • access most of the website using a screen reader.

We’ve also made the website text as easy as possible to understand.

Our commitment to accessible websites

In November 2018, we started our accessibility journey by signing the Aotearoa New Zealand Government's Accessibility Charter. We reconfirmed that commitment in 2020, and now accessibility standards and practices are part of our culture and ways of working.

This means we:

  • work to make sure our websites meet the New Zealand Government Web standards
  • make sure our forms, correspondence, pamphlets, brochures, videos, and any other means of interacting with the public are available in a range of accessible formats
  • make sure that vendors developing or designing for us also comply with accessibility standards and requirement
  • respond positively when customers let us know something isn’t accessible and work to fix it.

We have audited the accessibility of this site to discover how we’re doing and where we can improve. We know some parts of this website are not fully accessible. For example:

  • many of our PDF documents may not be fully accessible to screen reader software
  • some of our online forms are difficult to use with just a keyboard
  • content we don’t own where we have limited ability to address accessibility.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

Making our websites and web applications accessible is an ongoing project. We continue to dedicate ourselves to doing what we can to make our information accessible to all, so that everyone can benefit from our services.

Improving accessibility over time

On a large site like this, some accessibility issues can only be fixed one page at a time. We make sure that new features are accessible, as well as fixing existing content as we find it.

This includes:

  • adding captions and transcripts to videos
  • improving our links and headings
  • making our documents more accessible
  • adding text alternatives to images
  • making our forms easier to use
  • making sure Māori language can be pronounced properly by screen readers.

What we’ve already done

After our audit we found some site improvements we could make:

  • Autocomplete is now available for people putting their own information into a form.
  • Decorative images are hidden from screen readers.
  • Meaningful images are described to screen readers.
  • Some words/icons/buttons are visible against their background.
  • People can start, pause or hide any moving content on a page.
  • You can see where you are on the page if you only use a keyboard.
  • Most links are easy to spot among the rest of the page content.
  • Links/buttons have names to describe their action.
  • HTML conforms to specification.
  • Language of this site is correctly identified as NZ English.
  • Error messages help people easily correct mistakes in forms.
  • People using screen readers can follow page structure.
  • Buttons and links behave the way they should.
  • Lists are identified correctly.

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency is committed to making its websites accessible, in accordance with the NZ Government Web Standards, specifically the Web Accessibility Standard 1.1 and the Web Usability Standard 1.3.

Web Accessibility Standard 1.1(external link)

Web Usability Standard 1.3(external link)

This website aims to be compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines WCAG version 2.1 Level AA standard. All new functionality is tested against WCAG 2.2 Level AA standard.

How we tested this website

This website was most recently tested in May 2021 by our in-house expert using a mix of automated and manual testing methods. We couldn’t test every page on the site, so we prioritised the pages used the most.

What to do if you can't access parts of this website

Email us if you have any accessibility feedback for us, need support accessing content on our website, or want to request content in an alternate accessible format.

Email: accessibility@nzta.govt.nz

Contacting us by phone

We recommend a text relay service if you want to call us and are D/deaf, Deafblind, hard of hearing or have a speech impediment.

NZ Relay service(external link)