Land Transport Management Act 2003

The Land Transport Management Act (LTMA) was enacted on 12 November 2003 and was significantly updated in 2008. Proposed changes to the Act have been announced to enable it to be made simpler, more streamlined and less prescriptive. It is expected amending legislation will be introduced to Parliament in early 2012.

Read the Transport Minister's media release on the beehive website. 

• Read the Cabinet paper on the review of the planning framework to inform Cabinet decisions regarding proposed changes to the LTMA (PDF, 2mb) 
• Read the Cabinet paper on the review of the tolling and PPP provisions in the Land Transport Management Act (PDF 944kb) to inform Cabinet decisions regarding proposed changes to the LTMA.
• Read the Ministry's Regulatory Impact Statement on the proposed changes to the Land Transport Management Act 2003.

About the Act

The LTMA legislation is the planning and funding framework that channels around $3 billion of central government funding each year into roading construction and maintenance and public transport.

Specifically the legislation:

• establishes the hypothecated (dedicated) National Land Transport Fund (NLTF) that funds the Crown and local government to deliver land transport projects and services
• sets out the central and local government transport planning and prioritisation processes that must be followed in order to allocate NLTF funds to projects and services (there are five transport planning documents in the LTMA)
• establishes the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA), which is responsible for allocating the NLTF, which includes co-funding local road and public transport activities, and for State highway operation
• sets out approval regimes for tolling new roads and for concession agreements (PPP arrangements involving leases of roads)
• sets out provisions enabling regional fuel taxes.

Proposed changes to the Act

The Land Transport Management Act 2003 will be made simpler, more streamlined and less prescriptive by making the following proposed changes:

• put in place a clearer, more straightforward, statutory purpose for the LTMA to drive better decision-making
• significantly reduce the number of assessment criteria used throughout the LTMA
• rationalise national level strategic documents and clarify their relationships with lower level documents, to allow for clearer national guidance
• extend the role of the Regional Land Transport Programmes so they identify the outcomes, objectives and interventions proposed for at least 10 years, and remove the requirement to produce a separate Regional Land Transport Strategy
• provide more flexible, less prescriptive consultation requirements
• enable Regional Transport Committees (RTCs) to be smaller and more focused by removing the requirement to have appointed members to represent various transport objectives. RTCs can still use external advisers if they wish but this will not be prescribed by the legislation
• create more flexibility in the LTMA to use borrowing to support land transport investment should future circumstances make this desirable
• improve the tolling and public private partnership (PPP) provisions in the LTMA to reduce barriers to their use
• repeal the provision for regional fuel taxes.

Changes will result in a simpler, more straightforward and less prescriptive piece of legislation. Central government will have a greater ability to guide the sector and regions will have more flexibility with their transport planning and clearer processes to follow.

Ultimately, creating improved processes in the LTMA will also ensure greater value for money and lower compliance costs - assisting the government to achieve its goal for transport to contribute to New Zealand’s economic productivity.

Questions and Answers