Public transport programmes

Archive - this information is for reference only and no longer maintained.

Introduction

Approved Organisations that receive funding assistance from the National Land Transport Fund for delivering public transport services need to develop public transport programmes covering existing services for the three years of the next National Land Transport Programme (NLTP).

This page relates to the 2012-15 NLTP only.

Qualifying work categories

Qualifying work should be included in the following service and operational related work categories:

• Work category 511 – Bus services
• Work category 512 – Passenger ferry services
• Work category 515 – Passenger rail services
• Work category 514 – Public transport facilities operations and maintenance
• Work category 517 – Total mobility services
• Work category 519 – Total Mobility wheelchair hoists and ramps
• Work category 521 – Total mobility wheelchair hoist use payments
• Work category 524 - Public transport information supply, operations and maintenance

Exclusions

A public transport programme shall not include the following work categories or activity types:

• Work category 522 – SuperGold card concessions (Crown funded outside of the National Land Transport Fund)

This activity is covered under a separate appropriation from government and is administered by the NZ Transport Agency. It should be submitted as a stand alone application via Transport Investment Online.

Definition of a programme of existing services

The public transport programme must consist only of existing services and operational activities within the definitions of the qualifying work categories (see above list).

Existing services means the level of services in place in the financial year immediately prior to the first year of the NLTP under development. Existing services may include minor changes to those services, as agreed with the NZ Transport Agency, being:

• Minor variations to existing contracts where justified/ necessary;
• Small changes to routes, service frequency or other aspects of service quality;
• Minor improved or replaced facilities associated with maintaining existing services up to the levels allowed in the Qualifying work categories.

NZTA’s expectations on costs

The programme will need to demonstrate that the costs associated with running the network provide value for money and the activities that make up the programme contribute to the NZ Transport Agency's desired outcomes. The cost of providing the programme will be directly or indirectly influenced by such factors as:

• the number of services and contracts required to deliver these services across the public transport network, and variations around these
• the competitive nature of the sector within the network
• if significant retendering occurs within the three year period
• costs of inputs such as cost escalation due to fuel movements, or labour cost increases, etc
• fare levels set and farebox recovery being generated
• other operational costs, cost variables associated with these or proposed to be added to the network.

These factors will affect costs to different degrees in different parts of the country.

The NZ Transport Agency expects that the Approved Organisations will apply Smart Buyer principles in managing their costs to stay within their allocated funding levels.

Parts of the Transport Investment Online application

There are two main parts to a public transport programme funding application via Transport Investment Online:

• public transport statistics – boardings, passenger kilometres , vehicle kilometres and fares
• public transport expenditure – services, operations and maintenance of facilities, and minor changes.

Public transport statistics

Estimated targets for passenger boardings, passenger kilometres , vehicle kilometres and farebox recovery need to be provided for each mode in the public transport programme for each of the three years of the NLTP.

There are three methods that may be used to determine passenger kilometres :

• bus stop boarding/alighting method – recording where each passenger gets on and off the vehicle
• passenger survey method – average trip length is determined by a survey and the average trip length is multiplied by total boardings
• average section/route length method – uses ticket sales for each section multiplied by the average section length.

Approved organisations must use one of these methods unless NZ Transport Agency approval has been obtained for an alternative method. Different operators may be allowed to use different methods, but approved organisations should look to move to a uniform method (to avoid consistency issues in the event of a contract changing operators, and for comparative purposes).

Estimates of these statistics also need to be provided for the balance of the ten year forecast that is a requirement under the Land Transport Management Act.

The NZ Transport Agency expects these statistics to align with the Regional Public Transport Plan (RPTP ) or any other key planning documents where this information is provided.

The NZ Transport Agency will use the public transport statistics, together with expenditure detail submitted to:

• benchmark network performance from key indicators, and
• set national estimates for end-of-year comparison with actual achieved.

Public transport expenditure

Approved Organisations with public transport programmes must submit an expenditure breakdown, by work category, for each of the three financial years of the NLTP .

The NZ Transport Agency uses submitted expenditure breakdown information to:

• analyse the submitted public transport programme and identify the likely forward funding requirements for public transport in the region help identify contributions of programmes of the NLTP to GPS impacts
• benchmark network performance from key indicators in conjunction with public transport statistics
• set national estimates for end-of-year comparison with actual achieved.

Funding decisions delegated within allocation

The NZ Transport Agency delegates funding decisions on the activities contained in a public transport programme to the Approved Organisation within an allocation that covers each of the three financial years of the NLTP .

Approved Organisations may carry over unspent funds from one year to the next by agreement. At the end of the NLTP there will be no carry over of unspent funds left in the allocation to the following NLTP.

Approved Organisations are expected to manage their programmes to maintain expenditure within approved funding allocations for the three year NLTP.