Drones are used within the roading industry for a variety of purposes, including asset inspections, surveying and imagery capture. A number of other organisations also need to utilise drones over the state highway network for work purposes.
Operating drones over or along state highways is considered a high-risk activity, and as such it is unavailable to recreational operators. For other land areas that NZTA own you may not always require a traffic management plan but, to ensure public safety and compliance with New Zealand law, a number of other requirements do apply.
These requirements exist to ensure the safety of everyone who may be affected by a drone operation. Many state highways are busy, high-speed environments – unauthorised drone flights can:
All drone operations in New Zealand must comply with Civil Aviation Rules Part 101 and Part 102. To operate over the state highway network, you must also hold certification issued by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) under Part 102.
Part 102 certification demonstrates that you have an approved safety plan and risk management procedures for complex or high-risk operations.
Breaching Civil Aviation Rules can lead to enforcement action by the Civil Aviation Authority, including:
Visit the Civil Aviation website for further information(external link)
If you have CAA Part 102 certification you also need to create your flight plan (including a site-specific risk assessment and a safety mitigation plan).
Once complete please contact us to seek approval.
You may need a Traffic Management Plan if your drone operation affects traffic or requires lane closures that are not already in place due to other work activity on the network.
We assess each request on a case-by-case basis to ensure that all risks have been considered, and the operation can be undertaken safely.
For more information, please reference Part 2, Section 8.0 (page 23) of the State Highway Control Manual (SMO12), which can be found here:
SM012 Part 2 - Consolidated Asset Management Section v3.0 [PDF, 1.3 MB]
